If you can go back in Time,which political "Event" would you prevent/avert ?

[Taleweaver]

It ain't going to be what you want to hear, but I'd try to convince my former self to stay single. Girlfriends are fun and all, but things just spiral out of control. You give in on little things to stop short term arguments, but then find yourself giving in on much larger things you never wanted...until you live a life you dislike.

...yeah, and I'm in a sad mood tonight. Feel free to comment, but I won't be giving further comments whatsoever.

For the more direct approach/sure thing, yeah I'd kill baby Hitler lol. But one does have to wonder if that would prevent World War 2, or simply delay the start of it and change the reasons for which it was fought.

For what it's worth: that's a futile attempt. The Versailles treaty after world war I was, for all intents and purposes, unfair. It directly created a fertile ground of anger against the rest of the world. Hitler didn't create that anger, he only used it. Take him out, and someone else will be there in his place.

Preventing the murder on Frans Ferdinand (which caused geopolitical dominos to fall that lead to world war 1) MIGHT be a better way to ensure peace (which of course prevents world war 2 as well), but that's a big 'maybe' (it was a time of mighty empires distrusting one another at that time as well).

 

[FAST6191]

It ain't going to be what you want to hear, but I'd try to convince my former self to stay single. Girlfriends are fun and all, but things just spiral out of control. You give in on little things to stop short term arguments, but then find yourself giving in on much larger things you never wanted...until you live a life you dislike.

...yeah, and I'm in a sad mood tonight. Feel free to comment, but I won't be giving further comments whatsoever.


For what it's worth: that's a futile attempt. The Versailles treaty after world war I was, for all intents and purposes, unfair. It directly created a fertile ground of anger against the rest of the world. Hitler didn't create that anger, he only used it. Take him out, and someone else will be there in his place.

Preventing the murder on Frans Ferdinand (which caused geopolitical dominos to fall that lead to world war 1) MIGHT be a better way to ensure peace (which of course prevents world war 2 as well), but that's a big 'maybe' (it was a time of mighty empires distrusting one another at that time as well).

Is you/would you going red pill/mgtow/confirmed bachelor earlier be a political or notable historical event? For my own amusement I will imagine you as a sole prince of Belgium.

As far as treaty of Versailles I already went there but going again. I am not convinced however that stopping world war 1 would really do that much though -- concert of Europe means it was already known + Prussian wars + Napoleon + USSR expansionism (only way it was going to feed itself really)/Russian civil war + scramble for Africa (though that was in the past, maybe intervention in Egypt/Suez instead) + great game in Asia + independence movements gaining a bit of steam elsewhere + rising populations + end of industrial boom (valves, especially earlier ones, were never going to do that much and while semiconductors were known a while back then it was pretty much world wars that kicked that into gear), Fritz Haber arguably had world war 1 to play with and I am not entirely sure we would have got industrial ammonia (ammonia fertilizer, aka one of the reasons we did not starve this century, at least until the 1960s with serious genetics, which itself probably goes back to world war 2) without it... it was a powder keg loaded to the brim with 50 clumsy fools running around with lit torches.
That said delaying it a few years. The German plan during that was pretty much bound to fail when it was launched (might have worked if launched a few years before it was), so even 5 more years would have changed that somewhat and made it a complete crack smoker's idea instead. In which case maybe proxy wars in Asia, maybe the USSR gets a slap for trying to bother Poland, another borderline forgotten war like the Franco-Prussian War, or maybe Balkans round however many this is now) to just blow off some steam as the alternatives are too ghastly to contemplate (though how much people to learn by pain themselves I don't know). How much that would be for the better today I also don't know -- world war 1 wiping out something of a generation, voting rights accordingly, setting the groundwork for the end of empires (whether that is good or bad is up for debate), maybe not killing the class system in places but left it bleeding in the dirt), Austria-Hungary might wheeze along for a few more decades (possibly being smacked by Turkey, whose own reforms are potentially dubious in this timeline without the incompetence of the Young Turks/CUP being made so blatant -- they had already got in by this point), Sykes-picot also once more gets to be discussed, what goes with Spain I am not sure in this as far as civil war there, communism in this timeline I am less sure about as well (might not even take hold in Russia) which might be perk but there is bound to be something to fill the gap (appeals to fairness/laziness/wanting some of the good life are rarely far from history).

 

[ChibiMofo]

If I could go back in time to stop one event from happening, I'd stop whomever invented time travel from ever being born. Travelling back in time (while absolutely impossible, so the question is moot) would be far too dangerous to everyone who has ever lived to allow it to happen. So I'd do what I could to prevent it.

 

[Dr_Faustus]

I would go back and prevent the release of the iPhone, which in turn was the first of many next generation era of smart portable devices capable of ubiquitous internet access anywhere at anytime.

Why you may ask?

Because the current degeneration of society is born from the mass dependence and misinformation created and fed to them on constant drip from the fact that anyone, at any age can now have instantaneous access to the internet and without context, or knowing what is and is not true have lead themselves into a new dark age of ignorance and embracing lies that they believe as true because someone shared it on Facebook or twitter.

Of course you might just ask, why not get rid of FB or twitter instead? And the answer is that its simply not that simple, the concept of social media was always in the plans since the early days of the internet, and while the current iteration is literal cancer of the brain, unmaking it from reality would not get rid of it as someone would have come up with something similar to it anyways, if not already existing in the first place. FB was not the first nor the last of these sites. Its just the most popular currently. Same with twitter. What prevents this poison from spreading rapidly is limiting the use of access to every single person with a pulse. Smart Phones made the transmission of this shit too easy, fast and too susceptible for anyone glancing at something without putting much thought in.

Everything that is wrong in society today is born from the combination of social media and ubiquitous internet everywhere. If we limited how it was spread then the shit would die before it had a chance to get into people's heads.

 

[FAST6191]

I would go back and prevent the release of the iPhone, which in turn was the first of many next generation era of smart portable devices capable of ubiquitous internet access anywhere at anytime.

Why you may ask?

Because the current degeneration of society is born from the mass dependence and misinformation created and fed to them on constant drip from the fact that anyone, at any age can now have instantaneous access to the internet and without context, or knowing what is and is not true have lead themselves into a new dark age of ignorance and embracing lies that they believe as true because someone shared it on Facebook or twitter.

Of course you might just ask, why not get rid of FB or twitter instead? And the answer is that its simply not that simple, the concept of social media was always in the plans since the early days of the internet, and while the current iteration is literal cancer of the brain, unmaking it from reality would not get rid of it as someone would have come up with something similar to it anyways, if not already existing in the first place. FB was not the first nor the last of these sites. Its just the most popular currently. Same with twitter. What prevents this poison from spreading rapidly is limiting the use of access to every single person with a pulse. Smart Phones made the transmission of this shit too easy, fast and too susceptible for anyone glancing at something without putting much thought in.

Everything that is wrong in society today is born from the combination of social media and ubiquitous internet everywhere. If we limited how it was spread then the shit would die before it had a chance to get into people's heads.

Sony, Microsoft and HP had little palm computers for decades before then (see clie, windows CE with 2002 seeing IE 5.5 more or less complete cross compatibility though IE6 was the contemporary desktop version, HP palmtop and ipaq respectively). Bolting on a mobile phone transmitter, especially when they were getting smaller and less power hungry/batteries were rising to meet the occasion, would be the same might as well try to stop the tide thing you were on about for sites. Several of those had modems as well, and at the same time laptops were racing to be smaller.
Outside the US then Blackberry started out as a businessman type deal for email on the phone but soon morphed into all the kids, Symbian OS was a thing too, various other companies supported things after a fashion.
WAP phones were a thing way before that and contemporary to some of the palmtop things.


With that approach then at best you would change the faces, however they all seem to turn censorious "we know what is best for you" in the end. Maybe you could convince one of the various companies that basically had things better than an iphone before the iphone to stick around and we could maybe still have headphone jacks, SD cards and things you stand a chance of finding repair parts for.
Now if you wanted to go back and make it such that all the networks were truly open and p2p/distributed (hard when you don't have Microsoft/google/tech investor money to burn and bandwidth/storage costs what it did) then you might end up in a better timeline.

 

[Dr_Faustus]

Sony, Microsoft and HP had little palm computers for decades before then (see clie, windows CE with 2002 seeing IE 5.5 more or less complete cross compatibility though IE6 was the contemporary desktop version, HP palmtop and ipaq respectively). Bolting on a mobile phone transmitter, especially when they were getting smaller and less power hungry/batteries were rising to meet the occasion, would be the same might as well try to stop the tide thing you were on about for sites. Several of those had modems as well, and at the same time laptops were racing to be smaller.
Outside the US then Blackberry started out as a businessman type deal for email on the phone but soon morphed into all the kids, Symbian OS was a thing too, various other companies supported things after a fashion.
WAP phones were a thing way before that and contemporary to some of the palmtop things.


With that approach then at best you would change the faces, however they all seem to turn censorious "we know what is best for you" in the end. Maybe you could convince one of the various companies that basically had things better than an iphone before the iphone to stick around and we could maybe still have headphone jacks, SD cards and things you stand a chance of finding repair parts for.
Now if you wanted to go back and make it such that all the networks were truly open and p2p/distributed (hard when you don't have Microsoft/google/tech investor money to burn and bandwidth/storage costs what it did) then you might end up in a better timeline.

I had a feeling I would get a response like this if I left out some aspects on why I said iPhone over other devices. Basically in the same way the iMac made the internet more accessible to the masses in the early 00's due to its dead simple and attractive layout of design over the complicated and more expensive PC's of the time its what helped create a shift towards the concept of a computer in every home and other companies started to follow the trend trying to sell to the general consumer market and trying to undercut Apple in both price and usability for the time. The iPhone more or less did the same thing but in the mobile space. Yes the technology was always there, and it would have been only a matter of time before it would become a reality regardless. The difference here however is Apple has the means to make something of this nature desirable, not because of its function and form but because its generally a status symbol/fashion symbol. Its not meant to pull in the nerds, the geeks, the businessmen, the people who need a device or want a device that can do all of this, but a device that can appeal to the average person. The problem is that the average person really should not have access to that kind of technology if they cannot think for themselves critically or know how context works.

In short, the tech was always there and would always be there. The difference here is Apple made it attractive for the average user to want this technology, and not because they need this technology. The shift in the mobile tech market accommodated this change and made it something that everyone could embrace, for better and most definitely for worse. As a society we were just not ready for this tech to be accessible to everyone everywhere, and as a result its caused a poisoning of the mind of countless people lead astray by lies and false information. Now we are at a point that we are clearly aware of it, but refuse to do anything about it either because its too late to change it or because it would work against their interests (thank you FB document leaks).

You simply cannot ignore the fact that over the age of 20 years, the ease of access of the internet has caused culture to degrade as the line between truth and objective belief has been blurred beyond any recognition to any average person. The rare crazy conspiracy theorist that we would once laugh at or avoid on the street now has the means to broadcast their madness on the web and gain a following of believers that would echo said madness in a way that it could convince average people into it because they are a following of people or they cannot be bothered to dig beyond the surface. Shit like this and more is eroding the social consciousness and we don't really have the tools to fight it off anymore with any instance to sounding off the violation of free speech and whatnot. It's too late to change the trajectory for what shit we are in and heading deeper into now.

 

[FAST6191]

I had a feeling I would get a response like this if I left out some aspects on why I said iPhone over other devices. Basically in the same way the iMac made the internet more accessible to the masses in the early 00's due to its dead simple and attractive layout of design over the complicated and more expensive PC's of the time its what helped create a shift towards the concept of a computer in every home and other companies started to follow the trend trying to sell to the general consumer market and trying to undercut Apple in both price and usability for the time. The iPhone more or less did the same thing but in the mobile space. Yes the technology was always there, and it would have been only a matter of time before it would become a reality regardless. The difference here however is Apple has the means to make something of this nature desirable, not because of its function and form but because its generally a status symbol/fashion symbol. Its not meant to pull in the nerds, the geeks, the businessmen, the people who need a device or want a device that can do all of this, but a device that can appeal to the average person. The problem is that the average person really should not have access to that kind of technology if they cannot think for themselves critically or know how context works.

In short, the tech was always there and would always be there. The difference here is Apple made it attractive for the average user to want this technology, and not because they need this technology. The shift in the mobile tech market accommodated this change and made it something that everyone could embrace, for better and most definitely for worse. As a society we were just not ready for this tech to be accessible to everyone everywhere, and as a result its caused a poisoning of the mind of countless people lead astray by lies and false information. Now we are at a point that we are clearly aware of it, but refuse to do anything about it either because its too late to change it or because it would work against their interests (thank you FB document leaks).

You simply cannot ignore the fact that over the age of 20 years, the ease of access of the internet has caused culture to degrade as the line between truth and objective belief has been blurred beyond any recognition to any average person. The rare crazy conspiracy theorist that we would once laugh at or avoid on the street now has the means to broadcast their madness on the web and gain a following of believers that would echo said madness in a way that it could convince average people into it because they are a following of people or they cannot be bothered to dig beyond the surface. Shit like this and more is eroding the social consciousness and we don't really have the tools to fight it off anymore with any instance to sounding off the violation of free speech and whatnot. It's too late to change the trajectory for what shit we are in and heading deeper into now.

I have been there to witness things as far as the internet. It has also seen my already low opinion of humans in general sink lower still. That said I would probably go with worth the cost at some level. Serious remote working, cheap communications, ease of competition and (inter)national reach in things. Wonderful and not inclined to give that up even if I am otherwise capable of playing in that world. So a few people join cults... happens throughout history.

Are far as status symbols in phones. I saw that on school playgrounds and pubs from Nokia 3310 (others playing along think Snake, and that saw a throwback model a couple of years back), through Nokias with mapping software/GPS, through ones with keyboards, skipping around on blackberry (though keyboard was also there), motorolla razr featured in there (and had a throwback model last year... and not because it was an unsung classic), cameras appeared in the mix in there as well. Throughout it all you saw all sorts of fun colours, fancy shells sporting rhinestones/screen printed popular culture character be popular enough to be sold in street carts and cheap commercial buildings like they do cheap jewellery before and after that.
From where I sit then Apple's contribution to such things was being the one to be the most open first (even mobile java stuff was awful compared to the seriously limited options apple gave people, everybody else was pretty much concerned with making thousands to open it up, presumably going after that "my fortune 500 needs a custom VPN application" set). This was also years after developers developers developers developers so not like the idea would have been new in mainstream tech.

I would also not credit Apple with making the internet accessible to people; AOL and Compuserv for that one (possibly plus some other dial up providers in other countries), and after IE rode Netscape into the scene of the crash then IE. Yahoo probably gets to feature in there somewhere too.

On them and home computers. I will give that the imac g3 made companies go in for more than beige box for the cases (about as close as it got before then was I had a case with a purple swooped bezel, mainly because it was the cheapest one at the computer fayre that day). However as far as computer in every home then that was well in motion by Windows 95 and mainstream by 98SE. By ME I was sorting them when kids had their own. Sure the idea underpinning it during the earlier days was computer is the third most expensive item in a family after the house and car but yeah. Apple for me post apple II is "it's good for graphics" from people that probably would otherwise be eating crayons, ipod, maybe a few developers wanting a unix a like laptop and suddenly trend chasing people in universities for reasons I have never quite figured out.

 

[Deleted member 514389]

Possibly a bit fatalistic but I would say incorrect, and even if not (going way off topic but see "The Copenhagen Interpretation" of alternate universes for a starting point there) then whether you go for history repeats itself or history rhymes then knowing why something happened one time can lead to you preventing it from happening again, or at least predicting and acting accordingly for yourself.

As far as the incorrect thing. While it is a somewhat maligned view of looking at history these days then the great man theory view of history (see Thomas Carlyle for the main originator of that, and a very interesting series of political and history books) is one that has its perks. There are times when someone of such great skill, cunning, strength, insight, sociopathy... appears that will likely not be matched by anybody else alive at the time. There are also times where pure random chance causes something to happen that would not have otherwise happened, or would have taken decades/centuries more to happen and at that point things have changed (whether for positive or negative might be debatable).
Certainly I would still continue to spend considerable amounts of time looking into economics*, biology, geography**, human psychology, group psychology, scientific advancement at the time, social structures (granted that might be more economics, biology and geography), philosophies at the time.

*nobody likes being poor, get a population poor and suffering and they tend to revolt. Get one with excess wealth and provided food is there they tend to grow and also have excess such that you can do art, science and more besides.

**I already mentioned the north sea being the precursor to bluewater navigation and most formidable navies compared to the far more predictable and calmer waters basically everywhere else on the planet where people live. Or perhaps more succinctly there is a reason no landlocked nation has ever become a maritime power.
North-south geography of North America is another -- compared to the giant strips of land you can farm on in Europe and Asia with basically the same crops you will find them freezing or burning up in North America with the south not much better. Also no decent work animals survived there which does rather trouble technological development until you get steam engines/coal.

I could continue the list of asterisks but I won't. Videos instead

The Copenhagen interpretation was first posed by physicist Niels Bohr in 1920. It says that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at once. https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/quantum-suicide4.htm

Okay Mister.
I'm ready for your - longest yet - post on the temp:
Particles <=> History
Feel free to use spoilers wherever neccessary...

 

[Leen]

Sony, Microsoft and HP had little palm computers for decades before then (see clie, windows CE with 2002 seeing IE 5.5 more or less complete cross compatibility though IE6 was the contemporary desktop version, HP palmtop and ipaq respectively). Bolting on a mobile phone transmitter, especially when they were getting smaller and less power hungry/batteries were rising to meet the occasion, would be the same might as well try to stop the tide thing you were on about for sites. Several of those had modems as well, and at the same time laptops were racing to be smaller.
Outside the US then Blackberry started out as a businessman type deal for email on the phone but soon morphed into all the kids, Symbian OS was a thing too, various other companies supported things after a fashion.
WAP phones were a thing way before that and contemporary to some of the palmtop things.


With that approach then at best you would change the faces, however they all seem to turn censorious "we know what is best for you" in the end. Maybe you could convince one of the various companies that basically had things better than an iphone before the iphone to stick around and we could maybe still have headphone jacks, SD cards and things you stand a chance of finding repair parts for.
Now if you wanted to go back and make it such that all the networks were truly open and p2p/distributed (hard when you don't have Microsoft/google/tech investor money to burn and bandwidth/storage costs what it did) then you might end up in a better timeline.

at the same time the first Droid came out would it change anything on phones except that android would be more popular and apple would probably be dead

 

[FAST6191]

The Copenhagen interpretation was first posed by physicist Niels Bohr in 1920. It says that a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another, but in all of its possible states at once. https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/science-questions/quantum-suicide4.htm

Okay Mister.
I'm ready for your - longest yet - post on the temp:
Particles <=> History
Feel free to use spoilers wherever neccessary...

As it was getting into serious asides I just wanted to give whatever people that cared a choice term to search for if they wanted. Many worlds vs copenhagen being the usual entry point to the debate if you want to do parallel universes (which would arguably encompass time travel owing to the whole changing history thing, neither preclude it either).

You said in as many words that whatever happens then everything remains the same. That is another view of things, rather out of fashion owing to said quantum mechanics (if you are sticking with that then it would be Newtonian physics -- that being with enough computing power and knowledge of the initial state you could predict the whole course of events of every particle created/interacting for the whole of time. Quantum stuff being random does appear rather to step all over that though, even more so as we appear to be able to make decisions based upon that* and butterfly effects, even more so over longer time scales).
It also ends up in a debate about free will as well.

However that gets all a bit navel gazing for the tastes of most, and even if it was the case that we are all automatons we appear to be able to hypothesise about free will in some form of illusion anyway. To that end we can handwave it all away and get onto the business of causation.
Economics, biological drives, geography, psychology (in as much as it is distinct from biology), philosophy, said quantum physics (we only have what was around when some earlier stars went supernova, and did not get blown off by solar wind)... all good stuff to contemplate in the study of history beyond "what, when and where something happened" that most leave school thinking it is (and frankly I would have been happy to even have that -- my main history teacher was atrocious, and even if it did not kill my desire to learn history, I did have some good teachers and sources otherwise, it put it into a coma for about a decade).

Similarly there is the phrase "those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it", which I am not entirely on board with but there is some truth to it, one that even sits nicely in your more physics centric approach of this last post (same start conditions the experiment should repeat). To that end "history rhymes" is perhaps a more agreeable one for me. Much like music you can also scale up and down quite happily to look at local policy and how it might do stuff for you, or (inter)national and how you hedge your bets to enjoy an easier life (or go the other way), this goes even if you figure you are a leaf in a stream if we are going to start mixing up history related metaphors.

While you may figure you are but a leaf in the stream, one of many before and after that will be letters in an old book before the century is out, there is the idea that not everybody is. Some things in history appear to be discovered time and time again; after wheat a like is made someone will leave it around for a day or so and thus you get bread, leave that a bit more and you have booze (there is even some argument, with not inconsiderable archaeological evidence, that booze came before bread).
At the same time human genetics is incredibly variable with random aberrations popping up all the time. It might well be that the greatest mathematician (pre cybernetics and genetic enhancement anyway) was born centuries ago and just pondered things while sowing fields for some leader, or indeed the greatest general for ancient times was born thousands of years late. Sometimes though coincidence happens, brilliance happens to be in the right place (or wrong place, at least for your value system, to take it back to the thread's main premise). Inherent with the question of the thread is also the idea that you might be able to drop a modern encyclopaedia through the time portal (suitable translated of course), maybe just a note, and change things, or you might be able to go back with a small strike team and fire bullets various ways to change things (or maybe less violently if it was a random rock that led to the discovery of something then move that).

*if doing videos

 

[Dr_Faustus]

I have been there to witness things as far as the internet. It has also seen my already low opinion of humans in general sink lower still. That said I would probably go with worth the cost at some level. Serious remote working, cheap communications, ease of competition and (inter)national reach in things. Wonderful and not inclined to give that up even if I am otherwise capable of playing in that world. So a few people join cults... happens throughout history.

Theres a difference between a few people over the years and an outright attempt to overthrow the US government because of some crazy ass conspiracy theory fueled by disgruntled people with nothing better to do but get their information spoon-fed to them from their mobile devices allowing them to be strung along by bullshit enough to create a mob and then an actual threat to people. While there have been numerous examples in the past of people being strung along by bullshit, it has not gotten as bad as this and the blame can be put squarely on everyone having access to the web instantaneously allowing this shit to spread and for these crazy people to be organized enough to pose a threat among others.

Also to drive the point further home, even the Heavens Gate Cult knew how the power of the web can be important to spread their message, witch is why one of the last things it had planned was the continued operation and upkeep of its website by two remaining cult members as it was instructed for them to be "left behind" to do so to continue spreading their information to anyone curious.

Are far as status symbols in phones. I saw that on school playgrounds and pubs from Nokia 3310 (others playing along think Snake, and that saw a throwback model a couple of years back), through Nokias with mapping software/GPS, through ones with keyboards, skipping around on blackberry (though keyboard was also there), motorolla razr featured in there (and had a throwback model last year... and not because it was an unsung classic), cameras appeared in the mix in there as well. Throughout it all you saw all sorts of fun colours, fancy shells sporting rhinestones/screen printed popular culture character be popular enough to be sold in street carts and cheap commercial buildings like they do cheap jewellery before and after that.
From where I sit then Apple's contribution to such things was being the one to be the most open first (even mobile java stuff was awful compared to the seriously limited options apple gave people, everybody else was pretty much concerned with making thousands to open it up, presumably going after that "my fortune 500 needs a custom VPN application" set). This was also years after developers developers developers developers so not like the idea would have been new in mainstream tech.

It widely depends on cultures and territories as well. I know in a lot of eastern territories the Blackberry was considered the high end status symbol for a long while even after the iPhone dropped. It would not be until the early/mid 2010's that the perception shifted greatly towards Apple as a whole.

I would also not credit Apple with making the internet accessible to people; AOL and Compuserv for that one (possibly plus some other dial up providers in other countries), and after IE rode Netscape into the scene of the crash then IE. Yahoo probably gets to feature in there somewhere too.

The iMac was literally marketed as the "first Internet Ready computer" for the consumer market. Even if this was not true by any stretch of the imagination the marketing plus the simple design made it a magnet for the average person to jump on it compared to anything else on the market.

Simply stating that something exists before Apple does not mean that it was the main contributor of what made the internet popular in the first place. AOL/Compuserv aside the mass adoption of the home computer and from that the internet in everyones home was heavily influenced by the existence of the iMac G3. Internet adoption rates skyrocketed from the release of this computer and its popularity in the market.

On them and home computers. I will give that the imac g3 made companies go in for more than beige box for the cases (about as close as it got before then was I had a case with a purple swooped bezel, mainly because it was the cheapest one at the computer fayre that day). However as far as computer in every home then that was well in motion by Windows 95 and mainstream by 98SE. By ME I was sorting them when kids had their own. Sure the idea underpinning it during the earlier days was computer is the third most expensive item in a family after the house and car but yeah. Apple for me post apple II is "it's good for graphics" from people that probably would otherwise be eating crayons, ipod, maybe a few developers wanting a unix a like laptop and suddenly trend chasing people in universities for reasons I have never quite figured out.

While it is true that Windows had the edge in most businesses and Schools by this point Apple was leading in hard in the home market adoption rate at the time as well. Its odd considering that Apple used to have this edge until around the early 90's when they were making bad calls left and right. Lets not forget that the company was almost at a point of bankruptcy before MS infused some cash into them to keep alive enough to pick up Jobs and merged with NeXT to help push the next generation of Apple computers forward.

at the same time the first Droid came out would it change anything on phones except that android would be more popular and apple would probably be dead

Except that is also not as true as you think it is. Android early on, before Google acquired the company making the OS was designed top to bottom a Blackberry competitor OS, so much so to the point the first actual prototypes were of Blackberry like devices until the first iPhone was announced, which caused a dramatic shift towards remaking the entire OS to compete against iOS/the iPhone.

The original Android phone prototype can be seen here

 

[FAST6191]

Bit of light necromancy this evening, and videos as usual.

Library of Alexandria. Video details what was lost that we know of

So the black ops team and I get to do sigint/humint session instead of shooting a would be warmonger.

Serious thought to saving that one actually. Even if I came back to today with photos of everything with nothing else changing then that would be a win in my world. Only thing more likely (that we know of) would be dodging some of the Chinese book burnings way back when, which might be more but I am not sure how valuable they would be.

On the primordial ooze set then not technically related but something that could be of interest there

 

[XDel]

All of them.

 

[The Catboy]

I would prevent Lilith was entering this section

 

[D34DL1N3R]

Has the climate ever not changed in the history of this planet? Al Gore must have been a god-like chap. Let´s not de-rail this thread. I cannot assess the impact of these policies. I just couldn´t resist.

I don't think you understand climate change.