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19 Jan 19 - 09:17 PM (#3972299) Subject: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel As 3D beings we can not change the past, but if a 4D being changed one thing in the past for our good, what would it be? |
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20 Jan 19 - 03:48 AM (#3972311) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Dave the Gnome UK - Brexit referendum US - Trump :D |
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20 Jan 19 - 04:11 AM (#3972312) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: peteglasgow no television/computers/mobile phones |
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20 Jan 19 - 04:14 AM (#3972313) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Joe Offer The 2016 U.S. election... |
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20 Jan 19 - 04:48 AM (#3972317) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: BobL Irish Home Rule, 1880s & -90s. Could have spared everyone a lot of Trouble. |
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20 Jan 19 - 06:13 AM (#3972333) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: gillymor Smother either young Adolf or the electoral college in their respective cribs, tough choice. |
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20 Jan 19 - 06:19 AM (#3972335) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Steve Shaw Religion. |
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20 Jan 19 - 08:19 AM (#3972352) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel In realm of the impossible these are all honorable suggestions. I am looking for the unintuitive small change that would have changed everything. Something like not giving the first and only CBN satellite transmission dish to Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. |
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20 Jan 19 - 08:25 AM (#3972354) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Steve Shaw A very small but very useful change would have been for a different sperm to get to the egg that was destined to become half of Margaret Thatcher. |
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20 Jan 19 - 10:03 AM (#3972383) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Bill D Mitochondrial Eve being eaten by a lion at the age of 7. |
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20 Jan 19 - 10:41 AM (#3972388) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Bee-dubya-ell I don't think eliminating one specific individual or event from the past would necessarily guarantee a more positive outcome in the present or future. Events arise from complicated sets of preconditions, not the actions of individuals. Killing a young Adolph Hitler would not have prevented WWII or its attendant atrocities. The conditions which precipitated Hitler's rise were such that someone of a similar personality type would probably have wound up leading Germany anyway. It's even possible that a different German leader could have won the war. Science fiction literature is littered with the negative consequences of well-intended alterations of the past. Read Stephen King's 11/22/63 or Ken Grimwood's Replay for examples. |
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20 Jan 19 - 10:51 AM (#3972391) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Mossback 2016 election? Hardly. The 1980 election and the Reagan/Gingrich/Norquist axis began the long devolution of the Republican Party into the lying sack of racist, authoritarian, gutless, amoral asshole wonders it is today. Trump is just a symptom. |
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20 Jan 19 - 11:02 AM (#3972393) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Bee-dubya-ell Heck, Bill, if we're going to feed Mitochondrial Eve to a lion, why not go back even further and eliminate that big rock that wiped out the dinosaurs? Then evolution would have taken an entirely different path. Intelligent dinosaur descendants, not humans, would be the dominant species. And they probably would have achieved a level of advancement equal to present-day humans several million years ago. If they didn't manage to destroy themselves and/or the planet along the way, their civilization would be advanced beyond our wildest imaginings. |
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20 Jan 19 - 11:06 AM (#3972398) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel There are hundreds of SciFi plots that involves this concept and failed attempts to correct a perceived mistake from Dr Who to all the imagined temporal agents good and bad. Technology changes things more easily than changing human beings. Changing a transmission dish changes both. Bill D-You said the Earth is better off without us. Perhaps but there is still the possible future sapien species better choices. |
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20 Jan 19 - 11:37 AM (#3972406) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: JMB I would change it to somehow make it so the Jacobites were not defeated at the Battle of Culloden. Enough said. |
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20 Jan 19 - 12:03 PM (#3972412) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel Mossback, Jim and Tammy Faye steered 50+ million votes to Reagan. The PTL fortune eventually was put in the hands of Jerry Falwell. It is selfish that I would choose my own nation's political evolution to be changed and not change a global catastrophe but it has lead us to this dangerous Trump era. |
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20 Jan 19 - 01:02 PM (#3972427) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Mossback Ah, but then Trump IS a global catastrophe.... |
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20 Jan 19 - 01:35 PM (#3972434) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Thompson I don't know that killing Hitler wouldn't have prevented the Holocaust; I think it would. He was the one that directed all the free-floating hatred at the Jews, surely? I think I'd go back and give antibiotics to Prince Arthur, the elder brother of Henry VIII, and then if necessary give IVF to his bride Catherine of Aragon. Most of his family and associates were pretty unpleasant, but Henry took the biscuit. As for Home Rule, that was only like a fancy county council; it wasn't going to be enough - Ireland was going to be independent one way or the other. But perhaps if England had immediately recognised and accepted the massive vote for independence that was the 1918 election, and above all had not put its fingers in the pot and insisted on partition, it would have been a lot better for Ireland. Most of Ireland's 20th-century problems came about through partition. Ditto with India and Pakistan - as explained in a recent New York Times piece. |
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20 Jan 19 - 04:20 PM (#3972462) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: gillymor It'd be nice to have a do over on the Treaty of Versailles, as well. Something less punitive would have averted a lot of human suffering. |
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20 Jan 19 - 07:14 PM (#3972491) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel Yup. Don't poke an insane bear. |
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22 Jan 19 - 03:14 PM (#3972937) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: gnu The 1974 Bank Of Canada Act. The 1934 Act was just fine. Now, we're screwed. |
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22 Jan 19 - 03:18 PM (#3972938) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: meself Have some wealthy burgher buy young Adolf's landscapes for far more than they were worth - and commission more ..... |
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22 Jan 19 - 04:07 PM (#3972951) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Nick I'd stop that butterfly beating its wings in Brazil as it seems to be the cause of everything |
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22 Jan 19 - 04:16 PM (#3972953) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel Good point. An innocent small event in the midst of everything else can give unexpected results. It reminds me of the poem 'for the lack of a nail a war was lost'. |
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22 Jan 19 - 04:57 PM (#3972958) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Mrrzy Europeans who did not want to take over what they "discovered" |
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22 Jan 19 - 08:11 PM (#3972995) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Bill D Donuel.. I didn't actually say that Earth would be better off without us. My vague point was that we would have had a different M-Eve, and 'maybe' different descendants would have done things differently. There were other humans when Eve lived... some of them would have bred with different mates and Eve2 would have been it. |
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22 Jan 19 - 10:25 PM (#3973010) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: meself Not just the war - but the 'kingdom' was lost. |
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23 Jan 19 - 09:36 PM (#3973183) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Rapparee I would have also shot the deputy. |
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24 Jan 19 - 04:14 AM (#3973200) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Dave the Gnome I would have given Mary and Joseph the bridal suite at the inn. That would have buggered the story up :-) |
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24 Jan 19 - 07:47 AM (#3973234) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: saulgoldie I have often thought that the most profound time to have changed the human trajectory would have been the modern beginning of using oil in its many forms. Combustion, petrochemicals, and its profound influence on geopolitics. So my change would be that in the very beginning of the era of wider use of oil, say, the late 1800s, that something was discovered in oil's nature that made it totally unusable. And that there was no technology that could even come remotely close to making it safely usable. As noted elsewhere in this thread, the outcomes would still be a mixture of pluses and minuses. But it seems to me that at least there would be vastly fewer humans and that our impact on the Earth would be vastly lower. Very interesting thread! Saul |
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24 Jan 19 - 08:07 AM (#3973237) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Senoufou Hahaha Dave! More than once, during one of my Nativity Plays with 'ad lib' script, the child playing the innkeeper has muffed it. Joseph: Have you got a room for us please? My wife here is very tired. Innkeeper: Yes of course I have. Please come in! (Gah! Seated at the piano, I'm tearing my hair out) |
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24 Jan 19 - 08:17 AM (#3973240) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Jack Campin An early mutation in the coding for the human brain that would have prevented anything being mentally categorized as personal property. |
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24 Jan 19 - 10:33 AM (#3973275) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel Change oil development and there goes WW1&2 as we know it. Going from coal to solar and wind sounds good. Jack that sounds like American Indian culture. |
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24 Jan 19 - 10:39 AM (#3973279) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: SPB-Cooperator Remove A50 from the Lisbon treaty. |
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25 Jan 19 - 03:56 AM (#3973410) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: BobL Sen, I hard a similar story - Joseph recovered the situation, emerging a few seconds later saying "Don't you ever clean your inn? It's filthy! I'd sooner sleep in the stable!" |
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25 Jan 19 - 07:47 AM (#3973445) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Mrrzy What is the scifi novel where they go into space and when they come back it's to the Celts are running Europe and the Native Americans are in charge over here? |
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25 Jan 19 - 12:16 PM (#3973491) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: olddude Jello never existed |
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25 Jan 19 - 02:30 PM (#3973505) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: McGrath of Harlow Change one thing in history and you can be certain you won't ever have come into existence. Looking round the world today I sometimes feel some daft or malicious or pillock from the future must have been playing around and messing up things. |
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25 Jan 19 - 07:24 PM (#3973538) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Rapparee Welcome Back, Olddude! |
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26 Jan 19 - 10:56 AM (#3973565) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: olddude Thats mean rap lol and lime green the worst |
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28 Jan 19 - 03:51 AM (#3973784) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Ebbie "Change one thing in history and you can be certain you won't ever have come into existence".Kevin, not necessarily. Even I- the creator/discoverer of this thought- can't quite grasp it but something tells me that if I, for instance, had not been born, I would have been born some other person and therefore, still I. (Do you follow that?) |
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28 Jan 19 - 10:14 AM (#3973828) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel Rod Serling rang this bell about a dozen times when ever he needed a quick plot. A different 'I' is easy to imagine. In fact it is preferable to imagine it in new situations. It is what actors do for a living. |
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28 Jan 19 - 02:02 PM (#3973862) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: olddude Yes but world peace can be accomplished if jello never existed |
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29 Jan 19 - 05:07 AM (#3973924) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Dave the Gnome Whirled peas instead of Jello? |
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29 Jan 19 - 06:09 AM (#3973937) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Jos I have never heard of 'whirled peas', but if they are the same as 'processed peas', then I agree - the world (well, my world) would be a better place without them, even if it doesn't bring about world peace. |
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29 Jan 19 - 06:48 AM (#3973944) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Steve Shaw The world would not be worth living in without mushy peas. |
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29 Jan 19 - 10:57 AM (#3973985) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Mrrzy What I would most like to change happened in 1983 so many of us, me included, would still exist. |
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30 Jan 19 - 06:42 PM (#3974189) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: robomatic Dan Bern: "God Said No" |
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01 Feb 19 - 03:11 PM (#3974428) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel Because God said No This Thread Has Been Closed |
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01 Feb 19 - 05:24 PM (#3974452) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: olddude Mushy peas in jello now that is the stuff of nightmares and farts |
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01 Feb 19 - 07:54 PM (#3974481) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Donuel professor, Fresh peas are delicious and sweet. Every other form of peas should be illegal. Fresh jello is cow hooves. |
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02 Feb 19 - 10:38 AM (#3974553) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Doug Chadwick So my change would be that in the very beginning of the era of wider use of oil, say, the late 1800s, that something was discovered in oil's nature that made it totally unusable. And that there was no technology that could even come remotely close to making it safely usable. That's the major part of my working life down the pan. Keep your changes to yourself, thank you very much! DC |
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02 Feb 19 - 12:10 PM (#3974566) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Stanron I seem to remember that Mr Diesel's original compression engine was designed to run on peanut oil. Mined oil came later. If mineral oil hadn't come along vegetable oils would have done the job but farmers would have been better off. |
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03 Feb 19 - 06:54 PM (#3974722) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: olddude Dc but then countries would have to find something else to fight about |
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03 Feb 19 - 07:35 PM (#3974725) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Doug Chadwick There has plenty to fight about from the battle of Jericho up to the American Civil War before oil came into the equation. DC |
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04 Feb 19 - 11:06 AM (#3974821) Subject: RE: BS: change 1 thing in the past From: Mrrzy Plus we love plastics, right? |