You can go back in time and prevent a great catastrophe. Which one would you prevent?

Forums: History, Time Machine, 1001 Questions, Butterfly Effect, Catastrophes
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Type: Discussion • Score: 64 • Views: 61,811 • Replies: 386

[+4] - PDiddie - 11/09/2008I'd probably saaaaay.... seeing to it that Adolph Hitler's mother got an abortion.
[+4] - Merry Andrew - 11/09/2008Damn! I had already posted that before I saw your post. Tico. My second choice would be to prevent OmSigDavid from ever learning how to use a computer or post on any website whatever.
[+4] - joefromchicago - 11/10/2008[quote="BumbleBeeBoogie"] You can go back in time and prevent a great catastrophe. Which one would you prevent? [/quote] The destruction of the great library of Alexandria.
[+4] - OmSigDAVID - 04/03/2011[quote="gungasnake"]The idea of viewing your fellow man as a meat byproduct of random events rather than as a fellow child of God is at the bottom of all of that kind of...
[+4] - farmerman - 08/16/2020Id make Fred Trump Sr sterile at birth. OH, sorry. I see sTURGIS already had the idea. Oh well, a good idea cannot b repeated too often
[+3] - Bi-Polar Bear - 11/09/2008invention of the automated answering service
[+3] - Blickers - 11/09/2008Does it have to be a natural catastrophe? If we can include man-made catastrophes, I would think stopping Hitler from coming to power would be high up on the list. The Plague also would rank...
[+3] - spendius - 11/10/2008Eve tempting Adam.
[+3] - mcee fya - 11/14/2008the creation of man or macaroni cheese its a tough one?
[+3] - noinipo - 02/18/2011After WW2, if the Jews would have settled in another place, it could have prevented 60 years of suffering.

invention of the automated answering service

1 Reply

@Bi-Polar Bear,

Good choice, Bear. Evil or Very Mad

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Hmmmm? How about preventing the separation of the earth's plates creating competiting continents.

Hmmmm?

BBB

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Quote:

Hmmmm? How about preventing the separation of the earth's plates creating competiting continents.

I wouldn't stop that, since that is part of a whole system of gradual climate changes, (changing sea flow definitely affects climate), which eventually led to us appearing in the first place.

Pretty good chance that if the continents didn't separate and drift, we never exist.

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@Blickers,

I agree, but would the planet be better off without humans?

BBB

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Does it have to be a natural catastrophe?

If we can include man-made catastrophes, I would think stopping Hitler from coming to power would be high up on the list.

The Plague also would rank high for elimination.

1 Reply

@BumbleBeeBoogie,

I'd probably saaaaay....

seeing to it that Adolph Hitler's mother got an abortion.

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Quote:

I agree, but would the planet be better off without humans?

I don't think so.

Whenever you hear someone go on about how much we supposedly control this place, remember that there are 55 pounds of insects for every pound of human being on earth. We're not as important as we crack ourselves up to be.

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@Blickers,

Yes, but have humans caused more damage to the planet than other life forms?

BBB

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

We've made changes, sure.

But insects and other life forms have also transformed the planet as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by "damage". Things change over time. In order to put in something new, you have to "damamge" the situation which existed before.

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@Blickers,

I call that evolution.

BBB

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@PDiddie,

can nod on that

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

I would have been better off buying a townhouse, rather than a mobile home back in the 1980s.

Where our family was living at the time, the property values went up four-fold. I could have sold it, moved to where I am now, and had a huge downpayment, and subequently, had the current townhouse paid off years sooner.

Water under the bridge, I suppose. Sad

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Maybe the World Trade Center disaster. That led to war and countless lost lives mostly through the ignorance of our leaders. Either that or stop Erica from Marrying Matt.

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The invention of the atomic bomb and all its relatives.

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Quote:

You can go back in time and prevent a great catastrophe. Which one would you prevent?

The flood. I mean, you said "you CAN... prevent....". The flood in real life was not preventable.

After that would likely be WW-I which somebody in the right position might could have prevented.

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You can go back in time and prevent a great catastrophe.
Which one would you prevent?

I 'd prevent slavery, leaving the blacks undisturbed in Africa.

David

6 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

I 'd prevent slavery, leaving the blacks undisturbed in Africa...

That wouldn't spare anybody from slavery and the unintended consequences could and likely would be really vast. Most US citizens figure slavery to have been something limited to plantations and have no real concept of how big a deal it was, largely because something like 90% of the trade never involved the US and mostly involved central and south America.

1 Reply

hmmm....

I don't see the continents separating as a catastrophe.

Thinking of each one presented, the alternative could very well have been much worse in the long run.

Sure, I can't think off the top of my head how hitler never being born could have made things worse, but I'm sure it could...maybe not immediately, or at present, but in the future.

If the black plague hadn't happened, human might be extinct now because of the results of overpopulation, or someone staying alive who was the ancestor of someone who destroys the world.

That would make an interesting novel.

1 Reply

You can go back in time and prevent a great catastrophe. Which one would you prevent?

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