Go back to 1911 and convince Taft to concede the Republican nomination to Roosevelt. That allows Roosevelt to stomp Wilson, get the US into the war before Russia left, and get the war over with years earlier.
This prevents both Stalin and Hitler from rising to power, and prevents most of the European theater of WW2, as well as a host of other knock-on effects.
In this scenario Lenin does not manage to take over Russia and the warning to the world by the real life examples of Germany and Italy about the dangers of fashism does not happen either. Authoritarianism raises its ugly head later in a world with better weapons and more destructive potential for humanity.
Would that prevent the space race?
I doubt it. The Russians are still gonna want to try to beat the US at anything they can, and prove themselves on the global stage, but it may have been a cooperative venture, instead of competitive.
Interesting take.
I’d go back and convince that art school to accept a certain art student…
I did nazi that one
I’d have Al Gore win.
Well… He did.
Turns out it didn’t matter.
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My net worth.
I’d like to say something noble like warn Amelia Earhart, or hookup Adolph with some Bob Ross videos. But if I’m being honest, I would probably be selfish. I would tell past me to not fuck up quite a few things that past me royally fucked up.
I’d go hunt down Ronald Regan at about age 30 and empty an entire magazine of .45s into his dome while he slept.
Oooooh I like this one! Please do humanity the favor!
Was looking for Regan.
I would make sure my parents never met.
I would’ve gone to bed earlier tonight
I’d go back and write a book with just enough truths to cement myself as a soothsayer. I’d then warn of wars, eco disasters, pandemics, natural disasters. Then I’d invest some money in some good places and make sure it made it to my kids after I’m gone.
I think saving JFK would really alter the timeline. I doubt Nixon would have ever been president.
Preventing the Iranian hostage crisis might also have had a huge impact.
i would not eat the kiosk chili dogs i ate earlier—they were pretty fucking bad.
Instead you got the hot pockets and are now on the toilet.
I would accept that trade.
I’d find the first motherfucker that started smoking stuff, whether it was first tobacco or whatever, and get rid of him/her before anyone else ever learned of the practice/habit.
Would have been better health for countless people afterwards, if simply nobody ever knew…
Smoking was discovered independently in many cultures with different substances used by different cultures. In the Americas, it was tobacco, while the Scythians of Central Asia used cannabis in ritualistic hotboxes, as evidenced by archaeological finds of smoking tools in kurgans. Other regions, like India and Southeast Asia, saw the smoking of opium and herbs.
I would try to save the roman republic and prevent the roman kindgom. It would also be interesting to see what would have happend if they never switched to christianity.
To prevent the empire would be more complicated than it looks like, since you got multiple rebellions and civil wars popping up as early as 135 BCE. They ultimately boiled down to
- plebeians and/or slaves pissed due to poor living conditions
- local peoples rebelling against Roman oppression
- some patrician family wanting a larger slice of the pie
And those are all problems that are damn hard to address without leading to plebeians being manipulated, local peoples being suppressed, and cutting down the power of the patricians by a central, strong government. That’s basically what Caesar tried to do, and Octavian achieved.
But the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC) happened after the Roman Kingdom (753 BC–509 BC).
I would try to prevent the Holocaust from happening.
I’d add the Spanish Inquisition to that agenda. But who knows, perhaps the Holocaust might not have ever happened if the Spanish Inquisition never happened. 🤷♂️
Time travel thoughts bring up all sorts of hypotheticals…
I prefer to rewind time with me along, be young again, that kind of time travel. Of course with my knowledge and memories of up to before my “time travel”, be retained. I could only remember what I could any way. The future would surely not happen exactly as the same before. Live a new younger life, a seemingly fresh restart at an early point in my life.