Time Travel: What would you do?

Let's assume for a moment that time travel was more than theory. If you were given an opportunity to travel backward through time only once, where/when would you go? and why? Please assume that a return trip to the present is guaranteed.

Would you take the opportunity to right a historical wrong? Would you attempt to meet a famous personage? Would you simply go to see what life was really like at some point in the past?

Of course I have had the very common thought of stopping Hitler before he got started; Meeting Christ as he traveled throughout Israel; Investing in Microsoft before the cash began to flow like water; but if I'm being honest, I'm not entirely sure what I would do if I had but a single opportunity.

Naturally, if you take into account the potential effects on the future due to your actions, your choices may not seem as insignificant as they originally had when they had occurred to you, but I think that plenty of people might not concern themselves too much with those effects when they are in the moment.

So, what would you do?

Personally, if I had a time machine I'd go back and kill Robert Lowth and his followers, for INVENTING a lot of dumb "rules" for the English language out of thin air, because he wanted English to be more like Latin.
It isnt, it never was and never will be, and inventing new rules off the top of your head just causes misery for everyone. Even now, hundreds of years later this stupidity lives on.

I'd go back and make sure Karl Marx was never born thus saving millions and millions of lives.

reply to post by ProfessorChaos


I would be very careful where I decided to go so as not to erase myself from history. Most likely I would choose a time after I was born. That said I would go back to a past self and update myself on all the people I could or couldn't trust in my coming life and tell them why this was.

It may sound selfish but who is to say we would be born if we killed Hitler or forced a different outcome in any big historical event?
Could you even thwart events like 9/11 without yourself becoming a suspect?

reply to post by TheLieWeLive


Tempting though it may be, time travel does indeed create quite the slippery slope, doesn't it?

i would go back to 1980 that night in my car sitting at the beach and bang the crap out of laura G. because i was to scared to try it back then. I was a just a 16 year old scared boy.

I would go back to the startings of life on this planet...watch how we went from dust to life...

then step on the starting first little amoeba and end all life potential..you know..for the lulz.

I would go back to the moments after Jesus was buried, and camp out at the grave so as that I myself would truly have knowledge of what took place at the time of the resurrection. It would just give me the peace of mind of knowing. I feel it would in my case help to answer the life long question of why we are here.

Originally posted by Maddog5595
I would go back to the moments after Jesus was buried, and camp out at the grave so as that I myself would truly have knowledge of what took place at the time of the resurrection. It would just give me the peace of mind of knowing. I feel it would in my case help to answer the life long question of why we are here.

I can see it now...day 3 comes..nothing..so out of boredom, you hide the body and dress up like him, then freak his friends out for a laugh...

then you come back to modern day and realize the entire religion was set up on a prank by you...wouldn't that be embarrassing.

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by Maddog5595
I would go back to the moments after Jesus was buried, and camp out at the grave so as that I myself would truly have knowledge of what took place at the time of the resurrection. It would just give me the peace of mind of knowing. I feel it would in my case help to answer the life long question of why we are here.

I can see it now...day 3 comes..nothing..so out of boredom, you hide the body and dress up like him, then freak his friends out for a laugh...

then you come back to modern day and realize the entire religion was set up on a prank by you...wouldn't that be embarrassing.

You know the funny thing is this is more how I would expect it to go, couldn't have said it better myself.

I would go back in time to the day ATS went live and put a warning on the front page that says "No - what if you had a time machine threads" bloody hundreds of them...

HA! the last one that was out I actually replied in it too!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by roughycannon
HA! the last one that was out I actually replied in it too!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Funny. I was going to point out that you were commenting in one. Oh well. Perhaps you have a secret longing to be involved in such threads, yet you despise that fact about yourself and yet cannot help participating? Lol.

Originally posted by ProfessorChaos

Originally posted by roughycannon
HA! the last one that was out I actually replied in it too!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Funny. I was going to point out that you were commenting in one. Oh well. Perhaps you have a secret longing to be involved in such threads, yet you despise that fact about yourself and yet cannot help participating? Lol.

In about 3 months time I will have forgotten all about this thread and do the same thing all over again when a new one pops up...

Now if only I had a time machine so I could go back and fix it.

Originally posted by roughycannon

In about 3 months time I will have forgotten all about this thread and do the same thing all over again when a new one pops up...

Now if only I had a time machine so I could go back and fix it.

....And welcome to the time travel thread.. lol!

reply to post by ProfessorChaos


Jesus din't move trough Israel.


There was no Israel back then.

And on topic, I think I would love the see the end of our universe.

And I guess I would go back in time and enjoy myself with the knowledge, that a lighter will make a god 200.000 years ago.

Here is the issue with any fantastic sci-fi discussion about time travel.

You either have a paradox universe, or a multiverse.

So, paradox universe..you go back in time to kill hitler...he dies, no reich, etc...but then time goes on, changes, and there is no reason to go back and kill hitler as there was no boogieman named hitler (outside of some baby that died long ago)...so you wouldn't go back and kill him..which means he would be born and do his thing, which means you would go back and kill him, which means you wouldn't, etc etc etc..infinite loop

Multiverse
You go back in time and kill alter-universe hitler...you come back to your timeline, and hitler still existed and did his thing..no change to your timeline.

Point is, either way...its useless. The only way time travel could work is simply through observation..no interaction, not even the ability to kick a pebble, in which case, I can think of a million "VR programs" I would like to sit in quietly and observe..from the march of Alexander the great, to Christ supposedly resurrecting the dead, etc. Woodstock maybe

You know what I think I'll leave a message for myself in the future when I come back here.


Dear roughycannon,

Has it really been 3 months? I hope time has been good to you and age hasn't ravaged you too much.

What were you doing on this day 13/01/2013, well you were on your laptop, deal or no deal is on in the background, the dogs are asleep behind you and you badly need a shave. The news says it going to snow tonight you hope not as you hate going out with the dogs in the snow.

Anyway roughycannon I'll see you in the future when I look in the mirror and remember this thread, take care peace out!

reply to post by sevensheeps


Israel, Palestine.... the places are the same, and there WAS an Israel back then, it was a tribe of people referred to as Israel. Either way, it's semantics.

reply to post by ProfessorChaos


It doesn't really matter, you are right.

But for the hell of it the area was called Canaan.

And I would go back in time and tell my ass to work harder (=

And that I should listen more to my future girlfriends.


Cause in hindsight, they were all right lol.


Peace