If you could time travel, what would you do?

[Dachs]

Yeah, the ability to gather information would be amazing, presuming that we actually did end up in "our" past. I mean, as a historian...there really aren't any words to describe it. The ability to fill in gaps in the record, to bring up new facts about which nobody would've had any idea, to cause more debates and rethink consensuses, or confirm suppositions...wow. There's only so much one person could ever do, obviously, and damn. Just damn.

But there's also something else. I'd have a sort of uncontrollable urge to tell people from the past about how they were viewed today. I mean, can you imagine showing up in Bishopsgate in 1596 and talking to Shakespeare about how one day he'd be regarded not only as the greatest writer in the history of the English language? Or talking to Abraham Lincoln in 1862 about his titanic role as a leader and liberator in American history?

 

[Luckymoose]

I'd grab a famous announcer and a high powered rifle. I'd shoot John Wilkes Booth and Abe Lincoln in one shot. DOUBLE KILL would echo through the theater.

 

[Joecoolyo]

But there's also something else. I'd have a sort of uncontrollable urge to tell people from the past about how they were viewed today. I mean, can you imagine showing up in Bishopsgate in 1596 and talking to Shakespeare about how one day he'd be regarded not only as the greatest writer in the history of the English language? Or talking to Abraham Lincoln in 1862 about his titanic role as a leader and liberator in American history?

Weirdly enough, I've kind of uh, I don't know if this is the right word, but fantasized about that as well. It just seems neat to see what their reactions would be, how the world turned out, all that jazz.

Anyways, I would avoid time travel like the plague, because of the plague. I'd be the guy who traveled back in time and died from drinking the water.

 

[Borachio]

I mean, can you imagine showing up in Bishopsgate in 1596 and talking to Shakespeare about how one day he'd be regarded not only as the greatest writer in the history of the English language?

...but also what?

 

[Leoreth]

Weirdly enough, I've kind of uh, I don't know if this is the right word, but fantasized about that as well. It just seems neat to see what their reactions would be, how the world turned out, all that jazz.

Yeah, I've thought about that too.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I guess the best thing to do is make sure that I'm never born.

 

[Borachio]

*heavy* *sigh*

Would anyone like to go back in time and rid us of Star Trek?

 

[_random_]

But there's also something else. I'd have a sort of uncontrollable urge to tell people from the past about how they were viewed today. I mean, can you imagine showing up in Bishopsgate in 1596 and talking to Shakespeare about how one day he'd be regarded not only as the greatest writer in the history of the English language? Or talking to Abraham Lincoln in 1862 about his titanic role as a leader and liberator in American history?

A bit like this, but without the music.

 

[Dachs]

...but also what?

I rewrote that sentence a few times and didn't take out some of the relics of the earlier versions.

 

[Borachio]

Ah. Nice clip.

But, Vincent at his most demonstratively friendly would only have offered to shake his hand, I think.

At least, in his correspondence with his brother (to whom he had every reason to feel warmly) he ended with "and a firm hand shake from your brother".

Anyway, if you could time travel and bring an historical figure forwards in time, why not bring Hitler forward to Israel? And to C21st Germany as well? Still, maybe a waste of time and effort.

edit: I guessed as much, Dachs. But it made me wrack my head thinking what else he'd be considered the greatest for.

 

[strijder20]

I'd travel to the future and enjoy all its luxuries.

In case you are talking about the past, I'd travel back about a minute or so, enter the time machine again together with my past self, repeat the progress and create an enormous amount of clones with which we can conquer the world.

 

[Leoreth]

Would anyone like to go back in time and rid us of Star Trek?

Now I know what I'd do! Go back in time and prevent Firefly from being canceled! Duh.

 

[Gucumatz]

If we could time travel, could we also "pause time"? Pausing time might be more useful than the actual paradox that time travel might create

 

[MagisterCultuum]

 

[Gucumatz]

I'd head over to the Americas prior to the arrival of humans to observe and study the various kinds of animals and plants that were later driven extinct -- the mammoths, the ground sloths, the American variants of lions, tigers, and megafauna-bears, that sort of thing. There was so much eye-opening life here, and we don't have many avenues to learn about it other than a few bones and preserved manure.

That's a good one - and applicable basically to every continent. One thing that has always fascinated me is how various species of owls went extinct in Europe. Another is the mega fauna of the Americas. If you ever took/take that trip invite me with you

 

[Cutlass]

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

 

[CavLancer]

There was so much eye-opening life here, and we don't have many avenues to learn about it other than a few bones and preserved manure.

In a few tens or hundreds of thousands of years space aliens will land on this planet and study the extinct life forms. I wonder if from my manure they'll be able to figure out my chosen avatar?

 

[Borachio]

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

h2g2.

 

[Thedrin]

Next weeks lottery results.

If travel to the past only permits observation, then plenty of that. If further interactions are permitted, then no travel to the past.

 

[Leoreth]

Next weeks lottery results.

How inefficient.