Bad idea. Last time someone did this we ended up with this timeline.
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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The comedy of errors that resulted in World War 1 seems to indicate that there is a group of time travelers trying to make sure this time line happens.
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I would go back in time and meet the people who wrote the first ever USB standard. Then I would convince them that all USB connectors have to be reversible from day one so that nobody will ever need to struggle with the 20/80 odds of getting it right on the first try. Come on, it’s two possibilities and the probability of the wrong one is at least 80%. What’s the deal with a connector like that?
Accordingly to the USB inventor, he didn't make it reversible right off the bat because it would need 2x more wires, circuits, and cost 2x more. So you probably [won't be | weren't]* able to convince him.
Perhaps a better approach is to tell him that they should be clearly asymmetric, to both touch and sight. Like HDMI connectors are.
*tense marking is fun in time travel.
You can even make the connector look like a B with a larger loop on one side, that when people were like why is it shaped like that you could just say that's the b in the USB
This guy drives the bus!
You don't need double the wires if you change the recepticle so that you can plug it in both ways, and the recepticle would just have those wires connected on the board.
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While you’re there make damn sure they create a coherent naming scheme that allows upgrade paths/versioning.
Sincerely,
USB 3.2 Gen 1×1
USB 3.2 Gen 2×1
USB 3.2 Gen 1×2
USB 3.2 Gen 2×2
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I'd stop the guy who went back in time to stop the first guy from smoking stuff.
Hey hey, edibles are a thing. Ain't gotta damage your lungs to get a buzz..
True.
And you could always go back in time to stop me from stopping you from stopping the guy.
That's why I think time travel will never allow history to be changed, and I think Rick and Morty may have done a bit about that.
Indeed. Even the late Stephen Hawking arranged his own experiment to prove/disprove the possibility.
Apparently it was disproven...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking's_time_traveller_party
Alternatively, Hawking proved that he was unpopular and nobody wanted to go to his party.
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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.
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Stop that kid from falling into Harambe’s enclosure by any means necessary.
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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 back and convince that art school to accept a certain art student...
I did nazi that one
As we learned from the Butterfly Effect, changing the past only results in Ashton Kutcher getting more power.
My net worth.
Think of all the good I could do with a trillion dollars. I'd have to create a lot of destruction of other people's wealth to get there but they will understand. I really need a trillion dollars!
Got to do it in stages so it doesn't look too premeditated.
Start a online auction site where people can sell their stuff and you get a small cut of the profit.
Then to help people on board start a payment processor company to ensure that the sellers ship their goods and that buyers pay.
Once that has established, go public with it so that your stock sales can support the existence of your current portfolio while you dabble in other things that you know are very profitable.
Once you have that going, which will take a few years. You can take a victory lap or two and maybe pay some PR firms to make you look like the cool rich kid on the internet that everyone wants to hang out with.
Then you can do stuff like starting a spaceship company and helping to bring about the end of the internal combustion engine by starting an electric car company and doing some solar panel stuff.
Eventually you'll be the richest person on the planet and then you can get to doing the really fun stuff assuming you don't like tank all of your personal reputation by blowing 20% of your net worth on a microblogging website or something while disavowing your trans daughter.
I mean, if you're smart enough to do all the other things surely you wouldn't blow it at the five yard line like that.
I would've gone to bed earlier tonight
Warn about how plastic (especially single-use) is a major pollutant, with microplastics managing to get into our organs with long term consequences we are yet to grasp.
It did push our technology and way of living forward, but at what cost?
You'd be the crazy manbearpig dude. Nobody would listen to you. How would anyone be able to persuade the people?
That wouldn't work because you're a single person fighting against the same companies that finance climate change denialism. Hell, between understanding that leaded gasoline was harmful and banning it were at least 20 years
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i would not eat the kiosk chili dogs i ate earlier—they were pretty fucking bad.
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I'd go hunt down Ronald Regan at about age 30 and empty an entire magazine of .45s into his dome while he slept.
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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'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..
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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.
Have your read 11/22/63? It's Stephen King 's take on what would happen if a time traveler tries to stop the JFK assassination.
Great book, in my opinion.
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.
But the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC) happened after the Roman Kingdom (753 BC–509 BC).
The kingdom was before the republic. I assume you want to prevent the empire?
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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.
I'd tell my younger self what to invest in.
I would prevent Lewis Powell from authoring the document that outlined how to capture the courts and put us under the control of unelected judges.
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...
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A lot of things I didn't mean to, most likely.
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