If you had a chance to travel through a TIME MACHINE for a WEEK? where would you go?

[Michael Carter]

A very talented and skilled manipulator, but only on the adiministrative side. Very intelligent too and played the Nazi game all too well. As did many of the high ranking political people and many of the Generals.

One hand washes the other and a lot of back-scratching done. Sounds a lot like DC these days.

 

[Viola]

I'd like to go back and see how many of my lundsmen and kin-of-kin could be gotten out. So many of them knew it would be bad, but not how bad. Or thought they DID have to run, but ran to France and thought that was far enough.

Without a lot of money I don't know what could be done, though.

 

[Smithy]

Not very imaginative I suppose but I wouldn't mind just going back a few years and spending some more time with my Mum.

 

[FountainPenGirl]

This is a fun topic to think about. There's a lot of interesting parts of history that would be fun to witness. I'm afraid that just visiting a week would only wet my apetite. My real goal has been to go back to sometime from approximately 1910 to the 1940's and stay. Most of the history I'd like to witness I'd just experience in the natural course of time. So much of my life is a product of the past that I think I would blend in back then more than I do in this time.

 

[JimWagner]

I'd go find that damned butterfly.

 

[Tango Yankee]

If killing Hitler c. 1918-30 prevents World War 2, it also prevents the technological surge of the mid-forties which came out of that war, which also prevents atomic weaponry, which prevents the Cold War, which prevents ARAPNET, which prevents the Internet, which prevents the World Wide Web, which prevents the Lounge. So if the plot succeeded, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Time is like an old sweater. Pick at one loose thread, and the whole garment falls apart.

Indeed. If you look back, war (or the threat/preparation for it) has been, I think, the most powerful driver of advances across the board. The space race was another, but it could still be lumped in under threat/preparation for war as it really was a "battle" of sorts with the USSR.

There are things in my life that, when I look back, I think I would like to change, but then I realize that if I change any one thing the impact across my life, and of those whose lives I touched, would be widespread and I would literally not be the man I am today. However, I think that one thing that did happen to me that I would prevent if I could might be something that could be changed without changing most everything else in my life. That's a motorcycle accident that, in the long run, has impacted my life mostly by making me experience discomfort or pain most of the time but I don't see anywhere it might have changed anything else.

For the most part, though, any other changes would change everything else... and there are things I have in this life now I wouldn't want to part with.

Of course, a brief visit to another time to observe and interact slightly would be fun!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[jamespowers]

Not very imaginative I suppose but I wouldn't mind just going back a few years and spending some more time with my Mum.

Not imaginative but good idea. I would do the same with my parents.

 

[HungaryTom]

As a small kid I always wanted to go back in time to see one or the other extinct animal and save it for today's world.
I also wanted to go back to change some lost battles for Hungary vs. the Mongols, Turks ... turning up with helicopters á la Apocalypse now etc.
Visiting some starving geniuses Beethoven, Van Gogh, Mozart, etc. and helping them out with commissions and regular money plus medication.
I would visit the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World too.
Knowing lottery numbers in advance would help a lot. All dreams about playing God.

 

[Viola]

What if I just want to go back in time and shake the hell out of myself at age 14, is that going to shred the timeline and create a paradox?

 

[HungaryTom]

Strictly observe never interfere - this should be adhered to, until the resolution of the Grandfather paradox See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Grandfather_paradox
I think certain meta-trends can not be changed - just the details, by removing individual historical personalities from the context. Like the collapse of Rome, discovery of America, influx of gold and wealth to Europe's colonizing countries and the consequent changes in society; peasant wars, religious wars, colonization, industrialization and its philosophical reflections in form of ideologies, clash in the form of revolutions, triggered by technological development and overpopulation of Europe, centuries before the rest of the world got overpopulated and industrialized.
Social and cultural shock throughout the colonized world. Nowadays the same shock in the original colonizing countries as their former colonies release huge populations migrating back and as the ex-colonies gain technological, military, economic power.
Empires of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Ottomans, Tsarist Russia, having the supra nationalist imperial ideal uniting nations and religions collapsed by the end of WW1, the first war of the fully globalized world, instantly giving way for ethnic and religious-based genocides, starting with Armenians, continuing with ethnic cleansings in Central Europe and the Balkans, atrocities and pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia, culminating in the genocides of WW2 and post-WW2 Stalinist deportation policy. Racist, supremacist, social-Darwinist theories circulated already in the 19th century, anti-Semitism since time immemorial.
Tolerance is only there when conditions are good - extremism rises as soon as times get difficult.
Weimar Germany with all the consequences of a lost war; using xenophobia as a tool of channeling wrath and frustration, those were too obvious means for rising to power. WW2 as a continuation of WW1 would have broken out in any case, it would have been bloody due to the technological level and highly loaded with ideology. Arts were full of ideals, ideologies, -ISMS in the “Golden Era”, politics was no exception. The world of bourgeoisie spiced with the remnants of aristocratic feudalism and their ethos and values had to be destroyed or marginalized giving ways to something new – exactly this happened during 1939-1945.
Now we see the collapse of the post-1945 world. And want to travel back in time to escape from the harsh reality.

P.S. I never had a week to write and edit this one - just a few undisturbed night hours.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In all seriousness, I think even if time travel does eist, it's impossible to change anything. Theoretically, millions of time travelers might have gone back trying to Kill Hitler, and we know they all failed -- because Hitler wasn't killed. Whatever they did or whatever happened to them to prevent their Killing Hitler was simply part of however history played out. Any time traveler could only end up becoming a part of history -- without ever changing anything. And the same goes for killing grandfathers.

 

[Michael Carter]

It's also possible for others to have followed the time travelers to prevent the assassination of Hitler.

You never know...

 

[rue]

Not very imaginative I suppose but I wouldn't mind just going back a few years and spending some more time with my Mum.

I feel the same, but instead of spending time with my mom, I would love to see my grandfather and grandmother in the 1940s, before everything went wrong and they divorced. The pictures I have show them very much in love and besides, I never knew my grandmother and I miss my grandfather a great deal.

This is them.....

My papa was being goofy

 

[_RAGNAR_]

The 1936 Olympics were probably one of the most incredible things a person could have seen back in the day. (staying with the “vintage” era)

After that, I'm sure there are many others we could think about going back to the beginning of time and I'm sure hundreds would be impressive to see, but I have to agree with another poster and say Jerusalem, from a few days before the Crucifixion until at least three day after! I mean even if you don't believe, its pretty pivotal point in history.

 

[_RAGNAR_]

Or the selfish and very pratical answer someone else already gave. One week back with all the winning lottery numbers.

 

[Smithy]

I feel the same, but instead of spending time with my mom, I would love to see my grandfather and grandmother in the 1940s, before everything went wrong and they divorced. The pictures I have show them very much in love and besides, I never knew my grandmother and I miss my grandfather a great deal.

This is them.....

My papa was being goofy

Great photo and a good looking couple.

 

[rue]

Great photo and a good looking couple.

Awwww...... thank you Smithy

 

[shazzabanazza]

Id go to Woodstock Festival

 

[shazzabanazza]

I feel the same, but instead of spending time with my mom, I would love to see my grandfather and grandmother in the 1940s, before everything went wrong and they divorced. The pictures I have show them very much in love and besides, I never knew my grandmother and I miss my grandfather a great deal.

This is them.....

My papa was being goofy

Rue, your Grandmother is beautiful!

 

[rue]

Rue, your Grandmother is beautiful!

Thank you too shazzabanazza