Fun things to do with a time machine.

[Finn]

Yeah, but the founding fathers would have a hard time understanding why lot of our issues are a thing... climate change, healthcare, education, etc.

They came from a world full of monarchies and a North America still largely wild. You could find the same wildlife in Indiana we would expect to see only in places like Yellostone... America was still an agrarian society. They won't really get us.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yeah, but the founding fathers would have a hard time understanding why lot of our issues are a thing... climate change, healthcare, education, etc.

They came from a world full of monarchies and a North America still largely wild. You could find the same wildlife in Indiana we would expect to see only in places like Yellostone... America was still an agrarian society. They won't really get us.

Oh for sure. I'm aware of that. Just not everything could be fixed by visiting people in the past.

 

[Tenacity]

Meh. They would be lost and clueless.

They won't really get us.

given the then daily intrigues of european governments, the machiavellian scheming, the founding fathers would probably find our present day government quite mild.

trying to force a president out of office through endless lies? wake me when something interesting happens.

 

[Finn]

They wouldn't go meh about the concept of healthcare and climate change.

 

[JD]

You're taking this way to seriously, I just meant it as a joke because it used to drive me crazy when the conservatives would go on and on about how what was happening in the country is not what the founding fathers wanted.
I thought of another thing I would do, I would go back and invest in Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Microsoft and bunch of other companies when they were just starting out.

 

[Jayson1]

You're taking this way to seriously, I just meant it as a joke because it used to drive me crazy when the conservatives would go on and on about how what was happening in the country is not what the founding fathers wanted.
I thought of another thing I would do, I would go back and invest in Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Microsoft and bunch of other companies when they were just starting out.

Hey I saw the movie "Founder" and you should actually go help those brothers that got screwed over by Michael Keaton. They seemed to be the ones who deserved to become rich.

Jason

 

[Finn]

You're taking this way to seriously, I just meant it as a joke because it used to drive me crazy when the conservatives would go on and on about how what was happening in the country is not what the founding fathers wanted.
I thought of another thing I would do, I would go back and invest in Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Microsoft and bunch of other companies when they were just starting out.

Nah If I wasn't I'd have said a lot more

 

[Tenacity]

They wouldn't go meh about the concept of healthcare and climate change.

As far as climate change, the Founders were (for their day) learned well educated men. They would have know about the Little Ice Age (not a actual ice age), the period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period. The effects on Europe were well known. That Human activity could cause climate change might surprise them, but they were people of vision.

Given the type of governing body they seemed to have been designing, no, having the government administer universal healthcare for the general populace probably wouldn't have been their intent.

I just meant it as a joke because it used to drive me crazy when the conservatives would go on and on about how what was happening in the country is not what the founding fathers wanted.

I can sympathize, it drives me crazy when liberals/progressives go on and on about whatever the hell they keep going on and on about.

 

[Finn]

As far as climate change, the Founders were (for their day) learned well educated men. They would have know about the Little Ice Age (not a actual ice age), the period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period. The effects on Europe were well known. That Human activity could cause climate change might surprise them, but they were people of vision.

I think you are giving them too much credit.



But this thread is supposed to be fun

I could program a drone or an unmanned ROV to travel through time in, taking pictures of a selected locale every thousand years, going back millions of years and create a time-lapse video. It'd be epic.

 

[Marsden]

I'd like to bring some people back from the past to show these modern assholes they really aren't any smarter then people from other points in history, that would be fun.

I would do something to stop John Wilkes Booth.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I'd like to bring some people back from the past to show these modern assholes they really aren't any smarter then people from other points in history, that would be fun.

I would do something to stop John Wilkes Booth.

But would saving Lincoln change history that much?

 

[Gaith]

But would saving Lincoln change history that much?

Impossible to say. His VP turned President, Andrew Johnson, was a near-180, to the extent that he was impeached almost entirely for being a plain ol' jerkwad. Lincoln, for all his correspondence, didn't keep a personal diary, so it's impossible to say how much of his overt racism was genuine, and how of it was performative. Probably somewhere in the middle, of course, but where, and how forceful would he have been with the re-Union-ized South? We'll never know.

For my part, for years now, I've desperately wanted to explore San Francisco's three World's Fairs, from 1894, 1915, and 1939-40. I mean, check out these sights, and just try not to want to come along:

The Midwinter Fair, 1894:

​

The Panama–Pacific International Exposition, 1915:

​

Magnificent, ginormous cities that rival (if not better) any currently seen on Earth today... made largely out of wood and plaster, and destined to burn out brightly and quickly.

Hell, I'd be content with state-of-the-art FPS-style digital creations to explore. When I win a multimillion-dollar lottery, I'm forming a committee to create just that.

 

[Gavin70]

Maybe in this world they were kind of sad finding out Trump won. But maybe in this new world they are happy and they have sex that night and it's sex that leads to the creation of a child. So they end up having a kid they didn't have before but also meaning the one they did have won't be born because what they will be doing 2 days later is very different.

This is the sort of idea that makes me hope that there's some kind of creator and he/she/it is doing experiments with a multiverse. It would be fascinating to see just what sort of difference such a minor change might make. Same parents, same egg, but presumably a different sperm. Technically the same conception date and same manner of child raising. How different would the two children be? Or would they be basically identical?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Impossible to say. His VP turned President, Andrew Johnson, was a near-180, to the extent that he was impeached almost entirely for being a plain ol' jerkwad. Lincoln, for all his correspondence, didn't keep a personal diary, so it's impossible to say how much of his overt racism was genuine, and how of it was performative. Probably somewhere in the middle, of course, but where, and how forceful would he have been with the re-Union-ized South? We'll never know.

For my part, for years now, I've desperately wanted to explore San Francisco's three World's Fairs, from 1894, 1915, and 1939-40. I mean, check out these sights, and just try not to want to come along:

The Midwinter Fair, 1894:

​

The Panama–Pacific International Exposition, 1915:

​

Magnificent, ginormous cities that rival (if not better) any currently seen on Earth today... made largely out of wood and plaster, and destined to burn out brightly and quickly.

Hell, I'd be content with state-of-the-art FPS-style digital creations to explore. When I win a multimillion-dollar lottery, I'm forming a committee to create just that.

Those do look bloody amazing.

Hey, hey go back to one of the past world fairs with the plans for flying cars like the Moller skycar which will never happen. Maybe sending that far into the past will make it more real ha ha ha

 

[Finn]

But would saving Lincoln change history that much?

It'd change A LOT. The Reconstruction would have turned out quite differently for sure.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

It'd change A LOT. The Reconstruction would have turned out quite differently for sure.

Or Abe became an immortal vampire hunter

 

[JD]

I thought up a list of time periods I'd love to visit:
Early Human
Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
late 700s/early 800s England- OK this one seems a bit random, but I love Vikings and The Last Kingdom and they both take place in this era, and I'd be curious to see what things were really like back them. I know they'd probably not be great, but it would be interesting.
1500/1600s England
Early US
Victorian London
100 years from now
500 years from now
1,000 years from now

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

After seeing an amazing TV program last night I'd like to visit the time period Vermeer lived in because he was painting photo realistic paintings 150 years before photography first appeared. How he did it was a matter of conjecture but most people believe he used a camera obscura and mirror(s) to get the amazing results he did.

I'd love to visit that period and see how he actually did it because no notes or writings exist about his actual technique.

 

[Gavin70]

Or Abe became an immortal vampire hunter

Is that not what happened? I'm sure I saw a documentary on the subject.

 

[Phoenix219]

Food would be a good thing to experience in the past. They say it tasted much better back in the 50's and 60's. In fact I think I might open a resturant in the present day selling 1960's hamburgers or something like that.


Jason

That is literally a plot point in the show 11.22.63


I would set up modern video games and HD screens in video arcades in the early 80s. Maybe a whole mock up simulator the way they used to do, and charge to play a GTA in time chunks, or first person shooters with light guns.