If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would you do

[Trekker4747]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

If you could get sent back in time to (seriously or humorously) fix something from either
in history, in your personal life, or someone else's, what would it be for and why, if you
had to ?

I'd probably get my brakes fixed earlier, at a time before the rotors got warped and needed to be completely replaced. That's kind of annoying and expensive.

 

[Brolan]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I'd go back to the '70s and tell myself to quit partying so much and actually finish college.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I'd go back to 1991, and tell myself to study harder.

 

[Lorthos]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

If we're going to go back in time and kill every future celebrity of dubious talent, we'd better bring lots of body bags.

No, don't kill anyone. Go back to before the mother meets the father, and introduce her to someone else.

God forbid we end up with Justin kutcher lol

 

[Lorthos]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I would have given myself a swift kick on the butt and tell myself to pay more attention in school.

 

[mitchconner]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I'd go back in time and stop JJ Abrams from blowing up Vulcan.

I'd also stop George Lucas from making Phantom Menace.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I'd invest in Microsoft on day one.

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

Nothing. Science fiction has taught me you should never screw around with the past.

Nope. I'd go back and change EVERYTHING.

 

[JarodRussell]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

Well, 9/11 obviously, though I have no idea how.
And Star Trek Nemesis.

 

[Crewman47]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I'd travel back to 1996, my 4th year at high school and convince my younger self to stick in harder at school and college and not get tempted to build up a mountain of debt. I'd also tell him about the mistakes I've done and tell him to avoid them and make the alternative choice(s) that I probably had.

 

[Wanderlust]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I would get sent back in time to go back to the future.

 

[Jono]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I'd go back to 5 minutes ago and warm myself that the milk in the fridge has gone off.

 

[Kirby]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I'd go back to the day my college girlfriend broke up with me. I'd tell myself to chill out, move on, and have some fun instead of letting it depress me for an entire year.
And I'd give myself the winning lottery numbers for that week...

 

[Gil T.Azell]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I would have given myself a swift kick on the butt and tell myself to pay more attention in school.

and a few other regrettable, things done back then.
But whats done is done.
as for picking out lotto numbers, betting on game etc. I seem to recall an episode of Seven Days where frank went back on a mission placed a bet on the game , and still lost as the result and winning team changed.
Olga said there was some theroy (I just cant remember it)

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

There are some things it would be nice to fix, like 9/11, but how do you do that without getting yourself locked up as a conspirator? And any fix would have to be on the order of mitigation, like getting people out of the buildings----you can't risk stopping the event entirely or the changes to the timeline become too significant to predict at all.

What kind of time travel is this? Replay style, or bodily time travel?

If the latter, it would be trivially easy to prove you're a time traveler from 2011. "Hey, see that guy? He's either my clone, or I'm his future self. Work out for yourself which seems more plausible, but bear in mind I evidently have some future knowledge."

Even then, since I like the indirect results of 9/11, I'm not sure I'd try to stop it. Sort of like a smaller scale version of killing Hitler. Sure, evil is evil and all, but I suspect that the rise of liberalism in the late 20th century is in part, perhaps in large part, thanks to the argument to absurdity against authoritarianism that was Hitler's Germany. Plus, it's not like killing Hitler would stop German militarism any more than stopping the September 11th attacks would stop Islamic terrorism.

If it's the former mode of time travel, having my old body but my present-day mind, I'd do basically what the protagonist of Replay did, and simply make myself wealthy, use my education to make myself appear to be smarter, and my maturity and experience to get myself laid.

***

As for fixing stuff, if I could inhabit my old body, I could do it, but I was/remain a moron, so I doubt my past self would listen to me if I only got to physically travel back and talk to him, or--at best--he'd manage to find some way to fuck up the advice I gave him.

The solution would be to kill him and replace him, but I think I could only manage that if the time jump was five years back at most. I mean, I'm not aging poorly, but I can't pass for 15.

With that in mind, I would kill my previous self and take his place and go to law school. I imagine I'd do spectacularly well, redoing it for the first time.

I'd go back and keep those sleeping pills away from Marilyn Monroe / or tell her to stay away from the Kennedys (whichever way that worked out...)

And, while I'm in the past, I'd go back a little further (farther?) and tell Jimmy Dean to stay out of that Spyder.

Yeah, fuck Martin Luther King.

 

[Sephiroth]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

you know, you don't have to wait until 9/11 to STOP 9/11, the hijackers movements were pretty clearly determined, just go back a few months and set a trap. that said I'd go to '05 and tell myself to move up 1 floor

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

Even then, since I like the indirect results of 9/11, I'm not sure I'd try to stop it.

Care to elaborate? Just curious.

If it's the former mode of time travel, having my old body but my present-day mind, I'd do basically what the protagonist of Replay did, and simply make myself wealthy, use my education to make myself appear to be smarter, and my maturity and experience to get myself laid.

This. Replay is one of my favourite novels.

 

[JarodRussell]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

There are some things it would be nice to fix, like 9/11, but how do you do that without getting yourself locked up as a conspirator? And any fix would have to be on the order of mitigation, like getting people out of the buildings----you can't risk stopping the event entirely or the changes to the timeline become too significant to predict at all.

A time traveller would probably find out that it was indeed an inside job, erm...

There are a few things I would consider changing, but in reality there is no way to know where I would end up today if I had done those things. So I'd probably just go to watch something like the end of life on planet earth, circa 65 million years ago.

I guess this is how the dinosaurs died.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

Even then, since I like the indirect results of 9/11, I'm not sure I'd try to stop it.

Care to elaborate? Just curious.

The GWOT is probably a good thing overall, despite horrible excesses like Gitmo and the assault on civil liberties and normality we've experienced here at home.

Also, and more importantly, I find a war in Iraq far more unlikely without 9/11. Sometimes, I reckon it's just me and Christopher Hitchens on the left who haven't wavered in support of that.

This. Replay is one of my favourite novels.

They're finally making a movie of it iirc. But, yeah, it's great. It should really be more widely read. I'd put it on high school cirricula if I had the power.

 

[JiNX-01]

Re: If you had to get sent back in time to fix something,what would yo

I would go back to October 2007 and tell myself to skip the re-fi on my house and get a real estate agent instead.