What would you do if you could go back in time

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Assuming it was possible to go back in time what would you all do and change?

1. I would make sure Hans Asperger and his paperwork on aspergers made it to the US safely. This is one thing I would do.

2. I would learn more about banking and go back into time to a certain time period. I would invest in the stock market and put some of ROI into some kind of account like an IRA. I would let the interest accrue over the decades. I would make sure the money grew in an exponential way so people who need help would be able to receive it.

3. The self-esteem movement that was created during the 60s would be reformed. Self-esteem would not be considered something that is intrinsic but an after effect. More than likely we would not have the possible backlash and hatred of responsibility advocates.

4. I would get rid of all of this positivity nonsense that came from new thought and have it replaced with critical thought and thinking.

I would "invent" the transistor sometime during the 1930s A.D.

I would "invent" the electric light bulb before 1900 A.D.

I would introduce biplanes to President Lincoln and have John Wilkes Booth meet with an "accident" before the start of the Civil War.

I would introduce the moveable-type printing press to the Irish monks right after the fall of Rome (~400 A.D.).

I would record streaming video and audio of a certain crucifixion that is alleged to have occurred around 30 to 35 A.D in Palestine.

I would introduce writing to the ancient Celts and to their contemporaries in the Western Hemisphere around 400 B.C.

I would introduce translations of current university maths and science textbooks to the leaders of the Ionian Awakening around 500 B.C.

1. I would've prevented myself from meeting a certain person in 12th grade.

2. I would've made myself choose a different career path other than Information Technology.

3. I would've taken measures from preventing the civil war and World War I.

4. I would take Karl Marx and show him what communism wroughts.

5. I would go back in time and speak to Jesus Christ. I have certain questions for him.

Doesn't this make all the others (except possibly recording the crucifixion) a bit pointless?

Maybe ... maybe not.

The Ionian awakening ended for two main reasons: (1) they're adherence to slavery, which inhibited the desire for performing physical experiments; and (2) the cities of Ionia had been conquered by Persia around 540 BC, and thereafter were ruled by native tyrants, nominated by the Persian satrap in Sardis.

The Ionian Awakening lasted for less than a century, yet many of their scientific works and philosophies still survive.

I would go back before the Irish monks.

I would go back to the librarians of the great library at Alexandria ( around the time of Christ), and gotten them excited about moveable type- to print cheap copies of all their volumes. That way when the place burned down a couple centuries later the books would have been in multiple copies and circulating all over the mediterranean world and would not have been lost.

Lessee...what else.

Shoot Hitler in 1917, and prevent Boothe from shooting lincoln.

Biplanes in the civil war were just not feasible.
But steam powered dirigibles probably wouldve been doable.

I would go back and prevent the nuclear war between the US and the USSR starting in late October 1962.

That way we wouldn't all have to live in underground fallout shelters today...

Make damn sure I was a miscarriage.

Shooting Hitler is good, but not foolproof. Some other douchebag could have risen up in his place, maybe someone like Goebbels or Himmler or else someone who would have come to power in the 50s or 60s if not for Hitler's failure. Instead, re-negotiate the Treaty of Versailles so that the German public felt less aggrieved and would be less open to war.

Ever see "The Butterfly Effect?" Be careful you don't make things worse.

I would re-arrange the chairs on the Titanic.

For philosophical and cultural reasons they would not have accepted it.

Much of modern mathematics goes against "common sense" Common sense was a concept invented by Aristotle. Also the Greek mathematicians did not regard ratios of one measure (say length) being interchangeable with ratios of a different measure (say area or volume). That they did not quite grasp the notion of a ration quantity as being unit free. In our day, the units "cancel out" in a ratio so all ratios are comparable.

ruveyn

... which is exactly why I would chose the Ionian Awakening as the time to introduce these concepts.

Consider the concept of a non-geocentric universe. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as 270 B.C. by Aristarchus of Samos, yet Galileo was persecuted and prosecuted by the RCC in 1633 A.D. for publishing works that described a heliocentric system when "everybody knew" that the entire universe revolved around the Earth. In 1664, Pope Alexander VII published a list that forbade all previously published books on heliocentrism. It wasn't until 1822 A.D. that Pope Pius VII approved a decree to allow the printing of heliocentric books in Rome.

Granted, the universe does not revolve around our Sun, but Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion have been so well-proven that our Global Positioning System is based on them.

Where would humanity be if just Kepler's and Newton's Laws had been retained and studied after the Ionian Awakening ended ... Mars, perhaps?

Pure speculation, I know; but this is the PPR forum, after all.

I would check whether Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead.

1. I would visit the Jurassic just so I could see real, living dinosaurs.

2. Meet and then hug a lot of historically significant people.

3. Buy a few winning lottery tickets. (I'd give away most of the money.)

4. Talk to my grandparents that I never got to know.

5. Probably end up living in a different era as I'm not too fond of this one.

As for anything more extreme, I don't know what impact I and it could or would have, so I'd probably avoid it.

Since time travel can only really be used responsibly for giggles, I'd film Wilbert Awdry (Thomas the tank engine author) original huge train set.

If that manages to destroy the universe, I will cry.