If you could go back in time...

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I'd go all the way to 1973 and enjoy the laid-back coolness of that era, and then live all the way up until at least 1997 when the world started being the way it is now (actually I find this decade a bit depressing, I may be alone in this). I definately would want to go back to the 80's without a doubt because although I was born in mid-1986, it's still my favorite decade!

Maybe I'd bring a PS3 with me and screw up history by making it the most technology-advanced video game system of 1984 (to help combat the market crash of videogames in that year)! Or bring an iPod with me and introduce the world to mp3's in 1986.

Also, going back to the 80's would give me an excuse to rock a jheri curl (yeah, I know most of you are thinking "Eww! Why do you want that?" but that's my favorite hairstyle. Not because of the 80's though. I just like how it looks). Along with that, I would introduce a new method to eliminate that god-awful curl activator mess that comes along with having that hairstyle.

I would maybe go back to 1968 and try to prevent Martin Luther King from being assassinated. I say maybe because I would be reluctant to go to the '60s because of the whole racial segregation thing (I'm black). The farthest I'd go back in time is at least 1972 or '73.

Then I'd go back to at least 1997 and try to stop the commercializing of hip-hop (I think starting in that year, hip-hop started being more watered down and lost its substance), and make the industry preserve what hip-hop is really all about. I would just want to try to keep the "fake gangsta" and money, cars, girls idealism of hip-hop from becoming a trend like it is now.

There's so much I would do if I could travel in time that I can't even list them all. We'd be here all night if I did that!

I'd go back to the first century BC and hang out with Cicero.

Nice work, genius. Now you've stuck us with a timeline where George Bush's son (not the smart one, the other one) became president! And he got re-elected!

Are you sure you don't want to go back and unfix that one?

More seriously, it would seem that much good came of the disaster that was Hitler. For instance, he and his followers made anti-Semitism into a bad thing, where before it was casually accepted by a large fraction of society that of course the Jews were bad people. Also, the forced camaraderie of US draftees in WWII helped push along the cause of equality back stateside - it was a lot harder to believe everything some yahoo on the radio said about blacks after sharing a foxhole with Jimmie Washington...

OTOH, if I really wanted to try to prevent WWII, I'd jump to where negotiators were hammering out the Treaty of Versailles after WWI, get the French representatives good and drunk, and convince them to lighten up on the poor Germans - they were beaten, utterly destroying them wouldn't be necessary... That would help keep the German economy from total collapse, so Adolf would remain just some nutbag Austrian with some really wacko theories, like half the Austrians of the time.


Sadly, the world would seem to have always been pretty much "the way it is now" - folks have fretted over crime, politicians have given lip service to their so-called principles while milking lobbyists under the table, there have been wars and rumors of war (in '73, it was a place called Vietnam, plus the fear that any minute now the Soviets would start in with the nukes). Trust me, I lived through the Seventies, and the last way I would try to describe the era is "laid-back coolness".

For myself, I'd like to pay a visit to Judea in the early years of the first century, and see if I could find an itinerant rabbi from Jerusalem, maybe tape a couple of His sermons, or even get an interview with Him. Then I'd want to stop by 1963 and try to talk Marilyn Monroe out of that last dose of sleeping pills (oh, and do the same favor for Heath Ledger, a bit later), and maybe stop in for a chat with Robert Heinlein in 1986, just before his death. I'm sure it would have pleased him to know that his notes for the unpublished novel Variable Star would later be spun into an excellent book in collaboration with Spider Robinson.

Heh, I prevented the American hyperinflation of 04-07, if it was not for me, you'd be using CANADIAN Dollars or Pesos now. And the Grand Debacle. (I did save a few million and billion US dollar notes though).

Hmm. Let's see...


First and foremost: either stop my mom from ever meeting the idiot we live with, or (since that would prevent my sister from being born, and much as she annoys me, I'm not sure I'd quite want that) stop mom from taking him back again. Somehow. It's not as if I haven't already tried that, sooooo might have to go the drastic route and kill him. But then, I might come back to a future where they knew I did that and end up in jail, and I don't want that either, gahhhhh. Oh. Wait. I'd just get him deported, as he wasn't a citizen. Sure. That works. (I know OP said for fun and not to be serious and all, but, heh. Can't seem to help it.).


Other things:

Maybe I'd drop a piano or something on whatsername, Stephenie Meyer. Yeah. Vampires. Do. NOT. Sparkle. EVER. Period.

And.... well, I don't know what else. I guess I'll post again if I come up with something.

Darn you. You went and did it didn't you?
So it is all YOUR fault we got two terms of Bush. I hope you are happy.

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Aside: A variation of time travel is the "if I knew then what I know now".

There are several "tipping points" in my life. If I could go back to being (say) 10 or 15 years old, knowing what I know now I would have made certain choices differently which would radically change my later life.

Perhaps my "altered" life would be better than my present life. Who knows?

I'd become a Beatle.

I'd become Bill Gates.

And if you managed either of those, let me know how, because I'd be heading for Seattle in 1994 to try and get Kurt to put that gun down. Or maybe Amsterdam in 1991, to try and convince him that going out and trying smack might not be such a great idea in the first place.

If I'm not allowed to change anything, then, heck, I'm heading back to 1989 to start on a few years of serious gig-watching anyway.

I'd not tell a guy to "shut up" about his suggesting that I change my avatar to Pat Robertson, so that a moderator wouldn't go off on a tangent.

I'd go back in time to when I was born premature (8 months) when my mother prayed I'd live, just so she could make up for the abortion she'd had before marriage - and I would plead with God to let me die instead. My life has been a curse. What a selfish b**ch my mother was for wanting that above what was good for me. Stupid narcissist. May you rot in hell.

Back to the Garden of Eden. As Eve is reaching for the fruit, I burst in and yell at her: For God's sake, Mom, don't!! !! !! !! !! !! !!

ruveyn

And you would quickly eat the apple yourself to avoid her being bitched for 2-3000 years?

You're successful, you vanish off the timeline and the world remains naked.

And we'd be better off; this civilization we've created is evil and oppressive.

I'd go back to 60s and 70s London, spend the 60s and early 70s as an Austin Powers type Mod, and the later half of the 70s, as one of the original Punkers.