If you could go back in time and hit the reset button...

[Doctor Amadeus]

If you could go back in time and hit the reset button what year would you pick?

1987

If you could single handedly change one event what would it have been and what do you predict would have been the result?

I would have prevented Bush Sr from being elected, This Dukakis preventing the first Iraq war and each subsequent action thereafter as a result. Everything else in the Middle East would have gone another way. I don’t think 911 would have happened either. Not that the two things were linked but I think our foreign policy overall would have been much better.

I think the Soviet Union would still have fallen but Putin would never have risen to power.

As a result I think the U.S domestic policy would have improved. The war on drugs would have gotten smarter. Tech companies would have been reigned in terms of personal privacy.

Not sure about Clinton though I think Dukakis might have gotten 2 terms. Meaning we likely would have gotten Bill Clinton in 96 to 2004 or President Al Gore.


Anyways how would you do it.

[i]Keep in mind going back in time hitting the reset sets you back also. You keep the memory of this time line, but everything and everyone else is gone and reset with no memory.

[thebmans]

Year 2001. That year 9/11 terrorists attacks happened that changed the world. What you see now is from 2001.

George Bush signed orders that allowed federal police to listen/spy to all the phone calls in USA.

[Mayhem]

Change the treaty of Versailles to let Germany save some face, include with it a need for European governments to work together based on social democratic principles and the goal to establish one united Europe free from nationalistic ideas.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Year 2001. That year 9/11 terrorists attacks happened that changed the world. What you see now is from 2001.

George Bush signed orders that allowed federal police to listen/spy to all the phone calls in USA.

I imagine this is a pretty popular one, it's one I actually considered first, until I realized stopping that wouldn't have stopped the hatred that fueled it and it might have resulted in even more fatalities with something else, thus I came up with 87, however my friend argued 1977 before Reagan and preventing Carter from getting elected which resulted in Reagan which he said ultimately began tensions in that region. I actually sort of agreed even tough I wasn't born yet and I liked Carter somewhat. The same could be said for Dukakis he was also someone hard to stomach, but honestly with my pick I think having Presidents who were thoughtful and intelligent would have lead to more positive outcombs

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Change the treaty of Versailles to let Germany save some face, include with it a need for European governments to work together based on social democratic principles and the goal to establish one united Europe free from nationalistic ideas.

This is a pretty interesting take, can't say I would agree, I think it would lead to more sympathy towards Nazi Germany, which wouldn't have been a good thing. I know it's a popular meme that if you could go back in time and kill Baby Hitler, the holocaust would have never happened. I've been firmly in that camp for a long, long time.

However there is the argument that without Hitler, the holocaust could have been worse, Nazi's would have won. I ponder the idea that idea with the consideration that Hitler was a means to an end, meaning everything that happened happened around not because of him but in spite of him.

Considering all the of the above, I avoid the idea of meddling with that point in time at all. I would be torn with guilt of all the souls I could have released and lives that were never realized because I didn't kill Baby Hitler on the chance it would have prevented the Holocaust, but by the same time committing all the souls to death being wrong, for a fate that has already taken place.

I don't think I have the right to make that kind of decision. I think my plan would result in saving lives, not costing others, I could be wrong though.

[Mayhem]

This is a pretty interesting take, can't say I would agree, I think it would lead to more sympathy towards Nazi Germany, which wouldn't have been a good thing. I know it's a popular meme that if you could go back in time and kill Baby Hitler, the holocaust would have never happened. I've been firmly in that camp for a long, long time.

However there is the argument that without Hitler, the holocaust could have been worse, Nazi's would have won. I ponder the idea that idea with the consideration that Hitler was a means to an end, meaning everything that happened happened around not because of him but in spite of him.

Considering all the of the above, I avoid the idea of meddling with that point in time at all. I would be torn with guilt of all the souls I could have released and lives that were never realized because I didn't kill Baby Hitler on the chance it would have prevented the Holocaust, but by the same time committing all the souls to death being wrong, for a fate that has already taken place.

I don't think I have the right to make that kind of decision. I think my plan would result in saving lives, not costing others, I could be wrong though.

How would a more unified approach after WW1 lead to more sympathy towards Nazi Germany?

[shadowmouse]

@Mayhem I'm tempted to agree with you, but if I only get one change I'm not sure that's enough. I thought about the League of Nations actually getting formed, supported, given effective tools, and putting something similar to the ideals of the Kellogg-Briand Pact into effect with some actual teeth. Probably still not enough.

No, I think it would need to be something that also takes Asia more into account, so allow me to wish things had gone a different direction with The Great Game and hopefully the colonialism of the period.

[Mayhem]

@Mayhem I'm tempted to agree with you, but if I only get one change I'm not sure that's enough. I thought about the League of Nations actually getting formed, supported, given effective tools, and putting something similar to the ideals of the Kellogg-Briand Pact into effect with some actual teeth. Probably still not enough.

No, I think it would need to be something that also takes Asia more into account, so allow me to wish things had gone a different direction with The Great Game and hopefully the colonialism of the period.

Hey if you have a more inclusive Idea, I am all for it.

[Theodarzna]

Obviously I'd go back and ensure the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain never succeeded by using future technology knowledge, purple cloth, knowledge of Latin, to form a strong centralized state in out of the Hen Ogledd, likely marrying my way into some form of power, but mostly acting as an advisor an use the cloth as a gift to buy my way in and get the ball rolling. Largely modelling the new state after the Shogun era Japan, and with a mind towards the future, start building fortifications knowing the Viking era is coming. The changes this would have, well mostly linguistic and cultural. It is hard to say if this theoretical state would do as England did, founding vast world-spanning Empires or slave trades. It is possible all I've done is to change the linguistic landscape of the future.

[Mayhem]

Obviously I'd go back and ensure the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain never succeeded by using future technology knowledge, purple cloth, knowledge of Latin, to form a strong centralized state in out of the Hen Ogledd, likely marrying my way into some form of power, but mostly acting as an advisor an use the cloth as a gift to buy my way in and get the ball rolling. Largely modelling the new state after the Shogun era Japan, and with a mind towards the future, start building fortifications knowing the Viking era is coming. The changes this would have, well mostly linguistic and cultural. It is hard to say if this theoretical state would do as England did, founding vast world-spanning Empires or slave trades. It is possible all I've done is to change the linguistic landscape of the future.

How good is your Brittonic?

[Theodarzna]

How good is your Brittonic?

My Welsh and knowledge of Old Welsh is excellent, with Welsh as fluent, but I recognize I'd have to use Latin initially.

[Mayhem]

My Welsh and knowledge of Old Welsh is excellent, with Welsh as fluent, but I recognize I'd have to use Latin initially.

They'll probably kill you because of your use of black magic.

[shadowmouse]

@Mayhem That's the catch. The "what" would be avoiding The Great Game's emergence. The "when" would end up mid 1800s. The "how" though ...

[Zan15]

I would go back and prove once and for all about the forbiddin topic of a particular individual born of a virgin....plus a particular book...and try to put to bed the plague of such an organization(s) impact and see how much better off we would be.

huge experiment and gamble. One would hope science became the leading social driver at that point.


of course realistically after really thinking about it, I would probably give up because it would be too impossible instead I would go back to 1990 and by now would be the first Trillionaire.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

I would stop a certain group from forming in Bavaria on May 1st, 1776 in Ingolstaldt, Germany.

[Theodarzna]

They'll probably kill you because of your use of black magic.

Early medieval people didn't believe in Black Magic. Witchcraft trials are a renniassance problem.

[Mayhem]

Early medieval people didn't believe in Black Magic. Witchcraft trials are a renniassance problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe...raft#Antiquity

Yeah, good luck with that.

[Theodarzna]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe...raft#Antiquity

Yeah, good luck with that.

Aight, I'll be sure to not poison anyone and stick to purple cloth and political scheming and not you know prophecy and potion-making. :3

Again, Witchcraft accusations were a renniasance issue. And you show a profound lack of understanding of what medieval or early medieval people considered to be witchcraft.

[Calfredd]

Aight, I'll be sure to not poison anyone and stick to purple cloth and political scheming and not you know prophecy and potion-making. :3

Again, Witchcraft accusations were a renniasance issue. And you show a profound lack of understanding of what medieval or early medieval people considered to be witchcraft.

A different problem you have to deal with is you're a woman.

[Daedius]

Do a Tera Nova, go back to the age of Dinosaurs and start a civilisation there...

[Mihalik]

If you could go back in time and hit the reset button what year would you pick?

1987

If you could single handedly change one event what would it have been and what do you predict would have been the result?

I would have prevented Bush Sr from being elected, This Dukakis preventing the first Iraq war and each subsequent action thereafter as a result. Everything else in the Middle East would have gone another way. I don’t think 911 would have happened either. Not that the two things were linked but I think our foreign policy overall would have been much better.

I don't think so. If anything, had there been no coalition intervention in Kuwait there would have been fairly good odds that Saddam would have become a greater regional threat steamrolling Saudi Arabia (whose military is a joke now and was an even bigger joke then) or starting Iran-Iraq War 2.0 using the wealth plundered from Kuwait. Containing Saddam was actually pretty necessary. The 1991 version of Saddam wasn't the 2003 version of Saddam. The 1991 version of Saddam was the dude with Scuds that could hit Israel, with chemical and biological weapons that he liberally used on the Iranians and his own people, and whose military was probably the best Arab military (Iran is not Arab) at the time.

The loons responsible for 9/11 weren't born out of the First Gulf War, they were born out of the Afghan War and from the US intervention in the Lebanese Civil War. The US intervention in the Lebanese Civil War was the moment that turned Arab attitudes towards the US from animosity to full on hostility. US meddling didn't start with the Gulf War.

Now keeping US forces STATIONED in Saudi Arabia AFTER the Gulf War was a monumental mistake. We should have restored the Kuwaiti parliament (long story, essentially the Sheik abolished it in 86) instead of restoring the dictator, we could have kept some forces in Kuwait itself, but we shouldn't have kept troops in Saudi Arabia proper. The stationing of US forces in KSA, while welcome by the King itself caused an internal theological rift between the Salafists (whom are just all various degrees of lunatics) and driven dissidents and more money into the arms of Al Qaeda.

Another major mistake was making promises to the Kurds we never intended to keep, but then again, fucking over the Kurds seems to be a favorite foreign policy past time of ours.

Our major historical mistake in the Middle East has been our alignment with religious fundies/strongmen to keep the socialists at bay.

Once we created the monster that are the Salafists and Al Qaeda there was no putting that back in the box and 9/11 or something similar would have been inevitable either way, what would have been the alleged casus belli for the fundies would have simply changed from "you meddled" to "you didn't meddle".

Even if feasible, meddling with history wouldn't in any sense guarantee a better outcome, not even with hindsight. There's a reasonable chance that this, as garbage as it is, is in fact the best of all potential variables and any alteration would produce something much worse.