If you had a time machine...

[Gringo]

that could only be used once, which timeline change would you make?

[maveric]

1. I'd say the Lottery. The others could create a paradox.

Or possibly make situations that now exist worse.

[Occulus]

2. OTHER

I wouldn't use it to go back, only forward. That way I don't return to find America speaking Japanese or German, or worse yet, come back to find everything destroyed due to nuclear war.

Yeah, where time is concerned, I'm a BIG proponent of chaos theory as it relates to the past.

Screw with the past at everyone's peril. Screw with the future at will.

[kiahzero]

3. That's interesting

My philosophy about time travel is that anything that happened in the past already happened in the past... ie, I couldn't have gone back to prevent 9/11, because if I had, it wouldn't have happened.

[Gringo]

4. Obviously, in reality, time travel into the past is impossible.

The question is what would you do IF YOU COULD. I'ts called FANTASY. You're supposed to indulge yourself, not over-analyze!

[politicat]

5. I'm a historian. I'd never go any where because I'd dither what was most

important to see and affect.

20 CE to 40 CE and get proof of Jesus' divinity?

90 CE to 120 CE and kick the shite out of Peter, the mysogynist?

850-875 CE and make sure that Pope Joan a) happened and b) was taken as a miracle that meant women's equality and equal access to divinity?

1560 - get Elizabeth a husband and preggers so the Jacobites don't take control, Oliver Cromwell doesn't get control and the Puritans remain a small, not very important group?

1621 - Sink the Mayflower? (This would prevent a lot - delay the smallpox and measles epidemics that decimated the indigenous population, keep everyone under control in Virginia colony, prevents creepy puritanical colonies that lead to witch trials, Quaker hangings, etc....)

1865 - Tell Lincoln to stay home tonight? (Better, tell his wife, who communicated with their dead son.)

1963 - Give Airforce 1 some trouble so Kennedy stays home in November? (A world where Johnson never got control would be far different - Nixon might not have won.)

1968 - Keep Bobby Kennedy Alive and convince Hasan Hasan that Nixon's his guy?

All of the ones mentioned in the List above, and there's a million personal things I'd like to see....

So I'd auction it at Ebay and wait and see....

Politicat

[onebigbadwulf]

6. Gamble with existing knowledge

to make a fortune bigger than all conservatives combined, buy out every media outlet and make them as liberal as possible.

Brainwash America to hate Christianity/ Republicans.

Take over world.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. Kennedy. Because it could undo 40-years worth

of tragedy and missteps.

For instance, if Kennedy had lived to end the cold war, it's unlikely the Soviet Union would have invaded Afghanistan, because the Mujahadin would not have been funded, trained, equipped and egged on by the CIA and the ISI. Osama might have stuck with the family business.

[burr]

8. no changes in time, but one big trip to the Cretaceous period...

I would learn more about the Deinosuchus, a giant 50 foot crocodile. I would study rutiodons...20 foot-long crocs. And of course the 40 foot high, 50 ton Brachiosauras. I would flee from the 19-foot high, 47 foot long Tyrannosaurus. Then I would study the 40-foot long Elasmosauras in the sea.

The real question is, would I survive this experience?

[Yupster]

10. There's a book about this Burr

Wish I could remember the title. Pretty popular just a few years back.

A scientist goes back to the dinosaur era. He spends his days carving scientific info into rock tablets and then sinking them in swamps in hopes they'd be discovered some day.

His last tablet described how a predator took his leg off.

[Diogenes2]

12. Wrong Dinosaur

For a second there I thought you mentioned a "Daschlesaurus"-- a truly retro-creature that has somehow survived far beyond its own era-- for what specific purpose no one can guess.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

9. I wouldn't do anything.

I'd leave the God-like changes to those with God-like wisdom.

[Yupster]

11. I'd try to convince the Kaiser

to not let Lenin into Russia.

I'd try to convince him the war was lost and to negotiate an earlir peace while I was there.

If he didn't listen, I'd head for Montgomery Alabama in early 1861 and try to convince President Davis to stick to his guns and order General Beauregard to not let anyone fire on Fort Sumpter.

Don't know if I'd save any lives, but I'd try.

PS - For a cool time travel book, try Harry Turtledove's "Guns of the South."

[carrowsboy]

13. LOTTO

Unfortunately in these days, money equals power instead of knowledge equalling power, so I'd use my money to help with a truely balanced media source to help get the truth out.