Day 214 - And Now, A Whole Post Devoted To Us Messing With History To Serve As A Guide To Any Time Travelers Out There

Mr. Gray

Now the question is: Should we ever find ourselves displaced in time and space and ABLE to suggest changes...what would they be?

11:23 AM Mr. Silver

That's a good one.

11:24 AM Mr. Green

Yes indeed.

11:25 AM Mr. Silver

"Dear King George. Appoint a proper viceroy and establish a colonial parliament.”

11:25 AM Mr. Gray

LMAO

You know, if he had…

11:26 AM Mr. Silver

Oh, I know that was a crux in history for sure.

Despite all the flag waving now, the US Revolution was not a popular war here at the time.

Want another?

"Dear France...Let the Kaiser win WWI"

11:27 AM Mr. Gray

I'm still pondering changes to the Constitution while you are at it.

11:27 AM Mr. Green

“Steve Jobs must be killed by 2000.  He is the anti-Christ and will destroy life as we know it!”

11:27 AM Mr. Gray

LMAO

The Kaiser winning WWI would have made an interesting change.

11:28 AM Mr. Silver

Unified Europe, no WWII, shared language, no baby boom.

11:28 AM Mr. Gray

No WW2...and possibly no atom bomb

11:29 AM Mr. Silver

Probably no atom bomb and no WWII = no cold war arms race

11:30 AM Mr. Gray

Also true.

11:30 AM Mr. Silver

With no extended WWI, quite possibly no successful Russian revolution or Chinese revolution.  Extrapolate as you will.

11:30 AM Mr. Gray

Yeah, that is a good long-running correction.

11:30 AM Mr. Silver

World powers would be USA, Europa, Russia

11:31 AM Mr. Gray

United Britain if we’d had the proper viceroy.

11:31 AM Mr. Silver

An excellent point, though the Allies would then have won WWI a few years earlier if it even happened at all with the British Empire so massive.

11:32 AM Mr. Gray

USA...British Empire...Europe...and Russia

11:33 AM Mr. Gray

Hey, do you want to talk about a progressive Middle East?

"Dear Pope.....the Crusades are a BAD idea.  It won’t work the first time...and won’t work any other time either.  Save yourself and millions of people centuries of hate, pain and death and just don’t do it!"

11:35 AM Mr. Green

We could end slavery with the initial draft of the Constitution

11:36 AM Mr. Gray

Slavery wasn’t so much the issue though...it was more the states rights to govern themselves vs. the "union" that later became federal control.

It was just one example of the union trying to tell states what they could and couldn’t do.

But again…I think Mr. Silver is right: if King George had sent a proper viceroy and made a US Parliament, we'd be about where Canada is.  Better...North America would possibly be just one country.

11:38 AM Mr. Green

True.

11:38 AM Mr. Gray

And blacks had rights under British rule fairly quickly, so a lot of that mess wouldn’t exist either.

Man...it makes me want to go back and slap George Washington. LOL

Let’s see...back to the original topic though: Changes to the Constitution. Hmmm.

12:13 PM Mr. Gray

Lunch

12:14 PM Mr. Silver

The Lunch Amendment!

Here's one

Amendment #2 - Villages, Towns, Cities and the governing bodies of States may recruit and administer their own security forces, up to and including armed military units.

(Which is what the 2nd amendment says.)

Amendment #2.5 – Upstanding private citizens may own guns.

12:27 PM Mr. Silver

My bet is they never even considered people not owning guns, and would be flabbergasted.

"A preposterous assertion, sir!  One might just as legitimately declare a citizen must surrender his dining knife!"

12:31 PM Mr. Silver

"Or give a landless man the vote." 

(General laughter)

(Time traveler) "Yyyyyeah...on that last quip, I can save the new union a lot of trouble..."

2:36 PM Mr. Gray

So let’s see...other major points in time where a change could have made things better...

Roman Empire not falling, Mr. Silver and I already mentioned.

The Crusades not happening.

2:37 PM Mr. Blue

Messing with those sorts of things might have prevented all of us from being born.

2:37 PM Mr. Gray

Maybe.  Then again, we might come back and be rich too.

2:38 PM Mr. Blue

I think times were crappy for reasons, and where we are now shouldn't be messed with, because while it might be better, it could also become worse.

Say you go back in time and assassinate Hitler...and come back to the present and suddenly the world is in anarchy or something because of it.

2:40 PM Mr. Gray

That’s always a possibility, but I think if you look at why things occurred, and used that knowledge to make a best choice, it could only be an improvement.

For instance....what if the real cause of the Black Death had been known and prevented?

2:41 PM Mr. Silver

We've mostly been noting what would make a positive difference in the larger scale with no thought for our own fates, Mr. Blue. The potential of self-sacrifice is assumed.

2:43 PM Mr. Blue

If it had been known and prevented, the population today might be like, twice what it currently is.

2:48 PM Mr. Blue

I like the idea of going back in time but not coming back.  Go back to the 1200's in Russia and teach them how to defeat the Mongol hordes.

2:48 PM Mr. Silver

If you assume a non-divergent time stream, you couldn't change anything and could destroy yourself. However I'm a multiverse man. I'd go in an eyeblink.

2:49 PM Mr. Gray

I could go for that option.

Go back and stay with the knowledge you have.

2:49 PM Mr. Blue

Yeah.

2:49 PM Mr. Brown

That would be fun.

“What is that, sir?”

“A corn dog.”

“What is a corn dog?”

2:50 PM Mr. Blue

Of course if you could, you'd need to find a way to communicate with people before they killed you for being some sort of devil.

2:50 PM Mr. Gray

LOL That would be the trick.

2:50 PM Mr. Blue

Maybe go back with a handgun…that kind of magic will make anyone listen to you.

2:52 PM Mr. Blue

Maybe I’d go back to the Americas in the 1300's and tell the people to start banding together because they're about to be invaded from the sea.

That’d be a fun one...

2:53 PM Mr. Gray

LOL Nice idea Mr. Blue.

2:53 PM Mr. Gray

"When the white man comes, kick him in the ass and hold onto your stuff!!”

2:54 PM Mr. Silver

"Pink skinned men are poisonous to touch.  Kill them and let them and their junk lay undisturbed.”

2:54 PM Mr. Blue

Yeah… Teach tribes to work together and build some kind of wall of settlements on the east coast.

2:56 PM Mr. Brown

I would like to go to China a long time ago; they were smart.

Only problem is, going back in time, you would be the bringer of modern diseases.

2:58 PM Mr. Silver

Not if you didn’t come back infected with anything you wouldn’t. (rolls eyes)

"Hey Hiawatha...corn?  Great...all the stuff is great.  But look.  I'm the Great Pink Trickster, and I'm going to show you two things - How to make a powder that explodes, and how to take that dirty red rock that crumbles when you dig it up and turn it into the hardest sh-t you've ever seen and how to make tools from it."

2:59 PM Mr. Gray

LOL

Both would be interesting changes.

White man shows up and POW!

3:02 PM Mr. Silver

"You're to keep us in reservations when we get here..."

3:03 PM Mr. Blue

Would my general knowledge of disease and hygiene be enough to keep me alive in the past?

3:03 PM Mr. Silver

Probably.

3:03 PM Mr. Blue

I think so too.

3:03 PM Mr. Silver

"My people call it 'bathing'."

3:03 PM Mr. Blue

Yeah.

3:03 PM Mr. Gray

LMAO

3:03 PM Mr. Silver

"You'll cotch yer death gettin wet all o'er!"

"I’ll bet you all the wealth in town when you're all dead that I won't."

3:09 PM Mr. Blue

"You see those festering, maggoty dead bodies? Don't touch them with your bare hands."

3:10 PM Mr. Silver

"Flea collars for everyone!"

3:13 PM Mr. Blue

I’d probably try to make conservation a priority so that we'd have more undisturbed lands nowadays.

"If you cut down an old tree, Jesus will eat your face off in your sleep."

Maybe slip that into the Bible in ancient days.

3:15 PM Mr. Gray

LMAO

3:15 PM Mr. Blue

"The heck is this Book of Blue?" 

"I dunno, I just copy, I can't read."

3:15 PM Mr. Silver

"And the Lord came unto the people and spake, saying If you would be welcomed into heaven, you will recycle, re-purpose and reuse."

"And he showed the people simple composting as depicted in diagrams 1 through 6 as God commanded, and bade them consult the project supplies list in appendix B."

3:20 PM Mr. Blue

"No more than three children per family, for the land's resources are finite. I am the LORD."

3:21 PM Mr. Blue

"And every third acre of all land will be set aside for public use. I am the LORD"

3:24 PM Mr. Silver

"And Jesus said, take of my soap and wash with it.  This is my soul.  Wash with it in memory of me.”

3:25 PM Mr. Brown

If thou would piss in the drinking water thou shalt be flogged.

3:27 PM Mr. Blue

“If you cause an extinction you'll go to Hell. Noah went through a lot of trouble with that boat and those animals.. don't erase his work."

3:28 PM Mr. Blue

"Oh, and by the way, the earth is like millions of years old.. the end."

3:29 PM Mr. Silver

So, additions like: “And after the 5^th day of his labors, God watched His creation flourish for millions of years but again felt it needed something.” stuck in between “days”

3:30 PM Mr. Silver

"And He cast them from the Garden and said 'You don't own any of the land, water, beasts, fishes and trees anymore, so if you abuse them, you're gonna get it."