Political Crossfire Forums

NobleOne · Joined: 08 Feb 2006 Posts: 78

If you had the opportunity to travel back in time to any period and you were given a gun and one bullet, who would you use it on, if anyone, in order to benefit society the most?

The_Right_Honourable · Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 682 Location: UK (mostly)

Either the Serbian Intelligence boss who headed the Black Hand or the guy who shot Franz Ferdinand.

Id single handedly save 100's of millions of lives. I wouldnt even think twice about pulling the trigger.

Snarf · Joined: 10 Jan 2005 Posts: 5260

Alfred Nobel or Saul before he was known as Paul. I'd have to run some numbers first...

Taliesin · Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 11:04 pm Post subject:

Way too many variables, I would have to kill whoever invented the time machine.

NobleOne · Joined: 08 Feb 2006 Posts: 78

Taliesin wrote: ...I would have to kill whoever invented the time machine.

Then you will be stuck with no way to return to the present!

Taliesin · Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2006 11:23 pm Post subject:

NobleOne wrote: Taliesin wrote: ...I would have to kill whoever invented the time machine.

Then you will be stuck with no way to return to the present!
But if I kill the man who invented the time machine then how would I get to the past? A very interesting paradox.

LostSoul3412 · Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Posts: 7657

It really wouldn't matter who you shot in the past; the time stream would find a way to fix itself. If you shot the man who invented the time machine, another person would invent it and send you back, dress up like the initial inventor, and you wouldn't know the difference. The paradox really isn't a paradox at all, the time stream wouldn't allow it to be. Time and space would be constant (for once...) to create the scenario where you originally went back. Killing one person in the past would not effect the present at all. If it did... well... that would just be silly.

Chaos theory at its finest. :wink:

Demonic Spoon · Joined: 20 Sep 2004 Posts: 6767 Location: Ohio

Pope Urban II

Ennoea · Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 1

I would hold up the guy who shot John Lennon, and try to dissuade him from doing the deed.. No need to shoot him..

Snarf · Joined: 10 Jan 2005 Posts: 5260

Ennoea wrote: I would hold up the guy who shot John Lennon, and try to dissuade him from doing the deed.. No need to shoot him..
Mark David Chapman, nutjob...

George W Bush · Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:22 pm Post subject:

ide kill Christ so he couldnt be tortured.

Kt · Joined: 23 Jan 2006 Posts: 3806

Andrew Jackson

Korimyr the Rat · Joined: 11 Jan 2006 Posts: 983 Location: Wyoming

The owner of the nearest gun shop.

There's no way in Hell I'm going to get an opportunity like that and settle for only killing one bastard.

Or I might just go back and kill Lucy out of morbid curiosity.

Robingoblin · Joined: 19 Feb 2006 Posts: 6

Well . . . holding the firm belief that time is inalterable because all possible events and all possible sequences of how the events may be viewed really exist simultaneously in a singularity. . . I would then have to say, Christ, just for the fun of it, or if the more recent past, possibly the first pop star I could find for therapeutic reasons. However, if I'm not right about time as a single moment, I would say that it would still make little difference whom I killed, because the most significant events in history are mass social movements that stem from the ideas and values of the times, so someone else would just fill the place of whichever "significant" person I chose to kill. . . And if I'm not right about the first two statements, I would think it too unwise to monkey around, knowing there was an even possibility that a greater ill may come of mine actions as a lesser.

LostSoul3412 · Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Posts: 7657

Very interesting points. Like my European History teacher used to say: "History cannot be confined to one person."

anonymous4reasons · Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 5

Muhammad from Mecca, wow I take the whole OTHER side of things...

Canadian_Patriot · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 323

If you traveled back and killed Hitler just before the war the Allies would have lost due to Hitlers overwhelming popularity at the time. Possibly under someone else the jews and other minorities would have lived. This is one possibility which means you create an alternate timeline. If someone traveled back and killed the time machine before you traveled back. You in that instance would remain the same but would cease to exist in any past timelines since you never went in the first place. Unless you managed to rebuild the time machine you will be stuck forever in an alternate timeline with 2 of you.

Om3ga · Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 48 Location: Manassas, Virginia

Too many choices, either the guy who killed Martin Luther King Jr., Christopher Columbus and so many others. I can't believe I can't remeber the guy who killed King.

NeedsREALfreedom · Joined: 04 Oct 2004 Posts: 1761 Location: MN, USA

First, time is unalterable. Suppose that someone went back to kill Hitler, there would always be something to prevent it, because time is a constant and our universe exists on a single time-line.

Second, If you could go back and kill someone, you could not predict the ramifications of what you're doing. Killing Hitler could prevent WW2 but it would put the soviets in the lead.

I take the Iraq War as an example. Nobody in the Bush administration had any idea that removing Saddam from power would result in the mess it is now, with the potential to spark yet another World War.

John Wilkes Booth · Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 394

Abraham Lincoln.