What would you do with a time machine?

[KingOrfeo]

Here are the rules:

1. You can only visit the past, not the future.

2. You cannot change the past. What happened happened. If you try to thwart the Lincoln assassination, events will unfold to thwart you.

3. You can do anything that does not change the past. You can bring back with you any artifact, art object or treasure not now known to be on display in a museum. You can seduce Cleopatra, if she'll have you. You can watch the premier performances of Shakespeare's plays, and videorecord them. You can shoot and bring back dinosaurs.

4. You are not necessarily safe. If you put a foot wrong, you can be killed and be dinosaur shit.

 

[Super-Surprise]

I would go back and visit the "Golden-age" of the Playground on Lit.

 

[Tryharder62]

I'd have a nice visit with my dad. Ask him all the questions I should have asked - like who is that in all the old family pictures? I have no clue. Give him one big hug and thank him again for being the best dad ever.

 

[Not Normal]

I'd probably go back to see a John Coltrane performance where the quartet played A Love Supreme. I'd bring back a Telefunken ELAM 251.

 

[Wrong Element]

Assuming that time travel could definitively answer whether or not there was a Resurrection, I'd start with that.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Assuming that time travel could definitively answer whether or not there was a Resurrection, I'd start with that.

You may assume that. You can watch Jesus crucified, watch him buried, and watch his tomb for as long as you have patience.

 

[Rightguide]

I'd go back to election night and watch the triggered turds on the left going apeshit again.

 

[Tryharder62]

Assuming that time travel could definitively answer whether or not there was a Resurrection, I'd start with that.

Ohhhh good one!

 

[KingOrfeo]

I would go back and visit the "Golden-age" of the Playground on Lit.

I'd probably go back to see a John Coltrane performance where the quartet played A Love Supreme. I'd bring back a Telefunken ELAM 251.

I'd go back to election night and watch the triggered turds on the left going apeshit again.

You can do all of those things now, without a time machine.

Some people have no imagination.

 

[Not Normal]

You can do all of those things now, without a time machine.

Some people have no imagination.

YouTube is NOT the same as being in a room as John Coltrane plays with the quartet.

 

[Wrong Element]

You can do all of those things now, without a time machine.

Some people have no imagination.

Actually, you do need an imagination to believe that there ever was a "Golden Age of the Playground."

 

[Hard_Rom]

The Resurrection would be a good one. Who killed William Rufus. How did Harold Godwinson actually die. That one could be dangerous. Did a Viking warrior single-handedly hold up the English army at Stanford Bridge. Was Canada actually named after the local native word for 'village'. Accompany Wolsely on his trip to Manitoba to defeat Riel. How did Gordon die in Khartoum. Another dangerous one.

 

[BotanyBoy]

I'd go to the future to watch the last human or whatever we evolve into if we are around much longer, die.

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

Go back in time and fix all the plot holes in time travel movies.

 

[Typo Fu Master]

Here are the rules:

1. You can only visit the past, not the future.

2. You cannot change the past. What happened happened. If you try to thwart the Lincoln assassination, events will unfold to thwart you.

3. You can do anything that does not change the past. You can bring back with you any artifact, art object or treasure not now known to be on display in a museum. You can seduce Cleopatra, if she'll have you. You can watch the premier performances of Shakespeare's plays, and videorecord them. You can shoot and bring back dinosaurs.

4. You are not necessarily safe. If you put a foot wrong, you can be killed.

Your rules invalidate the "cannot change the past" clause. If I can interact with Cleopatra, for example, then I can potentially change the future. I would have to be invisible and intangible to have no effect on the past. But let's assume nothing would change and I could visit anywhere and anywhen in the past.

Watching Jesus die and come back would not be half as interesting as seeing a virgin conception.

I'd like to know exactly where the holy grail is.

I'd like to witness the launch of Apollo 11.

I'd like to witness the first flight of the Wright brothers.

I'd like to see the Hindenburg go down. From a distance.

Since I can apparently bring back a souvenir, how about somebody that vanished without a trace? Like ... Amelia Earhart.

 

[werdsmith]

Powerball

 

[MNGuy]

Witnessing the Death and Resurrection of the Christ would be interesting.

I also could 'just happen' too film the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository on 11/22/63.

I think the Ark of the Covenant would be too hard to get to and bring back as a souvenir.

Powerball has been mentioned.

Buy Apple stock from Ronald Wayne.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

I would stop off to see all of the people who inspired the major religions.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Meeting Buddha would be cool. Might have to learn ancient Sanskrit though.

 

[Ms_Ann]

Destroy it.

 

[Phelia]

You've left soooo many rules unspecified, but it seems to be a fairly flexible arrangement so I'm going to do whatever I want. First, you didn't say that I could only take one trip, or indicate that the time machine belonged to anyone but me, so I'm going to wear that sumbitch into the ground (assuming it doesn't like, gradually give me radiation poisoning or run on dead puppies or anything terrible like that).

It also seems like this is more of a TARDIS than a time machine because people are able to zap themselves over to Israel (unless they need to travel to the location first and then travel through time which, ugh, lame), so I'm visiting all the fun things in the world.

Next, since you're allowed to bang people, I work my way through the list of anyone I've ever wanted to get naked with (Carl Sagan, Gregory Peck on the set of TKAM in character as Atticus Finch, Uhura-era Nichelle Nichols, etc.).

If the time machine has controls to enable a sort of fast-forward effect, I'd love to watch the formation of our solar system and some of my favo(u)rite nebulae and celestial objects (lookin' @ you, Hoag's). Then I'd go back to before the big bang, just to peer into time before itself, past the event horizon of a pre-forever.

Then I'd go get nachos.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I want to record the premiers of all Shakespeare's plays . . . and Marlowe's, and all the lesser-known playwrights of the time . . . and then visit New York in the glory days of vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Cleopatra was not really a beauty, and Helen of Troy never existed, but I'd like to bang Lauren Bacall.

 

[BattlingSoul]

Assuming that time travel could definitively answer whether or not there was a Resurrection, I'd start with that.

VERY interesting...

And if there was (and there WAS) - how would you live your present life differently?

 

[pointless]

i'd go fuck a flapper while high on coke and shitty weed.