One thing you would change in past history?

[zeppelin kid]

The way the world is going nowadays with global warming, terrorism, world powers, would you like to change a past event that could change todays history?

[Soberbeah]

let Amsterdam be our leading industrial power

[zeppelin kid]

So todays world is the best it ever could amount to huh, is that what your saying?

[TheMadcapSyd]

Nothnig at all, one small change in history could totaly alter the world as we know it.

[Wond'ringAloud]

Nothing! We should be learning from past mistakes, but we never do, so history keeps on repeating itself. So sad!

[DQ Veg]

Nothing! We should be learning from past mistakes, but we never do, so history keeps on repeating itself. So sad!That's even more intelligent than what I had planned to say, soo...never mind....

[YankNBurn]

The fact it started?

[rg paddler]

If I could I would have distracted Cyndi Lauper just at the moment she had the inspiration to write the song 'girls just wanna have fun' - I feel disgruntled from just mentioning the title.Sorry I thought of it in actual fact

[Supermegaman]

weed being legal in the us and we invented cool space ships and there were two moons instead of one and that jesus was mexican and jimmy hendrix stayed alive and that my family had a marijuana crop and that bush was never in the white and some other stuff too...

[hippietoad]

I would change the fact that Hitler was ever born.

[*ariana*]

me too...that's what I'd change...
I'd say in general I'd agree with Wond'ringAloud, that you shouldn't change anything but learn from the bad things that have happened, but in this case I don't think people ever will - with all those dictatorships that still exist in the world...with dictatorships there's always the danger that if this one person, the leader has some threatening ideas, the others are powerless to stop him from carrying out his ideas...at least, that's my opinion...
and besides the fact that only because of him so many people had to die, it's just sad to see that now many people seem to think bad of Germany and its inhabitants, that they they seem to think even my generation consists of skinheads and racists...
I've already encountered some people with the opinion....and usually one of the first questions, when you're in a froeign country, is :"what do you think about adolf hitler??" (imagine, one of my friends even heard this in france!!, I mean, we're like living one hour by car from the border...)
that's so sad...

[hippietoad]

Ariana,
I've never been to Germany so I'm not even going to try and pretend
I know how it feels to live where you do. But I can totally relate
to the stupid questions some people ask. What do they expect
you to say ? "Oh Hitler was a saint" ? I have a chat friend that
I've known for several years. He is from Germany. He is one
of the most peace loving, happy, non-violent people I know.
There are good people and bad in all countries. And one
of my pet peeves is how people question others as if we
were running these countries. It's like I always have said,
I don't care for politics...I think the majority of politicians
are dirty. I've heard so many people talk down about
my country when no doubt, their government
has done things they don't even know about.
Gheeze...I'm rambling on...but I do agree...As
long as there are dictators in this world,
no one will be free.

[Flight From Ashiya]

Stop Sir Walter Raleigh from demonstrating to Queen Elizabeth the inhaling of smoke from burnt tobacco leaves. http://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/mad.gif

[experimenting youth]

If I could change anything only one thing I would change poverty to no poverty and whats worse is its still going on, on a very large scale, and the average person in MEDC's (more economicaly developed countries) have more power to change it. so hopeful soon it will and i'll be able to say I helped stop it. For you to help change it look at my sig

[themnax]

i would chainge the edge that ever enabled there to be a greek empire that enabled there to be a roman empire. in that way christianity would never have been turned to the dark side of militance, the library at alexandria would never have been burned, minoen crete would never have fallen, the crete centered peaceful mediteranian sphere of influence and the la tene and britan co centered western europe sphere of influence would have been the peaceful, nonfanatical 'super powers' of what we now instead call the mid evil middle ages. without the fanatacism that defacto repressed the evolution of science and tecnology for most of nearly a thousand years, working steam power would have become common by the late 1100's or early 1200's and we'd be a space faring civilization out among the stars by now.

=^^=
.../\...

[lazysunbird]

I wish the 60's never ended. What a beautiful world we'd be living in right now.

[themnax]

I wish the 60's never ended. What a beautiful world we'd be living in right now.

which part of the 60s do you wish never ended?

do you mean hitchiking everywhere and not worrying about a lot of everyday things and free rock concerts in the park, a perfect strainger handing you a lit joint and telling you to take a hit and pass it on?

yah there was a lot of cool stuff about the 60s. but there was also nixxon in the white house, vietnam, ghetto riots, people being abused by authority for peacfuly objecting to outrage. a lot of the same things you are probably finding wrong with what is going on now, at least i know i do.

there WAS a spirit of mellowness though, among alternative young people, and you didn't have to be that young, statements about not trusting anyone over 30 aside, there were people who were a part of it who were then too.

there WERE people being hated for being mellow, but there were people being mellow too.

really the only thing the 'ended' that spirit, and only in a sense, in the sense you don't feel it so much any more, was the ragun khomanie shinnanigan ousted the improbable and unexpected myracal of carter.

international capitol economics could have collapsed then, and probably should have been allowed to, but we wouldn't have gotten these computers and this internet if it had. not for a few more decades anyway.

and i have to admit i so wanted them. but then i also DIDN'T want the way so much of the public transportation that existed in 1960 to be so far nearly gone by the end of the 80s.

it was a trade. but yes i'd rather have the spirit of mellowness, the interurban, AND the internet.

and i believe if it wasn't for aggressiveness having become romantacised some time back in the european middle ages we would have them, and the stars besides.

=^^=
.../\...

[revolution_time]

that JFK was never assassinated. that was really the beginning of the end of America.

[Charise]

that JFK was never assassinated. that was really the beginning of the end of America.My sentiments exactly.

[themnax]

that JFK was never assassinated. that was really the beginning of the end of America.

he was shot by accident with a gun intended to protect him and ozwald didn't have a damd thing to do with it, though he may well have had opportunity and supposedly motive. but the fatal shot didn't come from the tenth floor of a building which he may not even have been on at the time it happened.

but that wasn't the BEGINING of the end for america. mccarthyism was. at least the begging of the crap we've got now.

but even that may not have been the begining of the end of what america wouldhave couldhave shouldhave been.

presidents jackson and tyler and indigenous genocide may have been. or even the begining was itself the begining of the end.

people start dying by mico-milimiters as soon as they start living. perhaps nations do too.

but i still think you're looking way too short term to find underlying causes.

it goes all that way back to christianity having been born in a roman empire and that goes back to there even having been a roman empire.

rome and sparta and the romantacizing of aggressiveness; that's where humanity screwed up.

=^^=
.../\...

[guy]

when i saw the original question my immediate thought was - kennedy

[Raving Sultan]

I would give George Bush Sr. a vasectomy at a young age

[lazysunbird]

I would give George Bush Sr. a vasectomy at a young age
haha..if only you had a time machine!

[revolution_time]

i didn't say oswald did it. and, i mean, theres so many other factors that could come into play if you stopped the roman empire from ever beginning. it's not like the barbarians hated to fight or anything. the true beginning of the end of america may have come after FDR died. Truman was kept in the dark about so much, and i beleive it was then that the "powers that be" discovered how easy it is to manipulate the president, and the power of the industrial war machine. however, kenedy was attempting to get rid of all that. had he not died, he may have very well succeded. the CIA would have been disbanded, and we would have pulled out of vietnam. he was the youngest president ever, and symbol to the nation. he was in a position to do great things...obviously others thought differently.

[MikeE]

Had Kennedy lived, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and the great Society programs might not have passed the House and Senate. Johnson's southern-ness and the "holy" memory of the recently killed President Kennedy were factors in their passing.

[themnax]

revolution time and mikeE are both half right. kennidy was a child of the mccarthy era. his heart was in the right place but he was also learning and blundering as all humans do. he was a hero on what he did for civil rights and if he had lived he might well have gotten us out of nam and a lot of forign and domestic policy precident would be signifigantly different and hopefully better then what they have become.
it was also in a sense his own blundering that got us into viet nam in the first place though. grand assumptions and good intentions can do that some times.

fdr, truman, powers that are, ... all too true. but where did the core values, the priorities that created a market for all that come from?

that's where i go all the way back to grece and rome and perhaps even before.

the term barbarians is prejorative. rome MADE enimies and those enimies had legitimate grievances. i didn't mean to imply that everyone who didn't subscribe cities and empires was a long haired peacenic, but this bussiness of glorifying aggressiveness of a kind of conventionality of hierarchal soverignty, this backward headed nonsense that it is somehow desireable or honorable or bennificial to do so, this i think we can trace to the influences chronicaled by early greek observers whom western society seems to have, and i feel mystakenly, all but dieified.

=^^=
.../\...

[revolution_time]

now, i agree, the romans and the greeks were neither a "good" people. and they did romanticize warfare and all that came with it. But how would you explain the rest of the world then? Wars raged in Africa and Asia too, and they had no contact, or perhaps very little contact with Rome and Greece. So, you can't simply say that it has been Rome and Greece that have polluted our moral and ethical ideas. It seems to me that to make war is somewhat in human nature. it is the lure of power, or trying to maintain the power you already have, that drives men to such attrocities. and the term "barbarians" is just a quick and simple way to name all the nations and tribes that exsisted outside of Rome and Greece. And even during the time of Rome and the Greeks, the "barbarians" fought one another. They weren't living in peace before Rome and Greece. I could make the arguement, that had Rome or Greece not fallen, we would be living in a better world today. The world would not have had to endure almost a thousand years of the "medevil age". Reading, writing, and learning would have kept a much brighter flame for those thousand years had Rome or Greece survived.

[Freekske]

stop adam from fucking eve

[lalalamort]

Probably shoot george washington........hah

[Inquiring-Mind]

never be born.

[PawPaw]

We should have wiped out communist Russia while we had the chance in 1945.

[DrRobert]

JFK, RFK, and Martin the King would have never been assasinated...

[crummyrummy]

Jerry using heroin the first time.

[Peterness]

If I could change one thing in history it would be to remove the notion of Communism, Marx and Engels!

Without communism we'd never have had the Vietnam war, the Khmer Rogue and the Cambodian holocaust, the Chinese invasion and genocide of Tibet, gulags, the current Maoist insurgency in Nepal, all the conflicts in Latin America and Africa and well, it would've saved hundreds of millions of lives.

[revolution_time]

but peterness, the ideas of marxism and communism was a major force in shaping unions. our country was not too nice to the little guy in the late 1800's. marxism especially helped change many ideas about how to treat workers. or, if kennedy had lived, we wouldn't have gone into vietnam, and it is quite possiable america and russia would have formed an alliance.

[whereami]

I would change the fact that Hitler was ever born.

If Hitler was never born,then there would just be someone else in his place.

[MaximusXXX]

We should have wiped out communist Russia while we had the chance in 1945.
Go to hell, we would have slaughtered you like the pigs you are.

Now, if I could change one thing, I'd kill Gorbachev in the 70s.

[MikeE]

We should have wiped out communist Russia while we had the chance in 1945.
Lets see, an army occupying Japan and Oceania, another army in Europe.
Russia, largest country in the world, runs across the top of two continents, horrible weather. Supply lines from hell...

"while we had the chance"???!!??

Are you the guy that told Bush that Iraq would take "six months at the most"?

[TheMadcapSyd]

Are you the guy that told Bush that Iraq would take "six months at the most"?nah, i'm that guy, I also told Hitler he could be in Moscow in 7 weeks, and the French that the Germans would never attack through Belgium.

[fountains of nay]

the slave trade

[fistermister]

the slave tradeIn what country?????

[GermanLoveMachine]

Kill the bitch that invented the bra before she did it (dont remember her name but I know for sure it was a woman). Life would be MUCH MORE fun seeing all those boobs bouncing up and down constantly :cool:

[fountains of nay]

In what country?????
All that had a part in Slavery.

It's one thing in our (British) history that I am extremely ashamed of.

[fistermister]

All that had a part in Slavery.

It's one thing in our (British) history that I am extremely ashamed of. I don't mean to pry, but what is your opinion on colonialism?

I'm not British, and I sometimes wonder what people in Britain think of colonialism. I'm assuming there are differences of opinion, but do they generally view it positive?


Most people from the UK I have met don't really offer their opinions (possibly the smart thing to do).

[DirtyDave]

I wish the 60's never ended. What a beautiful world we'd be living in right now.
I agree. Imagine being able to go out and buy a new '63 split window Corvette or a SS427 Camaro. Never mind a Hemi Charger or a Cobra.

I wish I had been alive in the time when muscle cars ruled the earth.

Some of the most exciting cars ever built, the world will never see days like that again.

[steffan]

prevent the attempted genacide of the kelt people.

[Free_love_peace224]

you can't change the past; so why?

[Free_love_peace224]

Originally Posted by lazysunbird
I wish the 60's never ended. What a beautiful world we'd be living in right now.

I agree. Imagine being able to go out and buy a new '63 split window Corvette or a SS427 Camaro. Never mind a Hemi Charger or a Cobra.

I wish I had been alive in the time when muscle cars ruled the earth.

Some of the most exciting cars ever built, the world will never see days like that again.

oh c'mon man! the 60's was about peace and freewill that's what i miss and if i could change the past then i would never have invented cars because just like my good friend "crazy legs" says...ITS ALL THE CARS DAMMIT PLEASE GET RID OF YOUR DAMN CAR!

[Slothguy]

Get rid of religion. Without religion the world would have been a far better place.

[dirtydog]

It would be nice if some of our more prominent murderers had had a change of heart before the fact:
Sirhan Sirhan (murderer of Robert Kennedy)
Mark Chapman (murderer of John Lennon)
Harry Truman (murderer of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians)
Ted Bundy (murderer of 40 young women)
Reinhard Heydrich (the Protector of Austria and Czechoslovakia under Hitler)
Heinrich Himmler (sieg heil)
Isoraku Yamamoto (commander of Pearl Harbor attack)
Josef Dzugashivili (aka Josef Stalin)
Vladimir Ulyanov (aka Vladimir Lenin)
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Seung Hui Cho (Virginia Tech)

and the list could go on a lot longer but you get the idea.

[Hiplikethat]

The way the world is going nowadays with global warming, terrorism, world powers, would you like to change a past event that could change todays history?
the only thing i see that can change todays history is technology in general yes there has been several things like terrorism and slavery and things such as that but it is when technology gave us the oppurtunity to do such things that we become aware of the other curropt things and then do them
its almost crazy we all gonna kill ourselves

[RAINBOWWAVES]

I would tell the africans not to sell their people to the dutch to bring to america. I would tell the Jews not to go into Germany.

[themnax]

the RISE of the greek and roman empires and the romatacizing of aggressiveness.

that's where we really went wrong in the first place. and the meddling of time travellers may even have had something to do with it.

=^^=
.../\...

[RAINBOWWAVES]

Does anyone know why Hitler did what he did, or is everyone comfortable that he was evil for the hell of it?

[MaximusXXX]

Now, if I could change one thing, I'd kill Gorbachev in the 70s.
I'd like to change my vote, I'd like to change it to me going back in time and ripping the testicles and penis of John Locke leaving him to bleed to death, when he's, oh I don't know, before he wrote his most famous works, let's say age 25.

[RAINBOWWAVES]

You got that rightGet rid of religion. Without religion the world would have been a far better place.Everyone "thinks" they're right and no one "thinks" they're wrong, so there's no winning for losing...people fighting over an invisable force...absolutely no proof what so ever!

[RAINBOWWAVES]

Kill the bitch that invented the bra before she did it (dont remember her name but I know for sure it was a woman). Life would be MUCH MORE fun seeing all those boobs bouncing up and down constantly :cool:ACTUALLY A MAN INVENTED IT...lol

[mudkipz]

Does anyone know why Hitler did what he did, or is everyone comfortable that he was evil for the hell of it?
At some point, it could probably be the environment he grew up in. Maybe that gave him the idea that they were far superior than Jews.

[mudkipz]

I'd probably change the way the Philippines turned out to be, starting from a major revision in pre-history (like the written language and written, factual history) then some minor changes from then on up to the time when the Americans colonized us. That way, the Filipinos would have a stronger sense of identity and wouldn't go bumbling about who we really are.

[WVHippie]

Save John Lennon and Martin Luther King Jr.

[nolifer]

both the nazis and the communists should have destroyed each other in WW2
then the world would be a lot better place

[dirtydog]

never be born.There was a young fellow named Lorne,
Who wished that he'd never been born.
He wouldn't have been
If his parents had known
That the tip of the condom was torn.

[dirtydog]

I'd like to change my vote, I'd like to change it to me going back in time and ripping the testicles and penis of John Locke leaving him to bleed to death, when he's, oh I don't know, before he wrote his most famous works, let's say age 25.This is an ugly and hateful thing to post on a forum such as this. Locke was a philosopher, and not one of the worst at that. Why are you bothering us with this type of sentiment? I'm reporting a bad post.

[MaximusXXX]

This is an ugly and hateful thing to post on a forum such as this. Locke was a philosopher, and not one of the worst at that. Why are you bothering us with this type of sentiment? I'm reporting a bad post.
He's considered by many ( not all ) as the father of Liberal Democracy.

Liberal Democracy is the most idiotic form of government ever imagined.

[themnax]

one thing i would certainly chainge is the roll of 'mainstream' 'historians' of inventing the past to suit the idiological whims of politically dominant forces.

=^^=
.../\...

[dirtydog]

He's considered by many ( not all ) as the father of Liberal Democracy.

Liberal Democracy is the most idiotic form of government ever imagined.You agree with Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), Josef Dzughashvili (Stalin), Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Robert Mugabe, Muhammad, Ayatollah Khomeini, Pol Pot, Osama Bin Laden and Ho Chi Minh. You are also posting on a free speech forum. What are you doing here?

[MaximusXXX]

You agree with Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), Josef Dzughashvili (Stalin), Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Robert Mugabe, Muhammad, Ayatollah Khomeini, Pol Pot, Osama Bin Laden and Ho Chi Minh. You are also posting on a free speech forum. What are you doing here?
Don't forget Tito, Mussolini, Albert-Rene, Castro and Putin, to name a few more.

http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn210singaporeed

Check that out, I don't think the guy who runs that country like Locke all that much either.

[J0hn]

I would change people's view on the original channel tunnel. THis would have led to a unity of France and the UK. So we wouldn't need a passport to cross a small estuary.

[cogliostro]

Ward off the extinction of dinosaurs?

[CSP101]

Put a tracking device on every piece of gold ever harvested

[TheMadcapSyd]

Put a tracking device on every piece of gold ever harvestedwhat?

[dirtydog]

Don't forget Tito, Mussolini, Albert-Rene, Castro and Putin, to name a few more.

http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn210singaporeed

Check that out, I don't think the guy who runs that country like Locke all that much either.I haven't a clue who Albert-Rene is, but I enjoyed your Singapore article. I suspect Singaporans (if that is the right word) are ethnically homogeneous and have a solid work ethic. Furthermore Lee is going in the right direction on the family planning and tobacco issues.

What will happen if Singapore has a substantial economic crisis remains to be seen.

As for our lists of bad guys, anyone can make them longer. But how can we make them shorter?

[bkcmar]

go back in my time machine rended sterile the father of hitler.

[The Scribe]

If Hitler was never born,then there would just be someone else in his place.

Who? Neither Joseph Goebbels nor Ernst Roehm had Hitler's unique talent for evil. If Hitler had been killed in World War I the Second World War would not have happened. Japan would still have invaded China, but with no war in Europe it would have been easier for the United States and Great Britain to force the Japanese out.

[thehippie_08]

manbearpig.

[Crazy Horse]

I would join Tecumseh's confederacy, and be his personal advisor from the future.

[questing400]

Nope. Not a thing. Thanks, but the G.O.D. is smarter than you and the G.O.D. is smarter than me.

[dirtydog]

Does anyone know why Hitler did what he did, or is everyone comfortable that he was evil for the hell of it?
That's a complex question. William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" might help you with it. "Mein Kampf" should be read also.
Hitler had a virility problem. He was suspected of murder, or conspiracy to murder, in the deaths of two mistresses: Geli Raubal and Renate Mueller. Something was wrong below the belt.

In "Mein Kampf" he goes on and on about the virile, honorable, right living soldier. He confuses, sometimes in the same sentence, the Jewish Threat, the Communist Threat, and the International Capitalist Conspiracy, all of which he says are keeping the poor German worker down.

He was also an extremely effective public speaker, perhaps the most successful public speaker in the twentieth century.

However, Hitler and his subordinates have to be looked at as evil. They conspired to destroy civilization, and millions of Allied soldiers and civilians had to die in order to stop them.

[cecily]

keep gavrilo princip from getting tuberculosis! so much bad stuff...

[Padme]

I would change the fact that Hitler was ever born.

That's an idea that is very big in philosophy, especially the idea of going back in time and killing Hilter as a baby. Are people born evil or do certain experiences at certain times cause evil ideas to arise. There has also been the dicussion of how Hitler's mom was to blame because she bore him. But how can anyone possibly know that there child is going to be evil?

[Harpo]

I'd like to make sure religions didn't get started. Religious belief has been a major cause of most of the wars and empires in history.


As for the Hitler discussion - if you've read history you'll know that in 1912 Hitler spent a year or so living in Vienna, where anti-semitic propanda was rife. He was initially appalled, but eventually persuaded by the propangandists there.
Without Hitler, nothing would have changed except that small moustaches wouldn't have gone out of fashion.

[PerfectChaos8095]

I'd either change that Lennon was assassinated or get rid of religion.

[orison319]

http://msp217.photobucket.com/albums/cc166/Incarnal/the_huge_manatee.jpg

Id prevent this... :D

[marysoul]

We learn from mistakes if there are no problems, then there is nothing to fix and i have a feeling that would cause problems.Because some people get bored and make up problems like evil potheads and durranged girls running around braless or the crazy gum chewers, chewing on their gum...it's crazy........

[Shaw-Min]

I would take out the ancient Jew's exodus from Egypt, and then see how much different the modern world would be.

[prana]

I'd make it so that the Roman empire never even existed

[TheMadcapSyd]

I'd make it so that the Roman empire never even existed

Why?

[prana]

I just think if you take them out of the picture, a lot of other bad things probably woudln't have happened. Yeshua wouldn't have been killed, many native europeans (pagans) wouldn't have been slaughtered, you probably wouldn't have islam, WW1 (where the germans were allied with the ottoman empire) probably would have been more tame, and hence, maybe even WW2 could be eliminated. I just thought about it for a while, and I think getting rid of them would cause a chain reaction.

[Shaw-Min]

I'd make it so that the Roman empire never even existed

Or prevent it's collapse. That would be even more interesting.