# If a time traveler from the future showed up in our world today,..... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 18, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444 "2004-08-18T19:59:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/41 "2004-08-20T01:37:46Z")
Fat people. Soon enough we will find a cure for obesity (no need for dieting and exersise!). ---
**Author:** ![ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZombiesAteMyBrain)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/42 "2004-08-20T01:51:58Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > And I don’t think there will ever be a true “cure” for homelessness. Even in such places as the rigidly controlled economy of the Soviet Union they had homelessness. Reminds me of a Babylon 5 episode “When did we get rid of homelessness?” “When we rewrote the dictionary” ---
**Author:** ![Pyrrhonist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pyrrhonist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyrrhonist)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/43 "2004-08-20T02:04:35Z")
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Other theistic faiths as well. > [@FriarTed](#): > > Abortion for anything but dire physical health reasons. Forcing women to bear unwanted babies would probably be in the top 10 of most barbarous acts witnessed by a time traveler. > [@Ethilrist](#): > > I’d shoot him and see if anybody’s grandfather fell over dead. No, you research his family tree, then shoot a direct ancestor. See what happens. A temporal paradox loop would be a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/44 "2004-08-20T02:22:23Z")
> [@flamingbananas](#): > > Fat people. Soon enough we will find a cure for obesity (no need for dieting and exersise!). Actually, they have those now, as long as you don’t mind spending 5 hours a day on the can. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/45 "2004-08-20T04:25:58Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > Reality TV. I’m not a time traveler and I can’t help but be emberresed by it. Aw you beat me to it. And when they find out Jerry Springer was once Mayor of Cincinnati it would be all over. They’d vaporize the planet. I suspect their real reason for going back in time would be to cut in line at the E-check station. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/46 "2004-08-20T05:24:48Z")
Our toilet facilities. No matter how advanced the facilities are, now matter what _culture_ they’re from. Sweating. Scalp hair. (Especially on women.) Governments _not_ run wholly by AI computers. (“Colossus in '92!”) Keyboards. Socks. Underwear. The utter lack of chimpanzee slave laborers to do all the scut work. Projectile weapons. (Not because the future is more peaceful, or anything…it’ll be because they’ve finally invented workable death rays.) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/47 "2004-08-20T06:05:54Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Aw you beat me to it. And when they find out Jerry Springer was once Mayor of Cincinnati it would be all over. They’d vaporize the planet. I would think Schwarzenegger being Governor of California would be a bigger insult. At least Springer held elected office BEFORE he was a celebrity. (And if they do vaporize the planet, they’ll off themselves as well. Take that, bastards!) ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/48 "2004-08-20T06:23:00Z")
All those species of birds, animals and plants we have killed off. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/49 "2004-08-20T14:55:35Z")
> [@blinx](#): > > Sex for reproducing. So it would be just for fun then? Kick ass! ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/50 "2004-08-20T21:02:32Z")
I’m going to add to the list: **Personal Motor Vehicles**. Sure… let everyone, even the most minimally trained inattentive moron, strap a ton of steel and aluminum to their asses and fling themselves down alleyways crowded with similar people, [tens of thousands of whom die annually](http://www.nhtsa.gov/hot/pressdisplay.cfm?year=2004&filename=pr35-04.html) as a result, not to mention the millions injured. And then, because these collisions happen so frequently, local media make scheduled realtime reports of the chaos they cause, frequently referring to the scenes of twisted metal and broken glass with cute, innocuous euphemisms. And on the [occasions where someone is killed](http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&tab=wn&scoring=d&q=deadly+freeway+accident&btnG=Search+News), mourn their deaths, but avoid any examination as to the sanity of the system. 14 times as many people were killed on the highways in 2003 than were killed in the WTC attacks in 2001. Yet there is no war on unsafe driving. We have such a double standard, and we blithely keep driving along, willfully ignoring the hazards. Yet let a mosquito borne illness kill two elderly people, and the whole damn society is terrorised by “West Nile Virus.” It’s barbaric, and insane. ---
**Author:** ![Trillionaire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@Trillionaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trillionaire)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/51 "2004-08-21T11:26:36Z")
> [@Jackknifed Juggernaut](#): > > … which of our practices would strike him as most barbarous? > > The author of this: [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/magazine/15IDEA.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/15/magazine/15IDEA.html) asks that question. He then answers it with “punishment by imprisonment”. He gives some darn good reasons on why I don’t want to register; could someone give me the gist of this argument? My answer: people killing each other because of religion. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/52 "2004-08-21T11:42:12Z")
Hope I’m not getting whooshed. > [@bughunter](#): > > And on the [occasions where someone is killed](http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&tab=wn&scoring=d&q=deadly+freeway+accident&btnG=Search+News), mourn their deaths, but avoid any examination as to the sanity of the system. What part of the sanity of the system needs fixing? > [@](#): > > 14 times as many people were killed on the highways in 2003 than were killed in the WTC attacks in 2001. Yet there is no war on unsafe driving. How would you do that? > [@](#): > > We have such a double standard, and we blithely keep driving along, willfully ignoring the hazards. Yet let a mosquito borne illness kill two elderly people, and the whole damn society is terrorised by “West Nile Virus.” The hype over that was nuts, but the fact that something happens a lot doesn’t mean it’s dangerous. WNV got attention because it was unusual and random. Everybody knows car accidents happen, so usually they aren’t news. And people need to drive, which is why they accept the risk. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/53 "2004-08-21T11:48:53Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > Two-hundred years ago, slavery and childlabour were normal. Those have been abolished. Yeh, you think about that for a second. And remember that America is not the only continent. I think they’d find our massive computers very weird. “What you mean like that thing there only runs at 2.4 gHz? Man, my wrist watch runs 8 x 10^6 times faster than that!” ---
**Author:** ![smartini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@smartini](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smartini)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/54 "2004-08-21T18:14:17Z")
I can see 2 **Time Travelers** reading the _Science_ section of our history and having the following conversation: TT1: “Wow, some of them appeared to understand things like the Sterling engine, and even cold fusion.” TT2: “Really? Then I wonder why they continued to destroy their planet by their reliance on fossil fuels?” TT1: “My point exactly. This is really strange behavior; makes no sense.” TT2: “Yeah, I know, let’s see if we can find a cite on the subject in the _Corporate Business_ or \*Political \* sections of their history to explain this phenomenon.” ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/55 "2004-08-21T18:32:13Z")
I’ll put in a vote for our death and burial practices. I imagine bodies being used as medical resources, or simply being incinerated or processed into tasty green wafers when there’s no useful tissue left. The waste of land and caskets, stones, landscaping, etc. are enormous. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/56 "2004-08-21T18:53:43Z")
> [@Sean Factotum](#): > > No No No. You’d have to start shooting grandfathers and see if _he_ fell over. > > So I’m thinking this time traveler would really object to the random shooting of potential grandfathers. Actually, grandfathers would have already passed on their genes – so really, you’d have to start shooting little kids. Don’t blame me. Blame the scientific method. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/57 "2004-08-21T19:47:40Z")
> [@wolfstu](#): > > Except, says my biology teacher, particular amino acids we can only get from animal flesh or animal by-products like milk and honey. Cite? As far as I know, soy (among other non-animal products) contains complete protein, ie protein containing all amino acids humans need. (I’ve never actually been able to find out exactly how many of these there are. Some say 5, some say 50, but everyone seems to agree that soy contains them all.) > [@FriarTed](#): > > Abortion for anything but dire physical health reasons Well, yes, but only because in the future no-one who doesn’t want to get pregnant will. > [@KarlWinslow](#): > > I’ll posit a ridiculous radical Vision of Tomorrow in which when we run out of fossil fuels, we’re all going to have to go back to pre-industrial revolution ways of life, living like the Amish, farming for subsistence, which is going to necessitate a return to much more traditionalistic social mores. Why would this _necessitate_ a return to more traditionalistic social mores? Why would we have to give up same-sex marriage or keep religion? **Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor** , try travelling back a thousand years and tell them what life now is like. They’d think you were talking about the ultimate utopia. Things get better and better all the time, with occasional lapses like the Holocaust. As for my own opinions on the matter, I’ll just second things like religion, surgery, cruel treatments of animals and all that jazz. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2004, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/58 "2004-08-22T00:03:27Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > Why would this _necessitate_ a return to more traditionalistic social mores? Why would we have to give up same-sex marriage or keep religion? You’re right…we might end up with an agrarian, non-technological _hippie_ society, or something. ::shudder:: If that’s what human civilization had going for it, I think I’d defect to Skynet. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/59 "2004-08-22T18:29:45Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > … If that’s what human civilization had going for it, I think I’d defect to Skynet. 😃 I am LOVING visualising someone trying to defect to Skynet. A guy stood on the roof of his house as the missiles fall, shouting “I _know!_ I _agree_ with you!” Or same guy, same speech, while the Terminator is trying to turn him into minced dude. ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444/60 "2004-08-22T21:17:49Z")
I know this isn’t GQ, but I thought I’d just clear up the amino acids question. We can get all the amino acids our own bodies can’t synthesize just by eating balance vegetarian diets. Some of the amino acids, lysine and tryptophan, aren’t very well represented in plants, but they are there. So technically, no, there’s no real reason to eat meat, at least for nutritional value, but I can’t imagine that we’ll stop any time soon. Maybe we’ll lower our consumption of meat, but I doubt it’ll all be over. As for the most horrifying thing of our time, I’d go with the Atkin’s diet. I can’t help but think that the timetraveler will come down and say, “You mean you actually eat sandwiches without bread but still have the balls to call them sandwiches?” Oh, and it’s 9 amino acids that can’t be made from precursors in the human body. The rest of them we can put together from other stuff. Those 9 we need to have whole. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-time-traveler-from-the-future-showed-up-in-our-world-today/260444.md?page=4)