# Screwing up the world with time travel **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449 "2012-10-11T19:15:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/41 "2012-10-13T01:18:55Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > Solipsistic much? Does it make you uncomfortable knowing that you are the product of my imagination? I imagine it does…🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/42 "2012-10-13T01:46:13Z")
I vote Euclid. Considered to be one of the founding fathers of math, geometry, and scientific thought. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/43 "2012-10-13T02:12:26Z")
> [@Mnemnosyne](#): > > I’m agreeing with taking out Octavian/Augustus Caesar before Actium. Although the Roman empire later survived lots of corruption, it only became as strong as it was largely through Augustus Caesar’s leadership. _different._ Not so sure about that, Mark Antony wanted to set up his sons and Caesarion as hereditary rulers. Caesarion could have as much or more popular appeal than Octavian as the actual flesh and blood son of Caesar. Octavian was certainly desperately afraid of him. If Caesarion had turned out to have his fathers skill with generalship the empire could have ended up even powerful and lasted even longer than it did. interesting discussion here: [http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=108110](http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=108110) ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/44 "2012-10-13T03:42:36Z")
Go back and kill Able before Cain can do it. so instead of “Am I my brother’s keeper?” we get “I swear, this dude just appeared out of nowhere and then was like all 'Pew pew pew” and Able just vanished leaving just a faint smell of cumin in the air and then the guy was gone." ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/45 "2012-10-13T04:03:26Z")
If we limit ourselves to the last 750 years? can you prevent the domination of the globe by european powers if you pick one individual or put back the renaissance or industrial revolution by a few hundred years? i don’t think you can, there’s too many potentials taking out any one wouldn’t stop the tide. zapping Martin Luther thus preventing the reformation and having a much stronger and more anti-science church might work. In that scenario either China or the Ottoman empire might beat Christian europe to the industrial revolution and dominate the world for the next few hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/46 "2012-10-13T12:05:10Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > In that scenario either China or the Ottoman empire might beat Christian europe to the industrial revolution and dominate the world for the next few hundred years. I doubt it because neither China nor the Ottoman empire showed much inclination to develop an industrial revolution. At most, you delay why Europe did develop for a few more centuries of stasis, then things happen more or less as they did. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/47 "2012-10-13T13:14:46Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > What happens if I kill the guy who would have invented the time machine? Nothing, the time machine is equipped with paradox elimination technology. Killing the time machine inventor would still leave that time machine in existence. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/48 "2012-10-13T13:17:23Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > If we limit ourselves to the last 750 years? can you prevent the domination of the globe by european powers if you pick one individual or put back the renaissance or industrial revolution by a few hundred years? > > i don’t think you can, there’s too many potentials taking out any one wouldn’t stop the tide. zapping Martin Luther thus preventing the reformation and having a much stronger and more anti-science church might work. In that scenario either China or the Ottoman empire might beat Christian europe to the industrial revolution and dominate the world for the next few hundred years. Could killing Elizabeth I or Francis Drake prevented or delayed the rise of the British Empire? What about killing Rodrigo Borgia before he became a cardinal? How would that have changed Europe? Would France have sacked Italy? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/49 "2012-10-13T17:05:42Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I doubt it because neither China nor the Ottoman empire showed much inclination to develop an industrial revolution. Neither did western europe while we had a feudal slave like serf class. Then that changed quickly within 200 years from 1500-1700 and the renaissance happened. The point it you can’t say what would have happened if other cultures had had 200-300 years more to develop before being overrun by western colonialism. ---
**Author:** ![jacobsta811](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jacobsta811/32/2893_2.png) [@jacobsta811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacobsta811)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/50 "2012-10-13T20:02:33Z")
Is this a smart time machine, that can figure out who the person I name even is in the first place ? I’d go kill Mitochondrial Eve - probably still be human beings alive today, but a completely different set with a completely different world history. Would we have already colonized the stars, or would humanity still be back in the stone age ? > **[Mitochondrial Eve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve)** > > In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (also mt-Eve, mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman. > In terms of mitochondrial haplogroups, the mt-MRCA is situated at the divergence of macro-haplogroup L into L0 and L1–6. As of 2013... ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/51 "2012-10-13T22:25:53Z")
I don’t argee that ruining the rise of Christianity would somehow scew up today’s world like many people have suggested. Before Christianity religion was confined to superstition and small cults. We had the amazing advances of the Phoenicians, ancient Egyptians, the Greeks and to some extent the Romans. Then Christianity took hold and progress went backwards for centuries. The Dark Ages were indeed dark. If you want to screw up today’s world you don’t have to go back very far, kill Alan Turing in the 1930s. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/52 "2012-10-13T22:41:41Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > kill Alan Turing in the 1930s. I’m a massive Turing fan, and this strikes me as the biggest dick move in the thread so far. Not because of the consequences of his not being there to develop computing or break Enigma and Lorenz, but just that Alan Turing had such a sad life, and was essentially tortured to death by the State. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449/53 "2012-10-14T02:10:23Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > I don’t argee that ruining the rise of Christianity would somehow scew up today’s world like many people have suggested. Possibly you’re right but I was going for “most radically different” change from one person. Lets Assume that without Saul / Paul, Christianity stays as a cult that required people to first become Jewish, follow Jewish dietary laws etc. The cult of Mithraism / Sol Invictus was the most popular pagan cult in the later roman empire, but as far as we know it didn’t want to recruit universally like Christianity did, it was aimed at soldiers and public servants, slaves almost certainly wouldn’t have been welcome to join. My guess is that no religion would have dominated western europe, people would pay token observance to Sol Invictus (basically emperor worship) and then there would be hundreds of local deities. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screwing-up-the-world-with-time-travel/637449.md?page=2)