# What gadget would you bring on your time-travel trip? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 29, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839 "2005-03-29T22:06:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [March 31, 2005, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/21 "2005-03-31T06:49:32Z")
If I was feeling responsible? I’d go back with a whiskey bottle full of VX, and bust it open when Mrs. Bin Laden is in the delivery room in 1957. Of course, knowing my luck, when I got back to the present, I’d find out that the Taliban (which the U.S. now never toppled), launched a people’s crusade to retake Kashmir in 2003, which lead to a nuclear war killed half the population of Asia. (Not counting cholera, plague, and famine deaths because of the loss of infrastructure.) :smack: OK, maybe I’d go back with a laptop loaded with some cleverly reedited footage from the _Terminator_ and _Matrix_ movies, and visit Bill Gates when he’s a college freshman and tell him that he’s responsible for building the machines that rose up and destroyed human civilization in 1995. …And when I get back, he’ll have either turned into a neo-luddite terrorist who’s killed hundreds, or he became an Amish monk and _Apple_ became a bloated monopoly that was content to rest on it’s laurels and technologically stagnate once it gained total market dominance, and now the best PC available to the public is a “Macintosh IVc” with a 100mhz CPU, a 16-color monitor, optional sound card, and it hasn’t been updated since it was released in 2001. :smack: :smack: Some times you just can’t win. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/22 "2005-03-31T13:24:15Z")
A hommade [multiharddrive PVRs](http://www.byopvr.com/), so that I can sneak into TV studios and record all the great show you can get today. Nothing to do with bring down organized religion at all, really. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/23 "2005-03-31T17:02:14Z")
Economics textbooks as far back as I could go; i.e., 1905. Thus we could avoid the ridiculous monetary policies that gave us the Great Depression. **WAIT!** Only one thing/gadget? I would bring a box full of history books to those who designed the treaty at the end of WWI. Maybe we could avoid WWII. That’d be nice. Alternatively, a box full of history books on the horrors of the various communists holcousts (sp?). Prevent those would be nice, too. ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/24 "2005-03-31T17:08:33Z")
I would head back to the 1920’s with a fully loaded laptop, and see if Tesla would trade it for one of his “death rays.” ---
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/25 "2005-03-31T22:01:22Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The OP says 100 years, so we can’t do Jesus or my smart ass remark, pennecillin. > > I’d take some kind of record to Lincoln and see if he couldn’t talk the Union back together. Ahem… [Lincoln](http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html) 1809-1865. Unless you’re posting with a computer and internet connection that can post in 2005 from 1965. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/26 "2005-03-31T23:28:37Z")
Gee, no one’s gonna go back and murder little you-know-whom, or prevent his conception? (and no, I’m not saying his name, thereby ruining this whole time-travel adventure for everyone) Me, I’d make a serious attempt to take back whatever would be necessary to remove George Gershwin’s brain tumor. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/27 "2005-03-31T23:30:24Z")
No, we can only go back a hundred years, an—Oh, you mean him! Good idea! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/28 "2005-03-31T23:48:56Z")
I’d act out Larry Niven’s _The Return of William Proxmire_, with a syringe of pennecillin, and meet LTjg Heinlein on the deck of the USS Roper in 1923, IIRC. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/29 "2005-04-01T00:01:36Z")
Hmm…good question. I think I’d go back about a year and three months and tell myself not to screw up with a girl I have a crush on. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/30 "2005-04-01T00:53:35Z")
> [@butler1850](#): > > Ahem…Unless you’re posting with a computer and internet connection that can post in 2005 from 1965. 🙂 Hoist with mine own petard. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839/31 "2005-04-01T00:58:08Z")
Aw, screw it. I’ll take the damn _Time Machine_ ™ back to 1905 with me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gadget-would-you-bring-on-your-time-travel-trip/296839.md?page=1)