# You're a Dick With a Time Machine-what do you do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 7, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653 "2011-06-07T19:50:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/61 "2011-06-08T18:04:15Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > FTFY. Don’t change text inside the quote boxes, **Clothahump**. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/62 "2011-06-08T18:17:53Z")
If I was Dick Van Dyke, I’d go back in time and move that damn ottoman. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/63 "2011-06-08T18:30:54Z")
I’d go back to colonial Boston just before Paul Revere’s ride in 1775 and force him at gunpoint to go confront the British and tell them they ain’t takin away our rights. Of course, with my luck when I got back Sarah Palin would be erroneously telling everyone about how Paul Revere “warned the Americans about the British coming”. ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/64 "2011-06-08T18:40:43Z")
I’d show famous historical figures movies about their lives. Think of how, say, Alexander the Great would react to knowing how he dies. ---
**Author:** ![Damfino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Damfino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damfino)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/65 "2011-06-08T18:52:39Z")
Not original , but: I’d visit Samuel Taylor Coleridge while he was composing a poem and pretend to be from Porlock. What? ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/66 "2011-06-08T19:16:53Z")
Dress up as Godot and go meet Vladimir and Estragon. And quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/67 "2011-06-08T19:17:27Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > I’d identify all the greatest scientific, moral, artistic, and political leaders in the last two thousand years and dust their underwear liberally with itching powder. Daily. Fuck you, progress! That does two things. First it explains why I’ve been scratching so much and second, it makes me feel special to know that I’m one of the greatest scientific, moral, artistic, and/or political leaders in the past 2,000 years! Or I just have jock itch. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/68 "2011-06-08T19:43:11Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Dress up as Godot and go meet Vladimir and Estragon. And quickly. Out of curiosity, are you going to the past or the future to meet them? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/69 "2011-06-08T20:20:22Z")
To REALLY be a dick? Tell Oskar Schindler to hire Poles, not Jews, for his factories. Appeal to his sense of honor that he shouldn’t employ slave labor. Convince the Japanese army to ignore John Rabe’s “safe zone” in Nanking. Show them a book about what Rabe’s Nazis will do in Europe. Publish Underground Railroad station locations in 1850’s newspapers. Alert the Flight 93 hijackers to prevent passengers from using phones. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/70 "2011-06-08T20:42:26Z")
If one believes in both a historical Jesus and transubstantiation, giving Jesus a nasty strain of HIV has to rate high on the dickometer. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/71 "2011-06-08T20:49:01Z")
Go back three weeks and tell Anthony Weiner not to upload my picture to Twitter. ---
**Author:** ![Labtrash](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/labtrash/32/528_2.png) [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/72 "2011-06-08T23:26:15Z")
Find the Rosetta Stone as it was being made, and add Esperanto and Klingon translations to it. ---
**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:** [June 9, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/73 "2011-06-09T00:56:26Z")
Add modern trace elements to the paints of several classical painters, so all their major works test as forgeries. Give a medieval alchemist a sample of gallium, tell him it’s quicksilver that’s been _partially_ ennobled into gold, then watch him go crazy trying to duplicate it. Tell the Confedate sympathizer mobs in Maryland about the nighttime train that Lincoln is sneaking into Washington DC on. Leak Rudolph Hess’s peace proposal to the public, so Churchill will come under pressure to end the war with Germany by a truce. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/74 "2011-06-09T01:08:19Z")
Inside Al Capone’s Vault: A huge banner, reading “Geraldo is a Doofus” And behind that, the 18 and a half minutes of missing Watergate tapes and Jimmy Hoffa’s body ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/75 "2011-06-09T01:12:40Z")
A bit off topic, but I read this on facebook the other day (paraphrased): “I’m going to use age progression software on my two year and put the resulting photo on the mantel. He’ll see it all the time as he’s growing up and eventually he will realize that it’s him. Then I’ll convince him that he’s a time traveler” ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/76 "2011-06-09T04:19:26Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > FTFY. You’re \*comparing \*[44](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama) to [43](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush). :smack: You do realize this, right? ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/77 "2011-06-09T13:33:43Z")
I’d hang out with Sir Newton and perssuade him to take a seat under the cherry tree. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/78 "2011-06-09T14:20:08Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > A bit off topic, but I read this on facebook the other day (paraphrased): > > “I’m going to use age progression software on my two year and put the resulting photo on the mantel. He’ll see it all the time as he’s growing up and eventually he will realize that it’s him. Then I’ll convince him that he’s a time traveler” Taking photos of really obese old people and then showing them the pics when they’re still young and slim would be pretty dickish. Even worse is showing them photos like, “Here you are after you lose your leg to diabetes.” ---
**Author:** ![Hogfather65](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/7bcc69/32.png) [@Hogfather65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hogfather65)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/79 "2011-06-09T14:28:31Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Taking photos of really obese old people and then showing them the pics when they’re still young and slim would be pretty dickish. Even worse is showing them photos like, “Here you are after you lose your leg to diabetes.” Comeing from a diabetic - not Obese or legless :dubious: - I think that would qualify as dickish - funny but dickish 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2011, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653/80 "2011-06-09T14:53:20Z")
Get Jesus hooked on heroin. Warn the Germans about D-day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-dick-with-a-time-machine-what-do-you-do/584653.md?page=5)