Comments on: Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip

Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip

squink — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:34:00 -0800

If Metafilter did time travel, it might end up like Desmond Warzel's Wikihistory. It's a short piece in the latest issue of Abyss and Apex and features snippets from the WWII subforum of the International Association of Time Travelers. Takes only moments to read but might amuse for hours.

[via I Wish I Knew] I know this has never been submitted before, because if it had, surely someone from Metafilter would travel through time to prevent me from posting it.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:41:13 -0800

I already laughed at this, n00b!

By: pombe

pombe — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:43:05 -0800

That was very funny. Thanks!

By: DU

DU — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:47:17 -0800

Point of order: Discussons on the doubleness of this post, if it were a double, would go in MetaFilter. Further point of order: The above point of order belongs in the Counterfactuals Forum.

By: squink

squink — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:47:37 -0800

And to think, MeFi has almost been here before. Or has it?

By: DU

DU — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:49:00 -0800

/me travels back in time, changes "MetaFilter" to "MetaTalk" as well as other minor modifications to comment to make it funny

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:51:41 -0800

I was about to post this when a future self shimmered into being and told me sternly not to or the U.S. economy would be destroyed and there would be an endless occupation of some godforsaken foreign country irrelevant to American interests. *looks at news site* Damn you, squink!

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:52:21 -0800

You know who else I traveled back in time to kill, only to be thwarted by the mods? THAT'S RIGHT, RON PAUL

By: squink

squink — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:54:38 -0800

And I would have noticed that it was the previous issue of A&A, not the latest.

By: misha

misha — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:55:41 -0800

I saw this in the Metatalk thread about music favorites being out of chronicle order, read it and thought it was great, so I donated to Abyss and Apex.

By: unSane

unSane — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:03:15 -0800

Brilliant..

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:24:04 -0800

The crazy part is, Michael J. Fox plays all the users.

By: regicide is good for you

regicide is good for you — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:47:37 -0800

Permit me to sum it up and save you the trouble: no Hitler means no Third Reich, no World War II, no rocketry programs, no electronics, no computers, no time travel. Get the picture? If traveling back in time and killing Hitler were to render the advent of time travel impossible, wouldn't it then be impossible to travel back in time and kill Hitler?

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:58:03 -0800

The first thing they do when they discover time travel is post all about it on metafilter...

By: Bora Horza Gobuchul

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:03:40 -0800

Very well. I shall return in mere moments, the savior of millions! I am so using this in my next board meeting.

By: PareidoliaticBoy

PareidoliaticBoy — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:08:24 -0800

Days of future passed.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:11:02 -0800

Whew, hey guys, I just got back from posing as a thin-skinned discussion board troll to provoke quonsar back in MeFi'03. Apparently that thread was a butterfly-hurricane moment which, through a series of implausible coincidences, each crazier than the last, cascaded into political events that triggered the Iraq War. Crazy, huh? If I hadn't gone back the war might never have happened, and then where would we be?

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:19:04 -0800

I just went back to 1995 and switched a few things around. Altavista Ron Paul if you don't believe me.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:52:02 -0800

LOLtavista.

By: jalexei

jalexei — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:10:57 -0800

I, uh, went back to Monday and umm, wore that green sweater, instead of the khaki one....It's just that it fits a little better around the shoulders and I KNOW that, but I still...... I'm.. I'm not really utilizing the machine all that well, am I? Sorry

By: forrest

forrest — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:15:21 -0800

Did somebody write that story again? Crap. Now I have to go back a couple hundred years and knock up Hong's mother so the ending makes sense.

By: dyoneo

dyoneo — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:29:41 -0800

Last month I went back to 1984 and watched myself walking to junior high, a backpack full of books drooping from my shoulders, a look of undimmed hope in my eyes, and got a little melancholy. I'm very sorry that this gave Patrick Swayze pancreatic cancer.

By: sleslie

sleslie — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:39:48 -0800

When I time travel, I just run around shooting dinosaurs in the foot. You won't believe some of things that have happened.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:20:44 -0800

You know what would be cool? Not killing Hitler. That's n00b stuff. No, go back to the year 1945, throw him in the time machine, bring him to 1997 and put him on Jerry Springer. That would be cool.

By: obvious

obvious — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:12:39 -0800

See, I told you that FPP next year was a double.

By: ErWenn

ErWenn — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:31:38 -0800

Hitler? Ron Paul? Hong Xiuquan? You guys think way too small. I went back and killed William Henry Frickin' Harrison a month into his first term! Whaddaya think of that?

By: Dr. Curare

Dr. Curare — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:29:16 -0800

I suck at scientific notation. I wanted to go back to 2003 to prevent myself from eating that raw chicken, but went back 5 billion years. I took a dump in a warm puddle, I hope no one notices.

By: flashboy

flashboy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:22:48 -0800

I'm going to start randomly accusing people of ignoring Bulletin 1147 in Metatalk.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:39:22 -0800

If I could go back in time I would fix all my typos. That is all.

By: Sparx

Sparx — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:43:52 -0800

Wow. One of the contributers to that site I used to smoke hashish with, and another one once contrasted me with Italo Calvino. Small. Fucking. World.

By: popechunk

popechunk — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:09:28 -0800

This reminded me of the Futurama where Fry does the "nasty in the past-y" and becomes his own grandfather. Ewww.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 05:20:18 -0800

I just disabled my own account, but I'm not telling you when.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:27:51 -0800

I gave Matthaughey a Rubik's Cube and a "Boys' Book of COBOL" for his 12th birthday. You're all welcome.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:02:01 -0800

11/15/2104 at 14:23:32, jonmc wrote: So I went back to check out the Ramone's first British gig in '76 but I accidentally killed Joe Strummer. No biggie - the Clash sucked anyway. 11/15/2104 at 14:28:72, cortex wrote: jon, you know about Bulletin 1239 AKA "your favourite band sucks". I went back with a defibrillator and brought him back. I swapped out his liver for a fresh one. Thankfully his heart seemed fine.

By: Spatch

Spatch — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:13:41 -0800

And poor Dr. Sam Beckett would be doomed to an eternity of posting from behind a multitude of sock puppet accounts...

By: adamrice

adamrice — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:14:16 -0800

I just went back to 1989 and whispered something about Hypertext Transport Protocol in Tim Berners-Lee's ear. So, you're welcome. Now none of you can remember how awkward it was to read that story over Gopher.

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:24:28 -0800

I went back to tell my 1969 self not to drop that first tab of acid. But it doesn't seem to have had any ef

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:27:41 -0800

Awesome. My wife and I often* get into these rambling discussions on what we'd do with a time machine/portal. These discussions usually end in her getting horrified at the reign of terror I would inflict on those ignorant savages of the past. She's shocked that I would lay waste to so much and enslave so many (I'd abduct thousands of different versions of the same stable of geniuses from a few milliseconds apart, bring them to my future, and set them to work on solving the world's problems). I'm disappointed that she would only use her time machine/portal to have Outlander-style adventures. So then I point out that there would be no romantic 14th century Scotland or whatever because I would have taken over back in the pre-Babylon days. She replies that she will go back in time and stop me. Then I say I'd send one of my thousand Isaac Newtons back to stop her. She asks how I'd get Isaac to do that and I reply because she smells bad. She then threatens to go back in time to 'mess up your face - whoops looks like I succeeded!' And I say that was a pretty good burn and she nods modestly that yes, it was a good burn, and then we make frantic love on the kitchen table. *We drink a lot.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:34:42 -0800

Things I'd do if I could travel back in time:

Spoil every major pop cultural movie, book, and tv series that I can, so that only the ones that survive regardless of surprise, punch endings prosper.

Tell every joke before its time, ruining the careers of everyone who's funnier than me (or maybe I should just show up at their shows and become a stand-up comedian in my own right; The Famous Heckler)

Create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an infinite loop where I create an ERROR TIMECODE 0002 GENERAL FAULT

By: tehloki

tehloki — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:24:51 -0800

I love how people worry about all these other internal consistencies with time travel while ignoring the main one: if you go into the past to change something, that thing has already been changed in the present, and there would have been no reason for you to go back in the first place. It's an instant paradox from the get-go (unless you're talking about a fragmentary multiverse or something), all other mindfuckery aside.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:37:01 -0800

> I just went back to 1995 and switched a few things around. Altavista Ron Paul if you don't believe me. Oh, god, not another conversation about Ron Paul. Time to close Netscape and get back to work, I guess ...

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:37:45 -0800

That would've been better if I had used Mosaic. Dammit.

By: misha

misha — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:28:14 -0800

if you go into the past to change something, that thing has already been changed in the present, and there would have been no reason for you to go back in the first place. But that's only true if you see time as one linear continuum and not a series of choices diverging into branches creating, for each branch, a different possible outcome, which then branches out into other branches, ad infinitum. We used to call this "different dimensions" when I was a kid. Think "Mirror, Mirror" from the original Star Trek series.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:18:40 -0800

You mean the one where Spock is all Van Dykey and Uhura actually has lines?

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:20:17 -0800

> You mean the one where Spock is all Van Dykey and Uhura actually has lines? I just had this vision of Spock walking onto the Enterprise bridge and stumbling over a ottoman which just happens to be in his path, all to the tune of jaunty music.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:38:11 -0800

Somebody has got to film that now, WCityMike.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:09:25 -0800

Edith Keeler can be Laura Petrie! With the Horta as Rose Marie!