Fire up the wayback machine

If you were handed the owners manual and the keys to a certified “Time Machine” that could go forward into the future, or back into the past, what would you do?

A lot of people (me included) could see the benefit of going into the future, think about having the stock results for tomorrow so you know where to invest, or which team will win this weekend so you could get your bet in early. Or which freeway not to drive on at 3:28 p.m. later today so you could avoid that 47 car pileup that bursts in to a huge fireball. Yeah, pretty clear choices to be found there.

But, how about a trip to the past. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to check out that butterfly’s wing flapping effect thing?

There’s an old story line about going back in time and killing Hitler before he built up the monster that became the WWII Nazi party, but at what point could you pull the trigger and clip him off? Say you got to him when he was ten years old, could you shoot a ten year old boy in the head knowing what you’re preventing? How about just a round into the base of his spine so he’d end up as a wheelchair case for life? Or, would you try to guide him down a different path with positive reinforcement? There’s several key points in each life where just a slight bump could shift ones direction, would change the end results.

Even Sarah Palin could be altered into a warm caring progressive person. O.K., perhaps I’ve chosen too extreme of an example, but it could happen. 

Yeah, this is the stuff imagination is made for, as easy or complex as you’d care to go. Myself, I think I’d keep it simple. First, I’d go back to 1968 when I’m just getting back to civilian life and leave myself a note to save every penny possible, and then get back in the machine and take it a bit forward over to the late ’70’s / early ’80’s and leave myself another note to take that now saved up fortune and find a guy named Bill Gates, then see about investing big time in some sort of computer start up that he’s working on. I’d argue to have him change the name to something more masculine, but if not, I’m o.k. with making my billions from Microsoft.

Then, I’d have to go back again and search out a very young Karl Rove.

I can promise you that there’d be some serious work to do then and there.

Get the drift?

Feel free to kick in a Past / Future adventure or two idea of your own by using the “add comment” link just below.

Here’s a link for this page should you like to forward it to either someone you care about, or perhaps someone you’d like to piss off, whichever one happens to apply:

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