If You Can Go Back in Time, What Events That You Would Like to Change?

twovultures

Donor
Will Kürlich Kerl said:
Go back 12 hours ago and prevent this thread from being necroed. Go back about 1 year 8 months ago and coerce a mod to move this thread into the ASB section, the Non-Political Chat section, or the Chat section.
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Go back in time and keep this useless post from being made.

Also, save the American horses from extinction.
 

Mikestone8

Starseed said:
Second, (first jump), Go to Rome in 43~CE. Tell the Romans, "The way to kill a prophet is..."
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You'd have to explain why it mattered - and they wouldn't believe you.

Their problem with Jesus wan't that he was a Prophet, but that he was being hailed as the Messiah, ie a king who would boot the Romans out of Judea. Once they've killed him (by whatever method) that proves he wasn't the Messiah, so problem solved. No reason to kill him in other than the usual way. They would lose no sleep over the possibility of his followers founding a Mystery cult which might catch on big a couple of centuries after they were all dead.
 

Tyler96

Have Bonnie Prince Charlie march on from Derby

Try to get a Taiping victory, or at least a Qing defeat

Close the gate at Constaninople, circa 1453

Force caution on Emperor Julian, or fix up the wound
 

Socrates

Elfwine said:
The injustice of judging all monarchs by the bad ones is one of the reasons I want to go back in time to weaken the development of the attitude that monarchy and good government are mutually exclusive.

The other being the democrats encouraging monarchs to see "the rights of man" and monarchy as being mutually exclusive by democrats associating monarchy with obstructing said rights.

Kind of hard to encourage a monarch to support social changes that are meant to end with removing him from power.
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Its not just the bad ones. If you compare the aggregate performance of democracies versus hereditary rule then democracies have less famines, less aggressive wars, fairer justice systems and higher standards of living. As for your last comment, that just shows the whole problem: social policy shouldn't depend on one man's desire to permanently cling to power. Plenty of democratic leaders willingly step down. How many monarchs have?
 

Elfwine

Socrates said:
Its not just the bad ones. If you compare the aggregate performance of democracies versus hereditary rule then democracies have less famines, less aggressive wars, fairer justice systems and higher standards of living.
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Less famines: This isn't a result of monarchy vs. democracy. Was France more prone to famine under Napoleon III than the republican governments that followed?

Less aggressive wars: Are you really going to tell me that Great Britain and the United States in ~1800 (have to start "democratic" at some date for the former, and I'm not sure where) to 1918 (or thereabouts) waged fewer aggressive wars than the leading monarchies?

Fairer justice systems and higher standards of living: Hardly inherent qualities of monarchy vs. democracy. See below.

As for your last comment, that just shows the whole problem: social policy shouldn't depend on one man's desire to permanently cling to power. Plenty of democratic leaders willingly step down. How many monarchs have?
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Oh I see now. It's totally not a problem for radicals to make it so monarchs feel threatened by reform, because monarchs should have no concern for their own interests. They should gladly surrender power, because by the very nature of them being crowned heads they're unfit to hold it*.

That attitude is why you see monarchs in the 20th century disliking liberals and reformers. And quite frankly, I have a lot of trouble blaming rulers for not wanting to be made figureheads.

You could try to have the crown as an ally, using the power of the sovereign to promote and protect social reforms - but that would require not treating their elimination as the (pun intended) crowning triumph of reform/liberalism.

*
I could make a snarky comment about the ignorant masses, but I'm trying not to.
 

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
Save Lincoln.*

*If it's within the op of Pre 1900, and done with a simple time travel trip, then that's my only answer. Sure, I'd have more to say if it was just "What events would you change?", or if I could go into the 20th Century, but since it's not...
 
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