or
Michael Moore's mother's fat trick.
or
whoever didn't flush and gave us George Soros.
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 09/22/2010 8:32:49 PM PDT by Abin Sur
If you could eliminate one person from history, who would it be? One caveat: it can't be Muhammad, for one simple reason: almost everyone is going to pick him! This would get rather monotonous, so let's just assume that 90% (at least) of the responses would pick Muhammad first. If you still pick him...BZZT I'm sorry, you've lost, thank you for playing and here's a copy of our home game.
And let's not have anyone picking Muhammad's father or grandfather just to get at him, either. That's cheating.
Ok, now that that's out of the way, who do you pick? Here's the rules: You can go back in history and prevent any one person from being born. You don't have to kill anyone. For instance, if you want to stop Hitler from being born, you can go up to Klara Pölzl (Adolph's mother) in 1880 and give her 10,000 marks to emigrate to the USA. She never marries Alois, so presto...no Adolph. This will have the incidental effect of preventing his brothers from being born as well, of course.
After you prevent your target from being conceived, you snap back to 2010 and enjoy living in a world made better by your actions. Bear in mind, though, that removing someone from history may not have that great an effect. If you prevent Darwin from existing, someone is still going to come up with the theory of evolution. It may be called by another name, and it may be delayed by a decade or two, but things tend to get invented when it's time to invent them.
I would note that some individuals would be exceptions. If you took out Isaac Newton (heaven know why, but it's your choice), modern science as we know it would be delayed by half a century, at least.
Anyway, that's the setup. Who do you pick, and what do you think would be the result of this person not existing?
The "butterfly effect" is a proven scientific fact. Time travel is still a theory.
or
Michael Moore's mother's fat trick.
or
whoever didn't flush and gave us George Soros.
It’s a good bet that if Hitler hadn’t been born, very few of us would have been either. WW II had an enormous effect on the mating habits and match ups of many Americans.
The butterfly effect is bunk. A butterfly flapping wings is lost to the background effect of the jetstream, etc. I can’t believe people fall for that one!
Lennin, Mao, Stalin, Hitler and the root of most of our current social problems, Earl Warren.
Good pick.
My conundrum is that I’d lose my kids if I chose my ex wife.
What the....? All of my siblings, except one, voted for Obama! What're ya trying to do to me here? LOL
Yeah... sort of.
Hey! I’m a fan of the DH.
My vote would be Karl Marx.
It’s scary the answers liberals on KOS would come up with. I bet there would be a lot saying Moses, Jesus, Paul, or Reagan.
I think Ishmael’s mother was called Hagar rather than Ishtar.
Hitler, Lenin, Stalin are all good choices. But the suicide of the West started with World War I. Had it been avoided, none of those bums would ever have amounted to anything. With no World War I, no World War II. Probably no Great Depression, certainly no Wilsonian template for FDR’s regimentation of American life through the alphabet soup of the New Deal.
So, I nominate Kaiser Wilhelm II. Bad combination of nationalism, militarism, paranoia and stupidity. Bismarck knew how to throw Germany’s weight around but also when to back off. Kaiser Bill wasn’t that smart.
True dat...Alfred Russel Wallace would be right there, and no change to the timetable, either.
Hey I know this scientist guy who invented a hurricane making machine and he told me his life was save by bending down to pick up a butterfly flapping his wings right while a bullet flew over his head.
Agreed that the butterfly is taking the point to the extreme (maybe), but you don’t have too to far beyond to make the point valid.
Since Satan, Ishmael, and Hagar have already been chosen, I’ll go with my dad.
Ted Kennedy.
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