To See Thiis Point Further, I HIGHLY Recommend Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, I Even Hear There's a Sequel in The Works ...

In Card's Book, it Turns Out Our Timeline Was Created, When a Message from The Future Turned The Leader of The Final Crusade West Rather than East; to Conquer The New World Instead of The Middle East ...

That Crusader, was None Other than Christopher Columbus, and he Made a Big Mistake!

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If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

That is a good book. It is very thought provoking.

I'd call my Congressman (whom I know), my boss (a Pentagon rep), and various additional people in the administration who've known me over the years.

If that didn't work, I'd simply walk to a phone booth and phone in a bomb threat to the WTC giving date, time, location, method, and means, and let th powers that be put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The biggest issue with 911 is that you have disjointed parties having access to various pieces of information without being able to correlate that information with other information which had arrived.

I'd probably keep calling until the message was fully received or (sadly, but more likely), arrested on suspicion of conspiracy.

It's difficult for any large organization to rapidly assimilate information of a nature which is small (an airline flight) but which threatens to take down a major portion of it's infrastructure (the WTC).

We're getting better at it, though, as it's a simple matter of evolution. They hit, we learn. Not only are the lessons not lost, we're thinking ahead, hard, to try and predict the next attack. Largely, we've succeeded. But it is tedious, time-consuming, expensive, and a much less desirable avenue than diplomacy. Alas, it's the only aveue we have available at the time, given the nature of the situation, so we're persueing it to the best of our ability.

And with that, life goes on.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. A human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

Ahh guys, this has already happened...

Anybody take history besides me?

A certain Mr. Einstein had a horrible realization about what certain German physicists might be up to and wrote a letter.

Which led to a chain of events where the device originally intended for Berlin was used on the city of Hiroshima.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Oh, I knew about that.

Actually, I think the only person in serious danger from my (almost certainly) successful warning idea for JFK would be the late Gen. Edwin Walker. The advantages of lone nutcases, huh?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Yeah ...

They Wait their WHOLE Liives, for That Perfect Shot ...

And G-d Help Anybody Who Gets in their Way!

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If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

Should this thread continue to exist with the new policy?

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I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid...and I went ahead anyway. - Crow T. Robot

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

Eh ...

It's STILL a Good What If ...

More Importantly though, it Very Muuch Falls into The Category of Science Fiction, I Say Keep it!

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If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

It might belong in BABBling.

I tried to post, somehow didn't take. Take 2:

The Twighlight Zone (mid '90s) did this. Future scientists develop a one way time machine, no communication. They send a young woman back to kill Hitler as a baby. She infiltrates the household, steals young Adolf from the nanny, and gets killed ensuring Adolf dies. The distraught nanny, afraid of Adolf's father, buys a replacement baby from the sick beggar lady around the corner, thus explaining Adolf's club foot.

The point being that what made Hitler was not just his biology, but the upbringing. What about other ways to change Hitler by changing his upbringing? Alternately, why couldn't someone else have come to power with largely the same platform and outcome, in a void left my Hitler's early demise? Those types of things can't be predicted.

Yeah, I enjoy the show. Sometimes the antics are a bit much, but the way he pulls off his psychic act is refreshing to see put in the spotlight.

Probably because the OP said:
In other words, Sep 9, 2001, or two days before the attack. Kind of hard to infiltrate the FBI, point out their operational flaws, and get assigned to the Terrorism Task Force in time to be effective.

I don't mind if this gets moved, but my original intention seems to have become a little corrupted.

I gave 9/11 as an example, but really wanted to see what events people would try to warn about & how they would deal with it.

For example:

- the Apollo 1 / AS204 fire. Do you think you could convince NASA there was a risk?

- Challenger. People already WERE warning about the field joints & O-rings on the SRBs. Could you warn them of the upcoming disaster?

- JFK.

- Titanic.

- The Hindenburg.

- 2004 Tsunami.

- Chernobyl.

etc.

I didn't meant to limit people to the list (or 9/11), but rather cite their own examples, the problems associated with getting a warning heeded, and how you would deal with it.

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"For ignorance to reign, all it takes is for knowledgable people to say nothing"

Lonewulf

Well now, let's see: Apollo 1 - I think so. Just put the bug in a few engineers' ears and get them thinking about it. They say it was a failure of imagination so just get them using their imagination.

Hindenburg - Nope, though you might get arrested after it blew up. Never use your real name when doing these warnings.

Challenger - Nope, Morton Thiocol tried to warn them. Nothing I could have done.

JFK - Possibly, that is it's probably possible to get the secret service to change the route. You'd run the risk of getting arrested. You might catch Oswald on the way to work and beat the crap out of him and put him in the hospital, trying to explain why he's carrying a rifle.

Titanic - Nope, it'd be like trying to prevent the Challenger from launching. Short of blowing it up ahead of time, you're not going to stop such a big event.

2004 Tsunami - You might get some people to change their vacation plans but I don't think you'd be able to make much of a difference. You'd probably do the most good getting people off the beach when the tide goes out, before the really big waves come.

Chernobyl - Who could you tell and what would you tell them? The point of no return was crossed pretty quickly. Nothing you could do after that. Pretty hopeless situation and most people that died, like the firemen, knew the risks already. They did their jobs anyway.


I'm facinated by time travel. I like to ponder this stuff. I think it is possible to change the past, you know, once you figure out how to get there. Unlike most people here - I haven't gotten tired of time travel plots in Trek and other shows.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

I think this thread is better in BABBling. Moved.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Thanks Phil, S'What I Figured ...

As to What Obviousman was Saying, I Thiink Thiis Is Why a Lot of Philosophers/Researchers Have an Assumption That Tiime Travel Is Impossible, Events Have FAR Too Muuch Inertia Sometiimes to Easily Change The Outcome, Even As they Are Occurring ...

Thus, it Would Take a Large Amount of Effort to Change a Past Event, Particularly One Liike Pearl Harbour, The Fall of Saigon, or Even 9/11, Siimply Because The People at The Tiime were, Albeit Unintentionally, Complicit In their Own Destruction!

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If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

My understanding of the 2004 tsunami was there were two major problems.
1- no one knew it was coming because there was no official contact info or warning system in place.

2- People that lived there were not educated on the fact that when the first wave hits, then recedes, heading out to the beach to look at it is a really BAD idea.

Not much to do about the first one, but passing out fliers the day before might just get enough people to see the signs of the follow up waves and get them to higher ground.

For JFK, anything that stops Oswald from firing that second and third shot would work. if the rifle could be found where it was hidden, adjust he cross hairs on the scope so he shoots 6 feet high. Fire one round, with no powder in it so the bullet gets stuck in the barrel. He fires the first shot and the gun blows up. No Assassination, and very little doubt that he fired that gun. Nail the window shut. Even standing on the street and yelling "GUN" while pointing in the right direction.

Apollo 1 I don't know enough about, but maybe just asking "so what happens if there's a fire?" might get them looking at things they may not have considered.

Challenger- The problem was that it was too cold to launch. The launch could be delayed by a bomb threat, and possible rescheduled on a warmer day, but that pretty much just means a different mission would have had the failure. If the people that make something tell you it's broken, listen.

Titanic- Probably nothing that could be done. Possibly raise a huge stink about the number of lifeboats and see if they would add some, but it was a design flaw that was not seen as such.

Don't call a ship "unsinkable" if you build it like an ice cube tray- Unknown

Hindenburg- Nothing that could be done. As far as I know they still don't know what happened. That makes it hard to prevent.

Chernobyl- Probably nothing that could be done. Who could you tell and why would they listen?

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

When you arrive before 911, the terrorist time traveler would capture you and torture you for information to find out what their plan should be. After all, you wouldn't be showing up to stop something that wasn't going to work.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

VERY True ...

The Key to Temporal Warfare, Is to Win in The Present Fiirst ...

Then you Have a Free Hand, to Re-Make The Fuuture in your Own Image!

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If you Ignore YOUR Rights, they Will go away.

Small real-life scenario: A few years ago, I won a San Francisco radio station's promotion for a pair of free concert tickets, just by showing up at their downtown studio. While picking them up, I was told there were more available to anyone who came in and claimed them. Eager to share the news, I stood outside on the busy Post Street sidewalk to tell anyone passing by about the opportunity. To a person, each avoided me and continued on their way. After about 5 minutes of this, so did I. Cannot imagine how to get across a truly significant message.