would you use a time machine to change your past

[Jackalope]

plus that experience probably shaped you greatly into what you are you could be a completely different person

True, but that person I became was not worth the death of my friends.

Do you have children, FNM? I struggle with the OP's question precisely because part of who I have become is the father of my son. Could I risk that?

[Ryantology]

I would go into the future and acquire some super-advanced technology. Then I would go back to the 8th century with that technology, use it to convince everyone that I was God, and while I have their attention, make them discard the savage and brutal scripture they follow by issuing all new commandments. I would give them clues which would point them towards useful scientific advances. And, I would do this all over the world to make sure everyone gets the message.

More realistically, I would go back in time and end up in the dead cold of space trillions of miles away from Earth because whoever made the time machine didn't account for the fact that the sun is not stationary in the galaxy.

[Faith No More]

Do you have children, FNM? I struggle with the OP's question precisely because part of who I have become is the father of my son. Could I risk that?

Yes, one, and when you put it that way, I wouldn't risk that. Although, the ability to prevent friends' is awfully tempting.

[Jackalope]

Do you have children, FNM? I struggle with the OP's question precisely because part of who I have become is the father of my son. Could I risk that?

Yes, one, and when you put it that way, I wouldn't risk that. Although, the ability to prevent friends' is awfully tempting.

Of course it is. If not for unintended consequences, I would want to do so as well. Particularly for a friend who was murdered over 25 years ago.

[Fruity]

Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Do you have children, FNM? I struggle with the OP's question precisely because part of who I have become is the father of my son. Could I risk that?

If I changed my past, it would be the events that happened in my early childhood which still reflect upon my character today. I have these "issues" that I've had to work on for years and no amount of meditation has been able to provide closure to the degree that I feel I need. Regardless, I have two kids. I love them madly. I think that I have them in part to those experiences, because:

-what happened, happened.
-I became afraid of the world, low self esteem, insecure, angry, etc.
-I closed myself up from the world into my own world of my written art.
-This lead me to cope.
-I developed love and compassion for those who suffered similar situations as I did.
-I decided to go move far away to help my uncle in Spain with a mission he had (I was naïve and thought that any type of help, related or not, was noble and, therefore, good). During my wait to leave, I moved close to my parents to spend some time with them. I was going through a phase of struggle with self acceptance and a recent heart break.
-I met my husband.
-I had kids.

If I would have not experienced what I experienced... I would have probably taken advantage of my potential instead of diving into fears and stupid self pity, and I would have never returned home, having never met my husband, and never had these kids.

hock: I love my kids too much for that.

[Something completely different]

I would undo my cocain habbit which got me kicked out of highschool.

I would probably also undo my last releationship because it left me in such a horrible state of depression.

I would call my grandpa a worthless nazi cunt before he died

I would tell my mother that I am not a science project

I would stop this post because it is starting to be far to reveiling about my person..............

[pocaracas]

All you people who want to kill Hitler, need to look at this "thread":

International Association of Time Travelers: Members’ Forum
Subforum: Europe – Twentieth Century – Second World War
Page 263

11/15/2104
At 14:52:28, FreedomFighter69 wrote:
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1936 Berlin, having taken the place of one of Leni Riefenstahl’s cameramen and assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic Games. Let a free world rejoice!

At 14:57:44, SilverFox316 wrote:
Back from 1936 Berlin; incapacitated FreedomFighter69 before he could pull his little stunt. Freedomfighter69, as you are a new member, please read IATT Bulletin 1147 regarding the killing of Hitler before your next excursion. Failure to do so may result in your expulsion per Bylaw 223.

At 18:06:59, BigChill wrote:
Take it easy on the kid, SilverFox316; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, what’s the harm?
....

it just goes on and on. Think of this as the forum where the time travelers share experiences.



Ok, now on to the OP:
It really depends. I guess by the time I could get to go to the past and do something, we'd know if things get autocorrected thus creating paradoxes, or if we get parallel time-lines, like in back to the future.
In the first case... meh, not possible, or we'd already be in some paradoxical state.
The second case is the cool one where you retain your timeline's memories but can change everything around you.... and the farther back in time you change something, the more things it changes. But parents are still required to keep in line... I wonder how many people disappeared when Marty got to have cool parents...

[festive1]

I don't think I'd give up the life I've got either, but stopping/preventing the chaos of my childhood (and my siblings) is very tempting.
If I could still have this life and in an alternate universe have a do-over, I'd have taken my fencing scholarship at Northwestern. But I wouldn't give my husband and kids up.

[Something completely different]

to be honest, I think my younger self would tell me to go fuck myself.

or to grow up.

or that I am "uncool" and a "capitalist enabler of fascim" or some other marxist bullshit.

[Violet]

Depends on methodology. Are we talking "I can talk to my previous self and set her shit straight from age 11, and leave her a journal of dates/places/people and stuff, with a picture of a future costume of hers and tell her to do it better... leave, and return a year later to see if she's followed my advice, and give her another talking to, and some goals... leave, and return one year later telling her it's the last time I'll see her due to mistakes I made in my previous timeline, and reiterate once more and leave another journal of extremely mild shit behind with some advice"....

Or are we talking 'possess the body of my former self while retaining all my same memories as now and seeing just what i can do with it'?

Because both of these sound *very* attractive to me. Most other forms I'm not too interested in.