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Who would you pick to save the world?
- Thread starter MACDRIVE
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To be fair, she's got some pens in her pocket. You can't go saving the world without a decent supply of pens.
With that in mind, and considering that time travel is no object in this considered debate, I'm going to opt for Ladislao José Biro as my world saving choice.
With that in mind, and considering that time travel is no object in this considered debate, I'm going to opt for Ladislao José Biro as my world saving choice.
Doesn´t Tru know she's gone into the past because it's the same day as yesterday (kind of like groundhog day)? A lot of time has passed since 9/11, and if that day were truly the END OF THE WORLD, I don´t think you'd be posting this question.
But, wth, I'd say President Bush...maybe, just maybe he could get it right with a second chance (and he'd be the only one with the power to actually put all the FBI, NSA, CIA and the Armed Forces in motion quick enough.)
But, wth, I'd say President Bush...maybe, just maybe he could get it right with a second chance (and he'd be the only one with the power to actually put all the FBI, NSA, CIA and the Armed Forces in motion quick enough.)
Not so! That was just Armageddon. What about the Fifth Element? That was more like a planet of EVIL!!!
Oh yeah, it's been a while since I've seen that one. And I guess in Die Hard (it's not saving the world per se) but he is going against some bad"·s terrorists.
This is a more compelling question. Although it leads me back to the topic of the thread
First I'd kidnap myself so that future me is the one arrested/blamed for the mostly illegal crap I'd pull...
Going around preaching about the future or trying to get people to believe you are a time traveller is pointless since everyone would just assume you're insane. The only way for a normal individual (non-high ranking politician/world leader) to stop 9/11 would be to do one of the following (at least as I see it):
1) Call in a number of repeated threats to various government agencies or the WTC to try to heighten enforcement or evacuate the WTC.
2) Highjack/blow up a small plane in order to increase airline security.
3) Fly a small plane into the WTC to show what could be done to raise flags and tighten security.
4) Find the hijackers and take them out before they can get on the planes.
5) Some combination of the above.
I do realize that some of the options have some innocent casualties as well but compared to the death toll of 9/11 a few may have to be sacrificed. At any rate I'd make sure that my past self was locked away somewhere safe, since I'd be on the fast track to getting myself arrested or killed.
Now if I woke up as my past self and was the only "me" present then things get trickier. I got married in 2002 and had kids in 2004 and 2007. I know that the fate of 3000 people should outweigh my little family in the grand scheme of things but anyone who says that would be an easy choice doesn't have kids yet... I could sacrifice myself, knowing that the "past me" would be around to start my family and I might be able to sacrifice others if the need arose, however, the line is different when the sacrifice are my kids/family as illogical as that may be.
If I had to choose someone to send back, the above still stands so, ideally I'd send back someone high up in the FBI/CIA that could get the hijackers arrested early enough to stop it.
If we exclude high ranking government officials then I'd probably choose someone who knew how to fly small aircraft who had little or no family. They'd be sent with a list of people who worked on the upper floors of the WTC to call/try to keep from going to work late on 9/8 to minimize casualties. If no other method appeared to be working they'd be under instructions to call in a threat and fly a small plane into an upper story of one of the towers on 9/8, preferably late at night to avoid as many workers as possible. As I see it, a normal individual without government access/powers, would probably be forced to pull some sort of an attack to heighten awareness and security and would have to be very publicly outed as non-middle eastern and Christian (video confessions send to the news outlets and plenty of witnesses that see them get on the plane) could put us on a path of increased security without the xenophobia that led us into the Iraq quagmire. Most of this reasoning is due to the short timeline imposed, if we could have the person sent back years in advance we could use him to "tip off" the authorities on other attacks to establish credibility and have him point to the hijackers earlier to get them arrested/prevented from boarding on 9/11 or possibly just to infiltrate the hijackers to feed intel to the FBI/CIA.
Of course this does not do much to thwart possible contingency attacks from other cells that might have been in place had 9/11 failed but I doubt that any of those could have been as devastating as 9/11. If they had access to nuclear or radioactive material for a nuke/dirty bomb I would think they would have done that rather than the planes or at the same time since given the fear surrounding radiation/nuclear attacks they could have caused more of a disruption/more fear through the bombs than the planes.
I like this question better too:
I would do absolutely nothing. As nice as it would be if the attacks somehow never happened, there are a few reasons why I would do nothing:
Actually, when thinking about the whole time paradox thing and "butterfly effect", I might just purge myself from the face of the Earth and hope I hadn't already changed things irreparably.
I would do absolutely nothing. As nice as it would be if the attacks somehow never happened, there are a few reasons why I would do nothing:
- Obvious time paradox
- Possibly make things worse
- Not arrogant enough to believe I could personally have prevented the attacks
- If it wasn't hijacking planes and flying them into buildings, they would have come up with something else
Actually, when thinking about the whole time paradox thing and "butterfly effect", I might just purge myself from the face of the Earth and hope I hadn't already changed things irreparably.
I can't give you a real person, so...
1. Superman.
2. Jack Bauer.
3. Bond. James Bond.
I actually think it would be more entertaining to watch Jack Bauer save the world, but let's face it, he needs 24 hours, whereas Supes could do it in 15 minutes.
1. Superman.
2. Jack Bauer.
3. Bond. James Bond.
I actually think it would be more entertaining to watch Jack Bauer save the world, but let's face it, he needs 24 hours, whereas Supes could do it in 15 minutes.
If you want a job done properly, you've got to do it yourself. I therefore nominate the only self I've got. My rates are entirely reasonable.
i second William Shatner
personally if it would happen to me i don't know what i could do (except monetary gain through buying the right stocks
)
personally if it would happen to me i don't know what i could do (except monetary gain through buying the right stocks
)
if I was to just wake up in the US on September 1, 2001, unprepared, i would try to put together a 'package' as accurate as possible of what happened on 9/11, as if i somehow had access to the plans, and send it to all government agencies, to the white house, to NYPD, NYFD and to most newpapers/networks.
the package should include info about flight numbers, hijakers, targets and mode of action and whatever i could remember.
it would certainly mention about the possibility of "inside" help or that the effect might be compounded by the use of thermite (to take care of various conspiracy theories).
it would stress the point that i understand the lack of credibility, but that they should check it out anyway (sending it to all the various destinations should ensure that they would do that).
As a minimum, when the planes go missing, they would start WTC evacuation immediately.
It would also suggest to locate bin laden and be ready to get him in afghanistan if anything does happen.
it would also include reference to the use of it as an excuse to launch a war on iraq in search of inexistant weapons of mass distruction, so that if one tragedy cannot be avoided at least another one will be, as at this point the document will be considered credible.
then i would come on macrumors and start all sort of crazy talk about intel processors, new imacs and iphone
the package should include info about flight numbers, hijakers, targets and mode of action and whatever i could remember.
it would certainly mention about the possibility of "inside" help or that the effect might be compounded by the use of thermite (to take care of various conspiracy theories).
it would stress the point that i understand the lack of credibility, but that they should check it out anyway (sending it to all the various destinations should ensure that they would do that).
As a minimum, when the planes go missing, they would start WTC evacuation immediately.
It would also suggest to locate bin laden and be ready to get him in afghanistan if anything does happen.
it would also include reference to the use of it as an excuse to launch a war on iraq in search of inexistant weapons of mass distruction, so that if one tragedy cannot be avoided at least another one will be, as at this point the document will be considered credible.
then i would come on macrumors and start all sort of crazy talk about intel processors, new imacs and iphone
If you had knowlegde about it ahead of time, I think you might stand a chance....send letters to everyone, take to the streets....do something, your "not arrogant enough" to spend 10 days to try and save a few thousand lives?
Hell, go find the people yourself.
forgive me for my lack of historical interest, but, what happend on september 01, 2001?
edit:oh, i am so an idiot LOL. the idea was to change history so september 11 won't happen? why 2001? how about going back 70 years back and convincing the bu$hes that trying to conceive a baby to be nicknamed dubya would be the worst thing that could happen...?
The first orca calf (later named Nakai) is born through artificial insemination, to parents Kasatka and Tillikum. (courtesy of wikipedia)
