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Post by movieliker on Feb 9, 2019 20:21:38 GMT
I would go much further than undoing the Atlantic slave trade: I would sink every European ship attempting to cross the Atlantic! Leave the Americas alone. What was done to the peoples of the Americas is several orders of magnitude worse than what was done to African slaves.
Ha Ha Ha !! !! !!
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Post by movieliker on Feb 9, 2019 20:24:53 GMT
I hate to say this, and I expect I'll get some hate for it, but if I had a time machine and could go back in time I would NOT undo anything in the past. Anything at all. Here's the problem...
How do you know what you'll be changing it to? How do you know you wont make things INFINITELY worse? How do you know you wont create a paradox of some kind and fuck EVERYTHING up?
That's the point of ALL time travel stories. Don't mess with history because there's always price to pay and that price is often worse.
HOWEVER...
If you mean that I'm a god like being and can change time and history with my god like powers... then yes, of course. Because with my god like powers I would be able to control any negative effects and consequences. I would be able to course correct.
But its never that easy. That's why the crew of Star Trek had to follow the "Prime Directive", to never interfere with an established culture, and the few times they did go back in time, there were consequences both good and bad. If I could, I would go back in time and prevent ALL slave trades, from the Egyptians enslaving the Jews, and any primitive culture that took prisoners and made them slaves, to the enslavement of the Chinese and the enslavement of Africans, BUT... guess what? That's evolution - survival of the fittest. Us versus the 'other'. The Hebrews had slaves. The question is, can humans evolve beyond that? Or is it so hard-wired into our genetics that the strong will always victimize the weak? As another poster put it, " Why do people act as if the only slave trade in the world was Africa to North America?" I understand the reasons for the Prime Directive. But sometimes I thought it was really stupid. Like all rules, there are exceptions. It should have been applied on a case by case basis.
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Post by movieliker on Feb 9, 2019 20:28:34 GMT
I would go much further than undoing the Atlantic slave trade: I would sink every European ship attempting to cross the Atlantic! Leave the Americas alone. What was done to the peoples of the Americas is several orders of magnitude worse than what was done to African slaves.
You know, the Incas and the Aztecs had slaves too ?? ??
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on Feb 9, 2019 20:38:54 GMT
How do you know what you'll be changing it to? How do you know you wont make things INFINITELY worse? Because a 50% chance of something infinitely better is always preferable over a 100% chance of something horrible.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on Feb 9, 2019 20:43:12 GMT
I've been thinking about this question, on and off, for the past few years. If you had the power to undo the Atlantic slave trade, would you? On one hand, you would be able to prevent all the horrors of black people dealing with slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow segregation, mass incarceration, racism and racial discrimination by white people, police brutality, etc. On the other hand, anywhere from 90% - 95% of all black people in the entire Western hemisphere (U.S.A., South America, etc.) never leave Africa over those 400+ years. Among other things, this massively alters American history, American life and American culture. Which do you choose? Why assume that Africans would not have immigrated to the Americas over 400 years? That's like assuming that if the Wright brothers had not been successful at Kitty Hawk, we would not have travel by airplane today. Or that if the Manhattan Project had been unsuccessful, no one would have built a nuclear bomb by today.
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Post by twothousandonemark on Feb 9, 2019 20:58:00 GMT
A bit like asking if you'd not drop atomic bombs on Japan.
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Post by movieliker on Feb 9, 2019 21:11:11 GMT
A bit like asking if you'd not drop atomic bombs on Japan. There is nothing wrong with asking philosophical questions. My problem is slavery existed all over the world for most of history. Why always so much focus on African slaves in America?
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Post by Jep Gambardella on Feb 9, 2019 21:37:04 GMT
I would go much further than undoing the Atlantic slave trade: I would sink every European ship attempting to cross the Atlantic! Leave the Americas alone. What was done to the peoples of the Americas is several orders of magnitude worse than what was done to African slaves.
You know, the Incas and the Aztecs had slaves too ?? ?? I know that they were no angels - doesn't mean they deserved to be genocided.
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Post by CynicalDreamer2 on Feb 9, 2019 21:50:16 GMT
A bit like asking if you'd not drop atomic bombs on Japan. There is nothing wrong with asking philosophical questions. My problem is slavery existed all over the world for most of history. Why always so much focus on African slaves in America? It’s not a contest but it could be because the effects still hang around today.
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Post by vegalyra on Feb 9, 2019 21:51:32 GMT
Interesting hypothesis is if instead of bringing Western Civilization to the Americas, Europeans instead intensely focused on the colonization of Africa at a much earlier date and had much more influence. Where would be now? Would present day Kenya (formerly British East Africa) have instead been one of the earliest democracies and realms of religious freedom? Would the Pilgrims have landed at present day Liberia and established the Mayflower compact there instead of at Plymouth Rock? Would the Aztecs, Navajo, Incans, Hopi, etc. be economic powerhouses today or would they still be like the small indigenous tribes in present day South America?
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Post by CynicalDreamer2 on Feb 9, 2019 21:53:53 GMT
No doubt. I also wish the indigenous people had banded together and slaughtered everyone who set foot in America bent on taking their shit.
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Post by kls on Feb 10, 2019 1:00:19 GMT
You’re super literal so it’s not shade, just a question. Generally when someone has a ‘what if’ you respond literally as if you can’t comprehend anything outside of your reality. How would the question come with no implications/things to consider? The thread starter even began with some and asked us to please read before voting. You single me out as if I'm the only one who brought any concerns up. The whole thread has been discussing it. Seriously (cynicaldreamer 2 or anyone) what did I say that was so unique or that I live in my own reality any more than almost all the other posts in this thread as if I should be called out individually or the topic should turn to me? What did anything I said have to do with being 'literal' or not? I don't even know what you mean by outside my reality. It's outside of all of our realities. Anything??
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Post by them1ghtyhumph on Feb 10, 2019 1:45:19 GMT
A bit like asking if you'd not drop atomic bombs on Japan. Then the Russians take Japan
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Post by lenlenlen1 on Feb 11, 2019 16:52:18 GMT
What I'm saying is... what if you make the change and you think its going to turn out great. At first it may even seem so.
But a hundred years later "the Americas" are not doing too well because they don't have free slave labor to rely on. Without the unifying power of free money the Americas fracture into smaller states. The states never becomes the United States of America. Instead the continent becomes like Europe, several separate countries on one land mass, each in conflict with one another for dominance in the region. Wars rage between them.
Some of those American countries still need and want slaves. Maybe all of them. So what do they do? They go looking for other sources of slaves. Who do they find? Their old targets... the Native American Indian. They stop wiping them out and instead keep them as slaves. This is not a better situation for the native.
But they'd been killing them for so long that there aren't quite enough of them. They need more. So what do they do? They go south. To South America. Lots of indigenous people down there. Wars with what would become Mexican territories start even earlier then they did irl. Tons of natives are taken slave.
These warring American countries come into conflict with other countries. No Canada. No Mexico. No Central American nations. Soon enough Europe becomes embroiled as the fledgling nation seeks alliances with the greater powers of Europe. Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom in particular are at one another's throats because they all had interests in the Americas. Each one wants their American allied country to become the dominant force. The wars rage on.
In fact World War One starts much earlier that irl and includes many naval conflicts. The Atlantic Ocean is all fucked up. But sooner or later some group of these countries gets the upper hand on the other group and they are "occupied".
The natives in all this mess are effed up. And the new wars that start are all civil wars. Wars where the people rise up against their occupiers. Except it wont be in one country, it will be in all the little countries that are occupied...
Oh, I could go on and on and on. The entire world is just embroiled in unending conflict because everyone wants the resources of the New World, and those in the New World want independence. The Native is all but wiped out. The human misery is all but constant.
And don't forget that amidst all this there other factors as well, such as diseases that wipe out entire populations. Unforeseen events in which countries and continents that have nothing to do with this, such as South America, Africa and Asia, become mixed up in this, further stirring the pot.
All that war and misery, hundreds of years of unending conflict going on til this very day, all because you changed one thing. The history books could look MUCH worse than what we know now.
I get what you're saying. Morally, yes, I would stop slavery if I could go back in time, because it was (and remains) a terrible thing. But in terms of history, stopping something that major in terms of world history could do all those things you describe... and worse! There's no way of knowing just how history would pan out, who the alternate historical figures would be and what they'd do to humanity itself. Hell, another world power could rise somewhere else and enslave Africans or another race of people anyway. Would the human race even still be around in 2019 as a result, and if so, just how different would it be compared to the original timeline? Sorry to get all Doomsday-ish, but the Butterfly Effect has to be taken into account here, and the Atlantic Slave Trade was no little thing, unlike the butterfly in the story. Yeah, that's all I'm saying.
Of course I want one of the MOST HORRIBLE EVENTS in human history to be erased. But without knowing what it will be replaced with how can I be sure that I'd be doing the right thing? I cant take the chance that I'd be replacing it with something far worse. Its too great a risk.
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Post by JHA Durant on Feb 12, 2019 1:27:00 GMT
A bit like asking if you'd not drop atomic bombs on Japan. Then the Russians take Japan Either that or Operation Downfall would've been given the green light. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_DownfallThere's no telling how long the war would've raged on for, how many more people would've died, or whether the Invasion of Japan would've been a success.
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Post by movieliker on Feb 12, 2019 4:16:42 GMT
The world is a competition. The African blacks and American Indians lost because they were inferior in technology, sociology and warfare.
Lucky for them they were overtaken by peoples who didn't practice genocide.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on Feb 12, 2019 13:34:10 GMT
I get what you're saying. Morally, yes, I would stop slavery if I could go back in time, because it was (and remains) a terrible thing. But in terms of history, stopping something that major in terms of world history could do all those things you describe... and worse! There's no way of knowing just how history would pan out, who the alternate historical figures would be and what they'd do to humanity itself. Hell, another world power could rise somewhere else and enslave Africans or another race of people anyway. Would the human race even still be around in 2019 as a result, and if so, just how different would it be compared to the original timeline? Sorry to get all Doomsday-ish, but the Butterfly Effect has to be taken into account here, and the Atlantic Slave Trade was no little thing, unlike the butterfly in the story. Yeah, that's all I'm saying.
Of course I want one of the MOST HORRIBLE EVENTS in human history to be erased. But without knowing what it will be replaced with how can I be sure that I'd be doing the right thing? I cant take the chance that I'd be replacing it with something far worse. Its too great a risk.
This is akin to never venturing outside your home for fear of all the horrible things that could happen to you. You might as well never get out of bed, except to go to the bathroom.
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Post by Stammerhead on Feb 12, 2019 13:49:11 GMT
No, I would not undo it. Yes, it was a tragedy of history. But the African influence on American culture is a crucial one. Would you have no jazz, blues, r&b or rock n' roll in the world? All Western civilization's greatest music, outside of orchestral, is the result of the synthesis with African culture. Some people take their pop culture too seriously.
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Post by Stammerhead on Feb 12, 2019 13:54:38 GMT
I'd answer yes but I'd hate to leave the Irish to the same fate. We just travelled to where the work was. Of course when I say “we” I actually mean my ancestors as I’m more or less English now.
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Post by Stammerhead on Feb 13, 2019 8:39:04 GMT
Some people take their pop culture too seriously. Stop being a snide bitch. All history is built on the suffering of men. Music is just one example. There'd be no James Baldwin, no Richard Wright creating great literature. And there's be no MLK securing our civil rights. The point is, Africans had an important and positive influence on Western culture. Without it we'd all be in a worse place. It's a bit like saying you wish there had been no Genghis Khan. Sure, he tortured and murdered millions of people. But the world from East Asia to Europe would have been very different without him. Would you be willing to go back in time and take it upon yourself to possibly destroy much of the great inventions we have today? As I said, you take your pop culture too seriously. But anyway, who is to say that we would have great people creating great things if the slave trade didn't happen? Perhaps MLK would still be alive because he didn't have to fight for civil rights and Baldwin would have been at the forefront of a great African literature movement. And perhaps barber shop quartets could have evolved into something really kick-ass (as you colonials like to say).
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