RAR: Back to the twitter

[El Moose Monstero]

Something that occurred to me over breakfast: one day, a magical entity with a bizarre liking for Twitter grants you the power to tweet through time. You can send a single 140 character message to anyone in history at any point in time. It's not guaranteed that they'll actually do anything with it or believe it, but you won't know unless you try.

What message do you send to who and when? And why?

[weemadando]

Myself, giving me the numbers to an unwon lottery jackpot a few weeks ago and a message to "just do it you shithead."

Or, in an altruistic way - maybe try and save some lives somehow? Maybe expose some serious crime earlier? Who knows.

[Darth Tanner]

Lottery numbers? Some good shares that have shot up in value? I don't see how knowing about large earthquakes, Japans nuclear sites melting down, terrorist bombings or anything like that would allow me to save lives, the authorities are not likely to evacuate or take any action based on my say so on a tweet of all things. The only thing it’s likely to achieve is my arrest when they wonder how I knew about it.

I get to break the news on Amy Winehouses/Whitney Houstons death?

[PeZook]

I send to myself lottery numbers and a date, flight numbers, date, hour and targets for sept 11 flights.

If you can stop 9/11, you can stop a whole bunch of wars and global abuse by the US. If the FBI or whoever does not believe me, well, I still have the lottery numbers

[weemadando]

Having prior info on 9/11 just guarantees that you end up in Gitmo or another blacksite for the rest of your life once it goes down.

Enjoy that.

[PeZook]

Having prior info on 9/11 just guarantees that you end up in Gitmo or another blacksite for the rest of your life once it goes down.

Enjoy that.

Just send it in via snail mail with a fake return address from a post office away from your place of residence. They usually ignore such warnings, but can't do it if they contain specific details like flight numbers, times and targets.

[Instant Sunrise]

I send myself in the 90's a simple message: "Buy AAPL"

[Zaune]

To myself about ten years ago. "Uni's a waste of time. Go to Tresham and take the CompTIA A+ instead. And look up "Living With Danger", it'll change your life."

[Panzersharkcat]

"Ides of March. Brutus stabs you." Translated into Latin first.

[PLR2]

Probably, "Don't let John Wilkes Booth stand behind you, ever."

[Solauren]

YY/MM/DD, ######## L6/69. Similiar format for larger lottery wins. The second biggest values for the last 10 years or so.

[aerius]

Send one to Bill Clinton, pre sex scandals: You're the pres. Bang a supermodel chick goddamit!

I've heard people say that Clinton would get more respect if he'd banged a hot chick in the oval office and been proud of it, I want to know if this is true.



Or if I want to get filthy rich, winning lotto numbers for sometime in fall 2007. Followed by the strike prices for put options on Bear Stearns & Lehmans in March and September of the following year. If I have any characters left over, buy BAC at $2. Instant multi-billionaire, even without the last step. I'll send this one to either myself, my wife, or one of my friends who's bigtime into the markets.

[weemadando]

About 2002 or so, send it to someone who'd pay at least some attention (journalist maybe) saying "Hey guys, has anyone ever actually audited this Bernie Madoff guy? Also - maybe someone should look closely at the whole debt market."

[El Moose Monstero]

I suppose I was hoping for a bit more creative ways to change past events with only a limited space to do so rather than necessarily how to get rich, but that's cool. It seemed like a borderline testing idea anyway (mods are free to punt it). It seemed like an interesting idea to me as I thought that having the power to send even a short message anywhere in history would be great for changing things where one person could have or did make a substantial difference with their single decision made in semi-isolation.

Could you, for example, say to the chap on the other end of the radar operators at Pearl Harbour say 'It's not the bomber flight you're expecting, check again', or to communicate some technical detail to reactor operators at Chernobyl that might have made them check something, or to communicate with someone on JFK's security detail that you saw someone suspicious lurking on a knoll. Or are events just going to be so complex that no one person in the chain of events could really have made any difference to the outcome, even if they did have a little bit more information that they did before.

[PeZook]

The problem with affecting Chernobyl is that it was a massively complex chain of events. Although...

Signal someone in the local KGB office that there was sabotage at the plant. They'll come over and ruin the test, so that it will have to be cancelled or done at a time when the day crew is operating the reactor

[J]

Of the 3 nuclear accidents we've had to date, I think 3 Mile Island would be the easiest one to stop as well as having the largest long term impact on the nuclear industry. For Chernobyl we have to stop them from doing the test and ensure that they don't try it again at some point in the future. With Fukushima I don't know if there's anything that can be done other than having them shut down the entire plant a month before the earthquake or simply not building a nuclear plant in a tsunami zone. Perhaps I can send a message back to the 1960s along the lines of "no, you can't build it there, it needs to be this high above sea level".

[CarsonPalmer]

To Lyndon Johnson-"This is the voice of God. Get out of 'Nam in 64."

Just because I like the Great Society, and I think if Johnson moves to get of Vietnam in 1964, he has a decent chance to win again in 1968 or at least lose to someone like George Romney and not Richard Nixon. Anything to prevent the Southern Strategy and therefore Ronald Reagan.