Posted on 09/22/2010 8:32:49 PM PDT by Abin Sur
If you could eliminate one person from history, who would it be? One caveat: it can't be Muhammad, for one simple reason: almost everyone is going to pick him! This would get rather monotonous, so let's just assume that 90% (at least) of the responses would pick Muhammad first. If you still pick him...BZZT I'm sorry, you've lost, thank you for playing and here's a copy of our home game.
And let's not have anyone picking Muhammad's father or grandfather just to get at him, either. That's cheating.
Ok, now that that's out of the way, who do you pick? Here's the rules: You can go back in history and prevent any one person from being born. You don't have to kill anyone. For instance, if you want to stop Hitler from being born, you can go up to Klara Pölzl (Adolph's mother) in 1880 and give her 10,000 marks to emigrate to the USA. She never marries Alois, so presto...no Adolph. This will have the incidental effect of preventing his brothers from being born as well, of course.
After you prevent your target from being conceived, you snap back to 2010 and enjoy living in a world made better by your actions. Bear in mind, though, that removing someone from history may not have that great an effect. If you prevent Darwin from existing, someone is still going to come up with the theory of evolution. It may be called by another name, and it may be delayed by a decade or two, but things tend to get invented when it's time to invent them.
I would note that some individuals would be exceptions. If you took out Isaac Newton (heaven know why, but it's your choice), modern science as we know it would be delayed by half a century, at least.
Anyway, that's the setup. Who do you pick, and what do you think would be the result of this person not existing?
Nero
He destroyed so much, yet I doubt he fathered anything
If you say so, but I’m not convinced that usury is the driving engine of civilization yet.
Seems like fiat money is the final expression of usury, and look to the catrasrophy that it has always lead too.
definitely Lenin
no Russian Revolution or USSR without Lenin, at least not likely in the form it took
no Stalin without Lenin
no Hitler
no Mao
of course those persons could still have existed but they would not have become the notorious mass-murderers we know and loathe
there might have been other really bad things in the 20th century, but Lenin had a uniquely evil role in shaping the Russian Rev. and that led to uncountable millions of deaths in the 20th century plus so many totalitarian govts
Satan is not a person but a fallen angel.
hmmmph. ‘Figure’ was what I was thinking but indeed it says person.
Well you did better than I did. I can’t come up with anybody.
I was thinking Obama too, but then he has been responsible for lots of people waking up and paying attention. Without him we might have just continued inching along the path to destruction, and we at least have a fighting chance now.
Mohammed’s Mom.....
Rothschild
My boss.
Gary Bettman. Period.
True. I’m surprised that noone named the one person who committed the first crime. Cain is my choice.
>>Gary Bettman. Period.<<
YES, anyone who would screw up God’s most perfect creation is the worst person in history. Man may have been created on the sixth day, as the highest of the animals; but on the eighth day, God created hockey.
saladin
Abraham would be a good choice. Technically within the guidelines.
dishonest abe
dishonest abe
da who first super-sized the skids to our Republic...
Dale Gribble
Good one.
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