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Comment by fiaz | Hacker News Reader

I would try my hardest to prevent 9/11.

Could the first black president have been elected with out it? (Serious question)

I doubt Bush would have gotten elected for a second time if it wasn't for 9/11 and I think Obama would have had a much harder time getting elected if Bush hadn't destroyed the public's opinion of the republican party.

I think I'd rather prevent an eight year war that's going nowhere and all the unnecessary death than comes with it, rather than elect an arbitrary minority who may not have been elected if his opponents weren't the worst possible option.

Well, to be honest, that Obama got elected to the Senate in the first place had a lot to do with the self-destructive behavior of the incument Senator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_(Senate_candidate)#

And the major newspapers covered up the illegal wiretappings for more than a year. Originally they were going to be released just prior to the 2004 election. I contend that if they had been released, then Kerry would have won overwhelmingly. This cover-up, along with a few others, such as Abu Ghirab, lead me to have no sympathy for the struggling newspapers - they abandoned us when we needed them.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/doj-nixed-inves.htm...

I think "an eight year war that's going nowhere and all the unnecessary death" is not an overall assessment of the effect 9/11 has had.

Indeed stop it and you could well kill more people (no by atroscities but by the butterfly effect etc.) - do you then go back and stop those deaths? Where does it stop? Do you go back to influence the decisions that affect every innocent life, do you constantly tweak history to ensure the maximum people "survive"?

The fact that 9/11 HAS happened means that if anyone has invented a time machine at some point in the future (or whenever) they either took the correct decision not to change history dramatically. Or they did and that was a potential consequence.

As I said below. Tampering with History itself is an unbelievably dangerous game.

... thus precipitating the dirty-bomb attack of 2006

"Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip." http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html

It all depends on the approach you take...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network

No-one would believe you.

the key would be to go back a bit farther so you had large pools of resources way before 09/11. Then use said resources to "plant" evidence of the upcoming atrocity.

But then, you in a cycle, because I am sure there are lots of past tragedies one would want to pre-empt.

Personally I would leave it as it is: harsh as it sounds, tampering with History seems a worrying path to tread...

(no reasons why you couldnt track down Osama - for example - then jump back in time to tell the US forces where he will be at XYZ date to pick him up :))

> no reasons why you couldnt track down Osama - for example - then jump back in time to tell the US forces where he will be at XYZ date to pick him up

The US knew where to get Osama many times. They didn't because they didn't think that he wasn't interesting.

That's the Cassandra problem. How do you convince the US to do something about Osama before 9/11? Lots of people claim to know the future.

Ah no not what I meant; thatapproach would be on a par with trying to stop 9/11 (aka bad).

I mean NOW, in the modern day, find Osama then jump back a month or 2 and provide the military with the date / time / location :)

Theoretically then you are not affecting the "past" provided the US military dont arrive till after you make the jump back in time.

> no reasons why you couldnt track down Osama

But to stop 9/11, you would have to track down Cheney.

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