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If you could go back in time and stop one disaster.....

128 replies

Shmoigel · 12/09/2026 17:46

If you could go back in time and stop one disaster or other historical event, what would it be and how would you go about stopping it!

OP posts:
Wonderones · 12/09/2026 18:10

Hiroshima

Moistcottonchafers · 12/09/2026 18:13

Aberfan.

jollygreenpea · 12/09/2026 18:14

Social media
As pp are sorting other disaster's I will stop Lockerbie.

TheGrandTourNew · 12/09/2026 18:18

I’ve name changed for this because this will be one that most of you have heard of. I’d have picked one of the obvious ones like the Holocaust but outside of that.

The Princess Victoria disaster of 31 January 1953.

luckylavender · 12/09/2026 18:19

Aberfan

fiveyo · 12/09/2026 18:19

This is an interesting version of the trolley problem! Utilitarians would choose the most lives saved but I guess in reality people feel that some deaths less ‘just’ than others so might choose less prolific but more ‘incredible’ disasters. Interesting question OP.

SeptemberRains · 12/09/2026 18:20

Hillsborough.
The Omagh bomb.
Bloody Sunday.

fiveyo · 12/09/2026 18:22

LittleMonks11 · 12/09/2026 18:09

9/11 - the deaths of the day and in the decades after, the knock on effect of the ‘war on terror’, the Patriot Act 2001, the military overreach, the 20 year war in Afghanistan that failed, the deaths, the Weapons of Mass Destruction that never were, the deaths, the paving of the way for the post truth times …

9/11 was horrendous to watch (and the whole world watched it all, unlike other disasters) and as you say - how many lives would have been saved if the ‘war on terror’ had never taken place?

fiveyo · 12/09/2026 18:22

SeptemberRains · 12/09/2026 18:20

Hillsborough.
The Omagh bomb.
Bloody Sunday.

Interesting choices!

fiveyo · 12/09/2026 18:25

Ashmoleum · 12/09/2026 18:05

Brexit and Boris Johnson.

Really? I’m no fan but does this really match up to the crowded field of possible ‘disasters’?

Dracolina · 12/09/2026 18:26

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Kepler22B · 12/09/2026 18:26

I was going to say Aberfan but humans seem to need disasters to take safety seriously and make changes. Same with the Titanic. Both events led to major legislative changes which probably saved more lives as a result.

If I could magically save Aberfan, but keep the safety laws that came in then it would be that one.

ErrolTheDragon · 12/09/2026 18:29

ChopSueyCharcuterieBoard · 12/09/2026 17:49

I would go back in time and stop whichever fucker who came up with the idea of religion from doing it.

Not sure how I would do it, but if I had to I would happily shove him (bound to have been a man) off a cliff or something.

Given the ubiquity of religions that might be hard, but it’s mostly monotheism which is problematic because it’s inherently intolerant.

sugarapplelane · 12/09/2026 18:30

The birth of Trump (and many other horrible men)

Sometimessmiling · 12/09/2026 18:31

Crazycockerpoo · 12/09/2026 17:49

There's quite a few..

Dunblane was awful, those poor children's parents!

Me too.

TheCoatThatLaunched1000Emails · 12/09/2026 18:32

I would try to stop serial killers - Brady and Hindley, the Wests, Nilsen, the Yorkshire Ripper, Shipman.

I've thought a lot about this, and concluded that sadly the only way to do it 100% effectively would be after the killer's first murder - otherwise no one would take you seriously. But if you could get in after the first murder, point the police to the perpetrator, evidence etc. they would be banged up for it and it would stop all the rest.

LoveItaly · 12/09/2026 18:33

Tony Blair

Ipsevenenabibas · 12/09/2026 18:35

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There’s a lot of confidence here for an argument built on some remarkably simplistic ideas about ancestry, nationality and history.

Having Russian, Polish or Ukrainian Jewish ancestry doesn't mean someone has no historical connection to the Levant, any more than having ancestors who migrated somewhere makes their descendants permanently “foreign”. History isn't a DNA purity test, and a 23andMe result doesn't get to decide who is indigenous to where.

You’re also making the rather bizarre leap from “I oppose the creation of Israel” to “therefore Jewish people who went there should simply have stayed in the countries their ancestors came from”. Given the centuries of persecution, expulsions and ultimately the Holocaust that shaped Jewish migration, that's an extraordinarily neat solution to a catastrophically complicated history.

And nobody needs to be told that Palestinian displacement and suffering aren't the responsibility of Palestinians. They absolutely aren't. But acknowledging that does not require pretending Jewish historical ties to the region are “homeland nonsense”.

As for “Zionism is to Judaism what ISIS is to Islam” — that analogy is frankly embarrassing. Zionism is a broad political movement with numerous strands, including secular and socialist ones, and Judaism is a religion and peoplehood. ISIS is a specific extremist terrorist organisation. You can be fiercely anti-Zionist without making a comparison so reductive that it collapses an entire political history into a terrorist organisation.

You’re entitled to believe Israel should never have been established. What you aren't entitled to is having your own version of history treated as self-evident fact simply because you've written “lol” after it.

OneN · 12/09/2026 18:37

HairyBush · 12/09/2026 18:09

I suppose I would reverse a lot of negative impact humans have had on the planet. Pollutuon of land and sea; deforestation, overfishing, over-production, mass extinction of species due to loss of habitat etc etc.

Also, AI. Get rid of it.

The only way this could happen is if you wiped out humans. The earth would be a beautiful, untouched place, but none of us would be here to see it.
Mass extinction of other species has happened wherever humans migrated to, even before our latest technological advances. Us being so clever and able to work together was never a good thing for planet earth or its other inhabitants.
Edited to say—I’m not advocating wiping out the human race. Just pointing out the consequences of our existence—an animal with seemingly infinite capacity for violence and destruction.

FindingMeno · 12/09/2026 18:38

Might I say capitalism?

Ashmoleum · 12/09/2026 18:40

fiveyo · 12/09/2026 18:25

Really? I’m no fan but does this really match up to the crowded field of possible ‘disasters’?

We are all personally affected by Brexit ten years on and counting. It is/was a total disaster for UK.

Other disasters were horrible, no doubt about it, but in general they didn't impact us personally really. Maybe the aftermath of some of them though.

CherryKerry · 12/09/2026 18:49

If you mean a natural disaster then for me it would be the 2004 Tsunami.

Historical event would have to be WW1, so many lives wasted.

I also wish my maternal Granny's first baby wasn't still born. My Mum was therefore an only child and has no family as my grandparents didn't have siblings either. It would have been very different if her stillborn older sibling had lived.

Oldraver · 12/09/2026 18:54

Aberfan

Dracolina · 12/09/2026 19:05

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Awkwardisfunny · 12/09/2026 19:07

Honestly? The big bang or whatever latest science shows.

Obviously, I don't know how. Probably just cut a wire or something.

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