If you could, would you, should you?

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  • Ok this is an idea I had for a thread, I guess its about moral dilemmas, first of all its just a bit of fun, there is no specific topic, so it can be about anything, but the idea should remain the same and is kind of explained in the title anyone is welcome to come up with a suggestion, just keep it within the forum guidelines.

    Lets start with: If you could travel back in time and alter an event, would you and also should you? It can be a personal thing say a decision you made that you might want to do different, or it could be a world event that you could change.

    Ok somthing I often think about is when I had to choose my options at school of what I would study to gain exam passes for when I left school, I was very keen on physics, chemistry and biology and was told by the teachers that taught me those subjects that I would probably be good enough to get decent results and go on to to do O levels and above, but my form tutor kind of suggested that maybe that was being too ambitious as they would be very hard subjects and would involve too much study or words to that effect, so being young I took her advice and so left school with very basic CSE grades in Maths English and Geography, I did also get a very basic City and Guilds foundation in Engineering, so I'm kind of thinking if I could go back and change that decision, would I and more importantly should I? I mean how much different would things for me now be, would I have met my wife, would I have the children I have now, would I be living where I am now, so on reflection for me at least I think I wouldn't want to change anything.

    So feel free to discuss and add your own if you wish?

  • If we could turn back time I would have urged the country to uphold our high moral standards of 50 years ago and not allow them to deteriorate into the mess we now find ourselves. The OP mentioned "moral dilemmas" . We now have TV programmes like "Naked Attraction" "Drag Race" language like the "F" word and the "C" word is heard every day on TV and the country is rife with sexual perversions. (Best not to itemise them lest the thought police clamp down, as there is no free speech allowed in the UK now).

    The Voice of Reason

  • the country is rife with sexual perversions

    Always has been, always will. It's nothing new to society, far from it.

    If I could go back in time it would be to meet some of my relatives that I have only ever heard of through stories retold. I would also want to influence the laws around sexuality and gender which have held us back so much for decades if not centuries.

  • the country is rife with sexual perversions.

    As Indigo says, this has always been the case, but the difference now is that they are publicised so much and they are pretty well encouraged.

    To be honest, I don’t begrudge people from having those freedoms, however much they may disgust us, but I don’t think they should be presented as freely as they are. Such programmes should be on subscription channels so the rest of us don’t have to hear or see it anymore.

    Even very young people get subjected to this stuff on the main channels. Why does the BBC, of all the broadcasters, have items on sex crimes and scandals broadcast on BBC1 and Radio 1 during the day? Why can’t this sort of thing wait until after the watershed?

    Another thing I would like the politicians to have done better would have been not to have the anti-discrimination laws passed. They are very divisive and I think they have caused a lot of resentment from the native population. Instead, they should have passed an equality law to give everyone the right to equal treatment under the law. This would have achieved a much wider acceptance of the principle of treating people the same without making the majority of people feel that they had been forgotten by being left out.

  • It's a good subject topic, Ron and I don't intend to politicise it. I interpret your intention as being for us to discuss personal life experiences that we would have done differently.

    I'm interested in Indigo's comment and would ask her to expand on what exactly she would change.

    I've been very fortunate in life and have personally never suffered family strife, deprivation, cruelty or poverty. I can have nothing to change regarding my family and upbringing. I enjoyed school and if it sounds boastful, I was quite successful and even enjoyed being a prefect during Sixth Form. I took my duties seriously.

    I suppose though, like millions of of others, if I could change one thing in my life, it would be to go back to when I was 13 / 14 and have the courage to come out when I first began to realise that I was attracted to my own gender. Instead, I (again, like millions of others) did all the wrong things...... denial..... self loathing..... personal recrimination....... I didn't have the courage to come out until shortly after my 19th birthday and it now seems just like I missed so much life and suffered so much angst.

    The only girlfriend I had as a teenager is still a good friend. She and I attended each other's weddings. How we kept our affair secret for two years, in an all-girl school, I just don't know. Fellas.... you have no idea what a gossip-mill a school full of adolescent girls can be........ But we both say now, that we wish we'd been able to be out at that time.

    It was quite amusing the first time I took wife with me to a school reunion. A few jaws dropped but most of them said "I always knew there was something funny about you and Sarah (my ex)". Yeah.. of course you did.

    Things have worked out well for me in the end, so perhaps the experience of those years must have had some character building benefit although I couldn't say what it is.

    Nice thread, Ron. Thanks for posting.

  • It's a good subject topic, Ron and I don't intend to politicise it. I interpret your intention as being for us to discuss personal life experiences that we would have done differently.

    Yes that was kind of my intention for this thread, also to discuss just because somthing can be done, would we do it and should we do it, which would apply to going back in time and changing somthing if that was possible, I would guess most people have seen in some way or form the concept of time travel and if it is possible and have heard about the consequences of going back and altering things in the past and what affect would be in the future, but that is only one aspect of what I am wanting to discuss , but the main focus I am interested is as I said If we could change somthing, would we and should we?

    And thanks Jenny for your input and I certainly dont want the thread to descend into being about politics, hence it being placed in the general discussion section.

  • The thread has not quite gone in the direction I had intended, but nevermind. ?

    You need to understand, Ron, that when you get to my age, there are all too many things you would have done differently if you had another chance. Far too many to mention!

    However, sorry for contributing to this going off in the wrong direction!

  • You need to understand, Ron, that when you get to my age, there are all too many things you would have done differently if you had another chance. Far too many to mention!

    However, sorry for contributing to this going off in the wrong direction!

    No worries, all threads are kind of fluid and tend to flow in whatever direction they do anyway.

    And yes everyone will have things to look back on and think I wonder how that would have turned out if I had done it differently, but its best not to dwell on it too much and just think its the way it is because that's the way it is.

  • Hi Ron, On your O/Post you mentioned "Moral Dilemmas" I took the expression literally hence my post. If the thread is not going the way you intended, the O/Post probably was a bit ambiguous .. However no problems.... You have to remember that all threads have a life of their own and can throw up all kinds of interesting unintended discussions. That's the beauty of forums. :)

    The Voice of Reason

  • Hi Ron, On your O/Post you mentioned "Moral Dilemmas" I took the expression literally hence my post. If the thread is not going the way you intended, the O/Post probably was a bit ambiguous .. However no problems.... You have to remember that all threads have a life of their own and can throw up all kinds of interesting unintended discussions. That's the beauty of forums. :)

    Yeah my bad, as they say, and yes the thread is sort of about moral dilemmas, the choices we make and if we could make them again given the chance, would we, and if it changes the way things are now and possibly effect us and other people should we change the choice we originally made?

  • If I could turn back time and change something I would like to change the outcome of WW2 so Hitler won. I think it would be interesting to see the world today if he had won. How would the world have changed and would it have turned out for the better or worse. Going back even further in time I also think it would have been interesting if Cromwell lost and the Royals won. What would it be like today. How different may our life's be. It's interesting how one event can have such major implications depending on which side the coin falls. Could you imagine how different things could be now if we closed the borders and locked down like New Zealand at the very start of this pandemic. We could all be back to normal now with less deaths and richer for it.

  • The thing we're really talking about in this discussion is known as "The Butterfly Effect".

    It's an aspect of Chaos Theory. It states that a small change can make much bigger changes happen. one small incident can have a big impact on the future.

    Originally perceived by Edward Lorenz, it postulated that a butterfly flapping its wings could have a miniscule effect on a weather system, which progresses and at each stage has an increasing effect that spirals upwards to result in a major storm being created and coming to fruition several weeks later, arguing that if something happened to prevent the butterfly flapping, the chain of events that led to the storm wouldn't happen. Bizarre stuff and you either subscribe to it or you don't. You choose.

    I think we could all consider how events have turned out in life that might not otherwise have happened had we changed one small thing. In my example, if I HAD come out sooner, Sarah and I might have stayed together and then I wouldn't have started dating Amanda, I wouldn't have come to live in Cornwall, I wouldn't have met the man who would become my sperm donor and I wouldn't have my daughter now. The decision taken one afternoon, in a south London bedroom by a frightened adolescent girl who felt very alone and scared, to stay closeted and say nothing led to me being where I am today.

    In an alternative moment I might have summoned up my courage and said "I don't care what they think. This is ME."

    And who knows where I'd be today.

  • Thanks for sharing that Jenny, and yeas that is what I am trying to do with this thread discuss and think about "the what if I had done this instead?" and the consequences of making different decisions.

    For instance in my case what if I had made the decision to study Physics, Chemistry and Biology to a higher level and stayed on at school and then maybe even go to university to study them where would I be now, ok with that in mind what if I could go back and remake that choice, the question then arises, should I do that if I could do it? And that is the dilemma bit if we could change history should we?

  • If I could turn back time and change something I would like to change the outcome of WW2 so Hitler won. I think it would be interesting to see the world today if he had won. How would the world have changed and would it have turned out for the better or worse. Going back even further in time I also think it would have been interesting if Cromwell lost and the Royals won. What would it be like today. How different may our life's be. It's interesting how one event can have such major implications depending on which side the coin falls. Could you imagine how different things could be now if we closed the borders and locked down like New Zealand at the very start of this pandemic. We could all be back to normal now with less deaths and richer for it.

    Some very interesting and thought provoking ideas there that for sure, if Hitler had won the war would we even be here to discuss it?

    As for the Cromwell one he did kind of lose at a later date I suppose. :/

    And the one about closing the borders to prevent the spread of Covid, while it maybe have meant the lockdowns may not have been so strict you have to ask would the vaccination programme been implemented so quickly, would it have just delayed the spread of Covid in the UK until a later date, a lot to think about so thanks for your input.

  • If Germany had won the war in Europe They would have controlled all and every aspect of European life. They would have made laws that every European country would have to slavishly follow. --- Wow --- So much like the dreaded EU..

    Oliver Cromwell had the decency and integrity of the country first and foremost when he rid the country of many of the evil, corrupt and nasty people who wanted to overthrow parliament.. He did a great job.. Unfortunately he fell ill in later life and could not sustain the fight against corruption and evil. ....Great military leader though, in his earlier years.

    The Voice of Reason

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