Sure all that's theoretically possible, but realistically no one reading this post is influencing global events on any significant scale. Especially if you're just doing normal kid stuff. A random kid ordering spaghetti instead of chicken nuggets is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The same goes for just about any choice you'd likely be presented with.

[–] numberfour002@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

realistically no one reading this post is influencing global events on any significant scale.

I'm not really sure where influencing global events comes into play with my prior comment, but I agree with you. However, when I posted my comment, I really mostly only saw people discussing relative and personal changes they'd make, so I'm also sort of thinking that global events are mostly irrelevant.

Especially if you’re just doing normal kid stuff. A random kid ordering spaghetti instead of chicken nuggets is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The same goes for just about any choice you’d likely be presented with.

If you're focused on the ramifications of any one specific choice, then I feel like you're missing the forest for the tree (to coopt a popular idiom).

Every choice you make and everything you do differently will change things in some way, even if only to an imperceptible degree. From the moment you arrive back at your 6 year old self, you will constantly be making different decisions and doing things differently, whether you want to or not. The cumulative effects of these minute changes over time will make things increasingly more unpredictable and the new timeline and old timeline will necessarily diverge.

Then consider that some things in life are literally a cumulation of everything that you've done and everything that happened to you up to that point. Even small changes will have an impact. For instance, think of someone with biological children who goes back in time. The children they end up the second time around will be completely different people because of how random the process is that leads to two specific gametes being involved in the fertilization process. Literally eating spaghetti as a 6 year old could affect the outcome there, let alone the millions/billions/trillions of different actions that person would make over the decade(s) leading up to their child/childrens' conception. Perhaps having completely different kids is still inconsequential, but that's literally just one example, so I wouldn't get too hung up on the specifics.

[–] psud@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I don't think many of us are significant enough to change anything, at least until we time travel with intent to make enough money to fix some of the problems of now