

Happenstance - __Rahul
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/12/12/happenstance/

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hugh3
Pretty much anyone who was alive in 1620 will by now either have no
descendants or a ridiculously large number of descendants.

If his descendants continued to breed at the rate of 2.5 children each at the
age of 25 then by now he'd have approximately 1.6 million descendants in the
latest generation (plus another million or so from their parents and
grandparents' generations, still alive). Bump it up to an average of three
children and we're looking at 30 million descendants. Bring the breeding age
down to 22 and we're talking 287 million descendants, which just happens to be
the population of the US. Of course you'd need to adjust that downwards since
there'd be plenty of (mostly rather remote) inbreeding along the way.

If you could get a complete list of your (seven hundred thousand or so)
ancestors dating back to the 17th century you'd probably be totally thrilled
by the number of famous names on it. But of course, everyone else would have a
similar number of famous names on their own.

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brudgers
Without analysis of the counter-factual, the list seems impressive. But had
Howland died there is a high probability that there still would have been a
32nd, 41st, and 43rd US president; prominent 19th century poets; Alaskan
governors; pediatricians and Hollywood leading men. And listing both Bush's
seems gratuitous - why not list all the Baldwin brothers?

Probably the only two individuals on the list whose impact on US history might
be considered irreproducible are Smith and to perhaps a lesser extent, Young
because creating enduring spiritual systems [Mormonism] and political states
[Utah] seems more dependent on individual characteristics than the roles
filled by other individuals.

~~~
lotharbot
There's a famous Twilight Zone episode about a time-traveling assassin who
kills baby Adolf Hitler. The episode concludes that nothing really changes, as
another child growing up in that environment becomes just as bad as an adult.

I'm not sure if I believe it, but it's an interesting argument. There almost
certainly would have been people in most of those positions, though perhaps
not with the same quirks.

~~~
brudgers
That's what I was trying to differentiate in looking at the list...the impact
of zeitgeist relative to the butterfly effect.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect>

In other words, it is likely that Dole [had he won the Republican nomination]
would have defeated Dukakis as readily as Bush did in 1988, or that Carry
Grant could have starred in _The African Queen._

On the other hand, the specifics of Smith's personality and circumstances are
hard to separate from the movement he spawned.

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yuvadam
Bullshit or not - it is interesting to think of the fact that we all are a
continuation of biological life dating back to our common ancestors.

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Qz
Can anyone verify this or is it one of those myths?

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yummyfajitas
FDR, Bush, Palin and Brigham Young?

Note to self: if you ever build a time machine, go back and make sure Howland
drowns.

~~~
Dylanlacey
This may or may not be possible, depending on certain factors.

First, assume that this would cause a paradox, basically, an exception of type
CausalityFailException.

If the universe has runtime checking, you go back in time, eliminate Howard,
all those people, and then they never existed, your motivation never existed,
and you can't have gone back in time. Basically, the stack of history is now
in an unknown state and calculating the state of the universe causes the
temporal stack to overflow.

XX/YY/ZZZZ AA:BB:CC ERROR: Exception thrown: "Unknown Timepoint" CAUSED BY:
XX/YY/ZZZZ AA:BB:CC Nested Exception: "TemporalStackOverflow" CAUSED BY:
XX/YY/ZZZZ AA:BB:CC Nested Exception: "CausalityFailException" CAUSED BY:
yummyfajitas:1234224578783

IF, however, the universe had compile-time checking, you'd get a simple, much
cleaner 13/12/2010 09:43:23 ERROR: Cannot compile module "yummyfajitas-
timetravel" - Method "EliminateTheFuckwits" has uncaught Temporal Side-
Effects.

This leads us to believe that any language which can do compile-time checking
is necessarily better for debugging, quality, and universe stability.

(In other words: God used Scala.)

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astrofinch
If you're a man and you have children, anything you did differently before you
had them would have resulted in different children because your sperm would
have shifted.

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/06/parenthood_as_t....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/06/parenthood_as_t.html)

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prosa
If you're wondering whether the story is true or not, it appears to be. All of
the relevant facts are present in John Howland's (heavily cited) Wikipedia
article.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howland>

