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Words That Could Change The World


Crazy hypothetical: Words That Could Change The World*


You have a machine that can send a twitter length message (140 Characters) to any person at any time in history. The person receiving the message will not believe it is from the future (even if you try telling them) and will be delivered in a way that will seem ordinary to them. The message will be treated like any other message the person might receive, so the more famous or influential person that receives it the more likely that might ignore it. (So if you send a message to Abraham Lincoln telling him not to go to Ford’s theater, it will be put in with all the hundreds of other messages he received in a day and he might not see it till it is to late.) The machine will only work once. Who do you send a message to and why? What effect do you think it will have?


*Crazy Hypothetical is a mental game that gives you a conditional choice that gets you thinking about a subject. I used these for several years as discussion starters in Bible class. This one is good for a lesson about what we say and how words can have varied effects. You can also limit time( in your lifetime) or person ( message to yourself in the past).

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