h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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John Adams' cousin. He was a relatively poor rabble-rouser in Boston who was responsible for the Sons of Liberty and the Committees of Corrospondence. He played a pretty large part in getting the revolution started in Boston, but after serving as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, he sort of faded into the woodwork.

Apparently Sam was elected to the lower house oif the Massachusetts colonial legislature, also.

Apparently he was a representative to both Continental Congresses and in both cases was in favor of strong members against Britain.

I was wrong about him fading into the woodwork--oddly enough he was apparently important in getting Massachusets to adopt the Federal Constitution--odd because I'd always associated him with the antifederalists like Patrick Henry.

He was also govenor of Massachusetts 1794-1797.


Considering his repeated buisness failures and not having a family fortune type of inheritance, he can't really be classed as a "rich merchant or plantation owner" who just didn't want to have to pay taxes.

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He was a Northerner who probably didn't know that much about growing cotton when he came South and build the gin. He may well have thought it would help eliminate slavery by making it possible to process cotton without large numbers of slaves or poor labrours combing through cotton to take out seeds. I don't really know that much about him or his motives.

but if he didnt invent it, slavery would have practically ended and we would probably be the strongest economy and the future mighthave turned out different!... ya we woulld be the stongest country, shoulda seen me hit myself when i read that!
cheers
ford

That's ridiculous to assume. Haven't you ever heard of the Butterfly Effect? For all we know it would have wiped out the Human Species. (Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.)

ya, but once you take into aacount that the butterfy effect was a story producedd by hollywood actors and computer animation, it doenst mean much! he might have wiped out the entire human race by crating the cotton gin! WHO KNOWS! I might be destroying thousands of worllds just by sending this... you gotta take a chance
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feeing very suicidal ford

some American Revolutionary leaders may have been motivated by self-interest
given human nature it would be surprising if that wasn't the case but others were genuine radicals
Tom Paine for instance, a political thinker whose works are still relevant today

eer... ok
cheers
ford

The Butterfly Effect is not a story produced by Hollywood! It's Short Hand for the effects of Chaos Theory. Which essiantially states that it's impossible to predict the full effects of any action because one action will cause another, which in turn will cause another and so on.

Example: Joe decides to go to a Bar. Jerry accidentally trips Joe, and Joe breaks his leg as he falls down the stairs. So instead Joe goes to the Hospital in an Ambulance. Because Joe never made it to the Bar he never met Sally; if he had then they would have fallen in Love, had three kids and lived happily ever after. Those three kids would then have had children as well, and those children would have also had children and so on. An entire Family Branch has now never existed.

Let's go back to the Ambulance now. Because the Physician was busy fixing Joe's leg, he wasn't able to convince a suicidal kid not to kill himself. Had he managed to do so, that kid would have grown up to become a medical genius that would cure Cancer, Aids, and the Flu. Twenty years after that, Jerry will come up with a system that ends World Hunger. Unfortunately Jerry dies of Cancer before he has a chance to tell anyone what it was. Another three years later Zefram Cochrane dies of starvation at the age of seven. But another twenty years after that he would have invented Warp Drive; made First Contact with the Vulcans, and planted the seeds for the United Federation of Planets. Another 300 years later the Universe is about to be destroyed by some insane Romulan's Superweapon and only Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise can stop him. BUT, since the Federation never existed, Starfleet and the Enterprise are merely figments of my imagination and the entire Universe gets obliterated. We're all dead.

Do you see what would have happened Jerry had just been more careful? And nobody could have predicted the result. ~That~ is Chaos Theory, and it's been around since long before that stupid movie was ever even concieved of. The Movie only stole the name because that effect was what they were illustrating.

Yes, but thats only a theroy, like desteny, or somethin!
You are a startrek fan... i admire that!
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ford

It's not only a theory. It's been logically proven. I just gave you the proof for crying out loud! It's ~name~ is "Chaos Theory"; but that doesn't mean it's "only" a theory. That's like saying Gravity is a theory!

Yes but (im gonna use different names) what if aaron who tripped tyler was supposed to do that cuz if he didnt then he would have gotten hit by tylers car and died before he came up with a cure for AIDS before tyler did! and if tyler HAD met, mary, then their first child may come out to be the next hitler and destroy man kind!

how can you prove which is right? Maybe there both right! maybe they are both full of SQUEEK... who knows?
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ford

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But he didn't know that....

And perhaps the US wouldn't have become as much of an industrial power without the Civil War. Or maybe the slave-less South would have industrialized just as much.

How would this have affected westward expantion? Would a US that didn't spend half the 19th century arguing about slavery have decided to take ALL of Mexico because noone had to worry if the new territory would be slave or free? Or would slaveowners not have moved to Texas, since they could move to northern Louisiana (forbidden to slavery by the Missouri Compromise of 1820), and thus never start the Mexican war? Would a less divided US have fought Britian over ALL of Oregon? Would it have won or lost? Would it have started imperialism earlier, or, without the post-Civil War industrial buildup never at all?

see what i mean?
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ford

Now, now... all of our scientific theories are really just a way of predicting how things will act - not how they work. The theory of gravity is just that - a theory. We used to have all sorts of theories that we've thrown out, like the ether, which was supposed to carry radio waves, or the old one about the sun revolving around the Earth. Right now we've got a lot of theories which don't really connect with each other, like strong magnetism, weak magnetism, strong electrical force, gravity, etc. If we knew more about the universe, we could discard these theories in favor of a unified field theory.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here...

But I'm guessing that all three of you believe in Creationism. Am I wrong?

remind me what that is again...?
cheers
ford

I think you're on the wrong track there

God, essiantially.

Jinx.