If it was an event, I would choose World War 2. I'm Bohemian (Gypsy) and my people were just as hated as Jews (I'm also like 10% Jewish). So snap Hitler out of history please.

Reagan probably. If my understanding of history is correct, its the only thing that doesn't delete me but helps the most.

The Thanos Snap has sooo many problems associated with it. It's developed by an evil multinational that doesn't listen to its users and keeps trying to force itself on the universe.

People should use the Thanos Flatpak instead...

Ronald Reagan

If it can be abstract I would snap away the acceptance of hierarchy as a method of social control, like historically speaking go back to the first people who decided that there should be a person in charge of all the things and have the people say "Naw, that's fucked" and then that just not happen. Not that the idea of hierarchy not be in existence at all, because I think it would be more effective to have people recognize that it's bullshit and intentionally build societies antithetical to hierarchy rather than to have society's that are ignorant of its potential harm.

If it had to be a tangible thing that I could physically dissolve.... Parasites? Would all parasites count or is that too broad? Cuz if we got rid of fleas and leeches and mosquitoes and ticks that would wipe out huge swaths of vectors of disease transmission. No black plague, no zika, no dengue fever. If we wanted to expand the definition of parasites even broader than the the bourgeoisie class might be included but I wouldn't want to get my hopes up. XD

Ronald Reagan.

Also, while I've got control of the wishfish, I need it to happen paradoxically. I need him to both get turned to ash at the end of his life, so he knows why he deserves it, and before he's able to collude with Iran.

Jimmy Carter losing to Ronald Reagan, shits just rolled downhill gathering size and pace from that unfortunate event.

Jack Welch's whole business philosophy.

Before him, it was more or less understood that business owners had a responsibility to do what was best for their customers, their employees, their communities, and their company's long-term sustainability; the companies that didn't (or didn't at least make it look like they were) were looked down upon.

Welch was the first one to popularize the notion that short-term shareholder value was the CEO's highest priority. He normalized companies' c-suites being cutthroat, craven capitalists.

To be sure, not everything that's wrong with the world today can be laid at his feet. But late-stage capitalism can.

Every republican since Nixon.

Update: enjoying my cake 🍰

The Big Bang was a mistake.

Snap

I say this as an American, from the bottom of my heart I wish Christopher Columbus never existed.

Im thanos snapping Ea Nasir, he sold me inferior quality copper for way too much money >:c

Mosquitos. I'm so fed up with those things.

Henry Kissinger. Easy. Godfather of horrific war crimes and if we all die of nuclear annihilation one day he will be the person I would put the most blame on. It irritates the shit out of me that he died peacefully. A man who made sure napalm gets poured on civilian children? Gets to die like that? Fuck that goof and I hope he was afraid when he died and I hope it hurt.

Jesus would be funny. Honestly any key religious figure or even their betrayers (Judas) would just make for just a wildly different human race.

It'd have to be something fairly pivotal, but nothing so important or so far back that it prevents myself from existing amidst the swirl of history. I think I'd take the risk and say Reagan never became president. That would domino Reaganomics out of history, and remove the precedent of celebrities becoming president.

Hate.

If it has to be something tangible, then idk, pickles maybe.

Carbon dioxide, I'm curious what that would do.

Save the snap. Use it as leverage to shape the future by threatening tyrants into standing down, for I have no idea what might happen absent of a historical event happening.

Now. Who to start with? Bibi? Putin? MBS? Closer to home?

Richard Nixon

Whoever invented circular toilet seats and 1" long sink spigots.

Tough call. There are so many possible points of inflection, and it's hard to know where history goes when you eliminate any single point. Let's say that you snap Adam Smith; does that mean that capitalism never happens, and that we live in a system of mercantilism forever? Or does the system get described by someone else and happen inevitably? What about Ghengis Khan? How does history change if the Mongol empire never happens? Do we all end up speaking Chinese? I you snap Julius Ceasar so that the library of Alexandria never burns, and the Roman empire remains democratic--for a time, at least--then what?

Myself