Talk:2104: Biff Tannen

So I guess we're just construing this as a polarized editorial now. Appropriate context or no.

Seems fun. 108.162.221.167 01:50, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I thought Biff jumped from 2015 to 1955, not 1985...? Young Biff had the Almanac in his pocket at the High School dance and the tower he built was already in place in 1985.

Collusion with a time traveler would bring a few things into focus. 173.245.54.25 15:24, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

You inspire one house painter to change careers & suddenly everyone blames you for everything.

ProphetZarquon (talk) 16:23, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy 172.68.65.198 15:39, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Do we keep the “cheat at sports betting” wording? I don’t know if this is cheating. 108.162.210.136 17:22, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Cheating is generally heald to be using something unavailable to anyone else in the normal course of play to gain an advantage. I'd say using the almanac towards those ends definitely applies. Mjm87 (talk) 19:07, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

If anyone questions the fact that newspapers in real life did attempt to assert that the rise of Trump was inevitable, various newspaper articles may easily be found as proof with a Google Search for [Donald Trump inevitable], preferably restricted to results before 2017, so as to remove results about things he did later. I don't know how best to incorporate such results as a source in the article, as the number of citations could easily be made too big, and also I don't know if anyone cares. 108.162.210.136 17:30, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I am from Europe, and I do not understand the issue. If event X happens while you predicted Y, isn't researching and hypothising a good way to find out why, possibly learning new things in the process? Saying you don't want to debate the issue is like hating politics. 141.101.104.131 18:27, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Many people who understand politics hate it. On behalf of my fellow continenteans, I apologize for 141.101.104.131, who apparently believes that politics overlaps with political science. 162.158.114.40 18:51, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Note that Hillbilly Elegy could not have been intended to explain the Trump election, having been written before it. However, it was interpreted this way. I have attempted to make this clear in the explanation.108.162.212.179 18:53, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, Biff is based off of Donald Trump, so the Donald Trump analogy may be more likely than not. I can't quite recall where I read this, but there are quite a few similarities between the two. 162.158.186.138 19:14, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Added 162.158.122.156 19:24, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Why does this article go out of its way to avoid mentioning Hillary Clinton by name?162.158.107.19 20:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)KingLeary

Beats me. Fixed it. 108.162.246.95 04:47, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

XKCD on XKCD: "The word 'thinkpiece' sounds like a word made up by someone who didn't know about the word 'brain'." 172.69.33.233 01:00, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

The explanation should include info on what a "counterfactual" is. 108.162.246.95 04:49, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Done 108.162.212.131 12:33, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Isn't the title text making a reference to Orwell?

Regarding politics

Wow, all this Trump stuff feels like a real stretch... 172.68.132.95 21:00, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Nah21:42, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious to me, personally, that this is an analogy to the idea that if Trump rose to power via means nobody was aware of at the time, the book would seem a little humorous. I guess that seems like a huge stretch to some and obvious to others. The references to the roughly-two views on this in the article feel painful to read, controversial, and like the issues aren't really honestly and fairly laid out. I wish there were some way to really give respect to both views. Even if many disagree with Randall, I think for many it is clear this is the subject of the comic. 172.68.65.198

Note there is a (joke?) conspiracy theory that Trump is a time traveler, using technology provided by his uncle John Trump... 162.158.255.22 23:06, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

That would explain why he was able to do so well in the electoral college despite losing the popular vote. He knew which states would be close, so he could focus his efforts on narrowly winning those instead of narrowing losing them, and not worry about states like CA that would have such wide margins of victory that campaigning wouldn't affect who won them.172.69.33.23 07:06, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

I think if Trump were a time traveller, he should be much richer, because he would have bet on sports, or invested in big companies while they were small. Instead, he invested in real estate, which was not a good option if he knew about the housing crisis beforehand. The only way I can think of to attribute his life choices to time travel meddling is: if the general public knew that time travel exists, this is the best way not to draw suspicion. 108.162.212.131 13:06, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Or to provide reasonable doubt for a super-secret Temporal Court that recognizes the right to presumed innocence. I think I would enjoy reading that story.--108.162.221.167 21:58, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

List layout

In the two instances where the article considered alternative reasons for a feature of the comic, I have turned these reasons into a list, as this makes it easier to understand and cuts down on the repetitive "Alternatively" and such. 162.158.122.156 04:15, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

1985A

I have changed instances of "the universe where BiffCo exists" to "the 1985A Back to the Future timeline", or simply "1985A" for short. This is for two reasons:

• To keep the article cleaner.
• To keep future misreaders the article from either:
  • cutting down on the words because they seem unnecessary
  • adding a comma between "universe" and "where", which would ruin the construct.
• To be consistent with the terminology used by Doc Brown himself.

162.158.122.156 04:19, 30 January 2019 (UTC)