Exactly. Introduce a significant enough event at any point in this river

没错在这条河的任何一点发生足够大的契机
and you create a new branch,

你就可以造出一条新的支流
still flowing toward the future,but along a different route.

它还是流向未来但是路线不同了
Changed.

被改变了
Yeah,but that river is the Mississippi,

是啊不过那条河是密西西比河
and we're lobbing what amounts to a pebble into it.

我们投进去的只相当于一块鹅卵石
That's a very few tiny ripples in a kind of big body of water,don't you think?

那只会在大河里激起一点小水花你说呢?
Traditionalist.

保守派
Say we do create this new branch.

假设我们真的创造出了新支流
What happens to the old one? To this one?

原来那条会怎样?这条会怎样?
Ask the radical.

问激进派吧
Well,it might continue parallel to the new branch,

它可能继续与新支流平行存在