If you could choose a time period to be born into, when would it be?

I'd like to be just 20 or so years into the future. Where hopefully the current economy problems are sorted, or are at least a lot better. I don't want to jump too far, as the human greed will probably wipe the human race out before too long anyway.
 
I'm quite happy with being born in 1969 because it meant I was still enjoying my young adult life in the 90's.

Or the future would be good too.
 
I change mind, i would love to born in the Ancient Egyptian time. As long as i was born as a Pharaoh or Pharaoh to be (would that be a Prince)

Just imagine all the honeys at your command, feed me grapes luscious one
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Well I don't know, sir. Is this a trick question? And why do I have to sign my name in blood?

Because any times before the middle of the 20th century, you'd have a considerable chance to not even make it past twenty, let alone ten. And then would you be some poor peasant, coal miner, cannon fodder, aristocrat, slave, syphilitic Babylonian whore?

Life was nowhere near as comfortable as it is today, and even today it all depends where you're born. So consider yourself very lucky. Even more so, improbably lucky, if you believe all those pesky Darwinists (which I do, of course).

Not so nice now. So yeah, this could be something you'd regret if you made some sort of pact with one particularly shady character.

But yeah, captain of a spaceship. Maybe even a space pirate. That'd be pretty awesome. Would have to have some form of Internets.
 
PvtJoker said:
I would be wary of choosing to live in the future where all of the natural resources are depleted and society collapses, like in Mad Max.

To answer the question: Medieval times.
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Eh, why?

Disadvantages in comparison with today:

Almost non-existant levels of medicine and medical knowledge. You could die from a relatively minor cut if you were unlucky.

Plague, plague and more plague. The Great Death of 1347-50 is the only really famous medieval plague, but plagues of varying severity and scope were commonplace. There were others that killed as much as 10% of the population. Try to imagine a plague killing several million people in a few months in the UK today. You almost certainly can't. If you lived in medieval times, you wouldn't have to imagine it.

No plumbing. No sewerage. No food preservation. No central heating.

Fancy having 5 children and watching 2 of them die before adulthood? That was normal - preadult mortality was about 40%.

War and conscription for men. Maternal mortality for women. Whatever your sex, chances are that one would impact on you directly and the other indirectly.

Vast class differences and much less social mobility, especially in early and mid medieval times. Even after the sizeable increase in the number of rich commoners in later medieval times, the difference was still huge and the chance of rising was slim. You would very likely be a peasant all your life. Which would almost certainly be short due to a combination of hard work, an uncertain supply of food usually of poor quality and a total lack of healthcare other than the herbal remedies of the local wise(wo)man if you were lucky. Don't bet on living past 40. Actually, don't bet on living to 1. A large minority of people didn't make it that far. Enjoy your one-room home made of thin branches and mud while you can.

Maybe you would be a wealthy merchant or nobleman, but you'd still have a standard of living and a life expectancy below that of a minimum wage worker today, i.e. a modern peasant, and you could still easily catch a plague and die.

Advantages in comparison with today:

?



Medieval history is fascinating and I'd like to visit, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in it.
 
Mickie said:
most romans were nasty i heard
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Most Romans had pretty unpleasant lives in comparison with us. When people think "Roman", they usually have at least some degree of assumption of elegant villas that are home to well educated, well nourished people who lived comfortable, civilised lives with frequent delightful debauchery. In reality, for much of the existence of ancient Rome unemployment was high, most housing was appalling (often dangerous and expensive despite the very low quality) and for most people scope for advancement was limited...and that was if you were a citizen! Although in some circumstances slaves had better prospects than most citizens - a house slave of a decent rich person would have a better physical quality of life and a fairly decent chance of being freed and granted citizenship plus a means of earning a decent living.
 
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Humm about 1974 (same time as my half sister) being a teen-early adult in the 90's would have been fun and being a proper adult now (instead of 23) would be interesting.
 
Born in ~1932 please. Too young to go to war, parents most likely too old to be frontline, in my prime for some 1950s post-war awesomeness, still young enough to smoke weed in the 60s and still alive today to see technology and the internet develop.

/thread
 
As Louis CK said, time machines are very much a white man's privilege. Black people can't mess about with time machines, any time before 1980 and they're screwed.

In the past of course, if we're talking going forward then the opposite is true. White people won't just go from number 1 to number 2, they're gonna bend us over and totally *** us in the ass (and we'll deserve it).
 
I'd like to have experienced the 60s and 70s, so born in the 50s.

That said, there's many many times I think I'd be intrigued to go back to if I had a time machine. But more for a few days or two. I wouldn't really want to live through medieval England, but it would be cool to visit!

kd
 
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