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

The 1850s, the time when Britain is becoming the Powerhosue and Workshop of the world when great minds thought without boundries and Science, Engineering and Art all worked hand in hand to create modern wonders of the world.
 
Either rich Roman
50s so id be a teen in the 60s

Or just live my own life again, but with the knowledge I have now.

Prob choose relive my life again, but not **** it up this time round.
 
Back in the Jurassic era. That way I not only get to see the golden age of dinosaurs but I would also really mess with paleontologist's minds. :)
 
Born in 1971, I don't think there could have been a more perfect time. Parents were not war veterans, but grandparents were. There was only one television in the house, and it received about 5 local stations, so time wasn't consumed staring at it all day. We actually went outside to play with the neighbourhood kids, complete with hide-n-seek, baseball at the dead-end street, snowball fights and forts, BMX riding, and hockey on the frozen creek.

I remember going through the Sears catalogue at Christmas time and writing out a wish list of things I fancied, and actually addressing an envelope to Santa. And Santa always delivered sometime during the night. The Easter Bunny always stashed baskets of goodies throughout the house, and the Tooth Fairy always left a coin or two under my pillow.

I was six-years-old when Star Wars came out, putting it at the perfect time to collect action figures and ships and models and other swag, and actually play with them like the toys they were.

Video games were on the rise. The Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 were excellent playthings on rainy days. The quest for more games brought about the need to do household chores for money, expanding to mowing the neighbour's lawns, shoveling snow, and delivering newspapers, giving a child a good business sense. Eventually modems came into play, connecting to other computers and exchanging games through Bulletin Board Systems. Then there were the arcades to sneak off to during lunchtime at grade school.

But video games couldn't compare to role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons or Marvel vs DC. With the right Dungeon Master, a whole weekend could be spent in a fantasy world with actual human intervention.

A part-time, minimum wage job was all you needed to be able to afford a reliable used car, insurance, and the gas to go in it as a teenager. Everyone had a license as soon as they turned 16, because that was their ticket to freedom. Mom and Dad trusted you to be away from the house with your friends (as long as you didn't screw up) and they weren't afraid of abductions or drive-by shootings.

I became an adult in the '90s, joining the military and serving during the Gulf War (Desert Storm). This put me into the civilian job market at a time when college education was not as important as experience or certifications, and a military background marketed a person as "highly trainable", which got a career job in no time flat, a job I still hold to this day.

I was around for these incredible transitions:

Rotary telephone > Touch Tone telephone > Cordless telephones > Cellular telephones
Black/White television > Colour television
Local TV stations > Cable television (and MTV as a teenager!)
Pinball arcades > Video game arcades
Personal computers
Metal roller skates > Urethane roller skates > Roller Blades
2-tonne steel bicycles > Chrome-Alloy BMX bicycles
Invention of VCRs > Laser Disc > DVD > Blu-Ray
8-Track cassettes or LPs > Compact cassettes > CDs > MP3s.
Steel-railed sleds > High-speed lightweight nylon sleds
Velcro
Jordache jeans on all girls > ???? > today’s “skinny” jeans
Trax tennis shoes > Converse All*Stars > Nike Air Jordan
Mullets and ‘80s “hair bands”
Boom boxes > Walkmans > MP3 players
And the entire era of the NASA Space Shuttle program.

That's all I can think of right now.

TL;DR = 1971.
 
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1920's London. I've always dreamed of being Bertie Wooster - one of the "idle rich" with nothing to do all day apart from getting into capers and hanging out at the gentlemen's club. That's the life for me.
 
I've always thought it would be cool to live in pre-european invasion North America with the indians. Hunting, gathering, ceremony and community in a civilisation that hadn't clumped into cities yet. Certainly there would be hardship and struggle, territorial disputes, etc, but I think that would give more meaningful purpose to life than the hardship of a menial office job.
 
HArd to say. Every era I think of has it's downsides. I was going to say 1900, and growing up to be a photographer. But it's likely that I'd be drafted in for WWII. earlier than that would be too massive a shock from what we know now. Post war USA might be a good bet - jobs everywhere, hippies rock n roll etc.

And the future is uncertain so I'm not sure I'd like to see it until it happens!

Where I was born (1987) meant I grew up in the 90s and early 00s - a pretty boring period all told, with one exception - the internet. It's actually pretty great to be able to say we witnessed the birth of it and that will become more significant in the future.
 
Angilion said:
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.
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It was a throwaway comment after a game of Chivalry, not an actual life decision. Thanks for the concern though.
 
The future would be great as for technology & the 60's great for the Hippies (I am in the US) so being a teenager then would be awesome. So I guess a mix, 60's for the Hippies, with tech from today.
 
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