Would you rather live in a different time in history?

[C_Miller]

Things aren’t great now. But speaking on the macro level, we are living in the greatest time in human history in a sociopolitical sense. The world is significantly safer, more secure, freer and less violent than any other time. People have access to medicine and far fewer people are dying of preventable diseases. More people have access to food and shelter stability. The internet, while not perfect has connected the world and created opportunities for so many. Again we’re talking macro. Anyone who thinks otherwise, is either too focused on movies and tv or needs to spend more time studying history.

Also I will note that just because I believe things are better now than they ever have been, does not mean I think we’ve hit the apex of humanity. We can always get better.

[Adam Allen]

Things aren’t great now. But speaking on the macro level, we are living in the greatest time in human history in a sociopolitical sense. The world is significantly safer, more secure, freer and less violent than any other time. People have access to medicine and far fewer people are dying of preventable diseases. More people have access to food and shelter stability. The internet, while not perfect has connected the world and created opportunities for so many. Again we’re talking macro. Anyone who thinks otherwise, is either too focused on movies and tv or needs to spend more time studying history.

Also I will note that just because I believe things are better now than they ever have been, does not mean I think we’ve hit the apex of humanity. We can always get better.

Yeah, all that! The internet is often mentioned as far as a world game-changer, but prior to and in combination with that, we also should give proper consideration to literacy has become such a fairly common thing in the modern world, as compared to most of the past. The ability to read and write being mundane for such a huge percentage of the population has possibly been the greatest equalizer as far as opportunity that we have seen, as yet.

And I realize OP has been clear she's talking about history so far, but I would absolutely be willing to go into a cryogenic sleep (so long as I had any reason to believe it could truly exist outside of fiction) and allow that I would be woken up hundreds of years into the future. It's not that I am in any way certain the world of the future would not seem a dystopia to me in many ways -- our current environmental concerns almost guarantee it would be -- but, just as I feel like today's world is an improvement on 100 years ago, regardless of all our current struggles, I can also have little doubt the future will be an improvement over the world today in many ways, too. I would be curious enough to find out how, if it were at all possible.

[CaptCleghorn]

I totally agree with the modern medicine argument. As a type 1 diabetic needing insulin to live, I would have died painfully had I not been born in the last hundred years (literally). I regret not having paid more attention to the events of my lifetime as they can and probably have been slanted by memories and wishes. I also remember the mosiac structure of my city growing up and how the ethnic neighborhoods all had their own businesses and flavors. I grew up in a neighborhood called Greektown but really experienced that much of the Greek life (yes, many parts of My Big Fat Greek Wedding were true to life, although I cannot speak to Windex). I do recall the colors of the river growing up and how normal it was to us to walk to school over and by a river that was orange one day and green the next.

There are some parts of history I would love to reexperience and others I wouldn't. All in all, given the opportunity, I wouldn't choose another time for anything more than a visit.

[Jim Kelly]

Having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s, I feel like I'm more adapted to those times than these. I knew how to use all the devices--my teacher told my parents I was very sophisticated for my age. My lack of success in the 21st century is maybe due to being past my sell by date. I should have stayed in the 20th century--why did I leave it? The Time Trapper's Iron Curtain of Time is never there when you need it.

[DrNewGod]

Odd as it sounds to say on a web-forum, I do occasionally wish for a world pre-dating social media and the rise of partisan opinion entertainment masquerading as news. I think I also might have liked the opportunity to experience Broadway Theater as an adult during the early half of the 20th Century.

That said, the past always looks easier because we know the outcome, and because - for me at least - my parents made living it look easier than it likely was.

[ShutUpLutz]

I just want to live in a time when Trump has shuffled off this mortal coil. Seriously, I think it would be fun to live in the 1960s as an adult and maybe go to concerts by the Beatles or even the Monkees. I was just a child at the time.

Unless you saw them in their days at The Cavern Club after they'd been to Hamburg ad few times Beatles concerts, especially in the US, SUCKED butthole. The crowd noise was literally louder than a jet at full throttle and that noise went on the entire time the Beatles played, which was less than 30 minutes.

And The Beatles themselves admitted that after they hit it big in the US their concerts turned to shit and they barely tried.

[Kirby101]

On the other hand, you could hang out at the coffee houses in Greenwich Village or The Troubadour and Whisky a Go Go in L.A. and see history. And that doesn't even include the Filmore East and West.

[stargazer01]

Odd as it sounds to say on a web-forum, I do occasionally wish for a world pre-dating social media and the rise of partisan opinion entertainment masquerading as news. I think I also might have liked the opportunity to experience Broadway Theater as an adult during the early half of the 20th Century.

That said, the past always looks easier because we know the outcome, and because - for me at least - my parents made living it look easier than it likely was.

I hear you. I'm so glad I was able to experience movies without the internet.

I didn't have great parents like you, and my life wasn't easy growing up, but I still have very fond memories of those days. I was always the optimistic and the dreamer. Lived the best eras of music aka the 70s and 80s!

[Riv86672]

Would you rather live in a different century? Yes, No, why?

I wouldn't.

Nope.
I enjoy all my modern conveniences way too much.

And, as a black man, going back too far is just setting myself up for trouble.

[stargazer01]

But that, in itself, is a rose-colored fantasy of what any past era was.

To paraphrase Stephen King from "9/11/63", some major events of the past might seem simple and stress free to a person from the future because that person already knows the outcome but that ignores the overwhelming racism, sexism, religious bigotry and a host of other problems.

Or, to paraphrase Professor Stein: Okay, I get it. The 1950s were a wonderful era if you were a white heterosexual Protestant male.

No pollution? Try living in a city with horses as the main transport and no realistic sewer system. No stress except how you'll survive when you're too old to work or get injured or sick.

But, other than that, no stress and survival of the fit is simple.

So true, but sometimes when I watch a western or period movie or show, I kind of wish life was more simple like that. We didn't have "instant" everything. People had to do everything themselves. But yeah, it sounds better than it probably was.

[Powerboy]

So true, but sometimes when I watch a western or period movie or show, I kind of wish life was more simple like that. We didn't have "instant" everything. People had to do everything themselves. But yeah, it sounds better than it probably was.

I think I find the 1960s, from my perspective, to be a simpler more stress-free time. But that's because I was a child then. My memories were from the perspective of a toddler and then a grade school child and living in the country outside a small town, at that.

Even then, there was television. But, sure, there wasn't instant everything. I think there is a certain "lack of awareness" of some wonderful things all around us. I was on a 30 day paid leave last year because of the virus. I didn't have it. It was just a safety precaution. I'd go out in the back yard and just stand around for an hour watching the trees sway in the breeze and seeing what birds were doing. Sometimes, two or three times a day, I'd think, "Step away from the computer. Drop the phone on the bed and go outside". When I was a kid, I'd go traipsing through the woods all the time.

So not the past but still a world we often pay no attention to.

It's why I said I think the holo-deck example and a lot like television or movies. We can get the thrills and positives of the past without personally living the negatives. One of the reasons I loved shows like Beast Master back in the 1990s was the constant forest environment.

[Kirby101]

I grew up in the 60s and they were great. But we also had a terrible immoral war that killed 50,000 Americans. Racial unrest, assassinations, pollution, misogyny...Another good for white, male, affluent heterosexual period.

[stargazer01]

I think I find the 1960s, from my perspective, to be a simpler more stress-free time. But that's because I was a child then. My memories were from the perspective of a toddler and then a grade school child and living in the country outside a small town, at that.

Even then, there was television. But, sure, there wasn't instant everything. I think there is a certain "lack of awareness" of some wonderful things all around us. I was on a 30 day paid leave last year because of the virus. I didn't have it. It was just a safety precaution. I'd go out in the back yard and just stand around for an hour watching the trees sway in the breeze and seeing what birds were doing. Sometimes, two or three times a day, I'd think, "Step away from the computer. Drop the phone on the bed and go outside". When I was a kid, I'd go traipsing through the woods all the time.

So not the past but still a world we often pay no attention to.

It's why I said I think the holo-deck example and a lot like television or movies. We can get the thrills and positives of the past without personally living the negatives. One of the reasons I loved shows like Beast Master back in the 1990s was the constant forest environment.

You make great points. I adore nature, and also enjoy shows that show it. I live next to the mountains in a beautiful ranch outside the city. I feel so lucky. This is a wonderful world that sadly we are destroying. :/

[stargazer01]

I grew up in the 60s and they were great. But we also had a terrible immoral war that killed 50,000 Americans. Racial unrest, assassinations, pollution, misogyny...Another good for white, male, affluent heterosexual period.

was there ever a time when women ruled the Earth?

[Powerboy]

I grew up in the 60s and they were great. But we also had a terrible immoral war that killed 50,000 Americans. Racial unrest, assassinations, pollution, misogyny...Another good for white, male, affluent heterosexual period.

Yes, all the things a little kid growing up in the country and going to school in a small, isolated town would have no awareness of. Simpler from a certain point of view.

Speaking of which, no Star Wars yes. Imagine! A world before Star Wars. Some of it even before Star Trek.