RoR: Forum

I went with the summer of '68. "Well-off" in the age before modern medicine and other modern technology isn't such a great option, unless dying young of an incurable disease appeals to you. And Shanghai 2009, while better technology-wise than '68 -- well, you'd still be living in an authoritarian Communist country. Make it "incredibly wealthy" instead of "well-off" and then I'd consider Shanghai.

Post 1

Saturday, May 30, 2009 - 10:44am

That was my sentiment, too.....

Post 2

Saturday, May 30, 2009 - 4:05pm

Didn't you get laid the first time around, Robert?

Post 3

Saturday, May 30, 2009 - 4:47pm

I concur with Jim and Robert. I was tempted at Shanghai -- If I could be miraculously transported there right now, I would go into business as a technical writer, creating documentation for Chinese products for the American markets -- How to Assemble, Care & Maintenance, as well as any other written communications targeted to Americans. It was tempting...

But then I thought of living in a 1000-year old city with 20 million people... Disease is my first worry. As Jim said, you might show up healthy, but, how would you stay that way?

Those same concerns nixed Florence, even Revolutionary America with its smelly people, filthy cities, savages and Native Americans... Philadelphia suffered from repeated typhus outbreaks. ... Sorry, I can't... Victorian England was possible. It would not have to be London. I could live in the country, exchange letters with famous people, like Darwin and Spencer, Conan Doyle, heck, even Marx -- "Look here, old man..." -- I could invest in Marconi! ... and Edison!! ... But, then, what?... More unwashed masses, cities full of horses.

If I were sent back to 1968, even at my present age of 60, I would have the advantage of foreknowledge, in a society much like my own, with nominally equivalent medical technology (which I never needed back then, anyway), as well as the comforts and pleasures of the 60s, 70s,... maybe even most of the 80s... A wise, old man, hippest and happeningest... At my present skill level, I'd be The Main Man of Libertarianism. Instantly. My books would eclipse Rothbard and I could even be a counterweight to Ayn Rand. I am 60. I speak well in front of audiences. I've been on TV and radio. From 1968, I would invest immediately in IBM and then DEC and DG... and Apple and Microsoft... I'd buy a '57 Chevy and a 65 Mustang and put them in a garage with a long lease... I could work at a dozen different jobs with what I know. I'd be accepted as a person of inherent social capital just by my bearing and demeanor.

The run-up in precious metals to 1980 would be real thrill to reexperience, especially with the earnings from my Silicon Valley consultancy.

(By the way, the phrase "Alexandrian Athens" seems misleading. Do you mean Athens of the mid-300s BCE, c 330 BCE, the time of Alexander the Great? It was a dump by then. The so-called Golden Age was from 480-450. ... even then, it was no place for a foreigner...)

Post 4

Saturday, May 30, 2009 - 4:53pm

Michael Faraday, James Maxwell....
Healthy and well off in Victorian England would be interesting.

Post 5

Saturday, May 30, 2009 - 6:27pm

Funny that our "striker" anarchists are germophobe coward Hughses.

Haven't they ever heard of the benevolent universe premise? Haven't they read Rand's deconstruction of Rawls and the impropriety of always assuming the worst? (Philosophy, Who Needs It?) Offered the sense of life choice to travel whenever they like, they choose the summer of '68, not because it's interesting, but because they might eventually get sick? A wonder they ever leave their beds.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 5/30, 9:49pm)

(Edited by Ted Keer on 5/30, 9:50pm)

Post 6

Saturday, May 30, 2009 - 9:46pm

Right on, Ted. Right on.

When I first saw this poll I thought I would like to go back as far as possible, to see how men really behaved and what life was like for those like Aristotle or Nearchus or Archimedes. To actually be there, to feel the air on my body and the sun on my head, to see, right before me, the same things that they saw and hear the same as they heard.

But then I thought about living in the time of the American Revolution. How interesting would it be to see the actual men who wrote out country into existence. To see the same men fight, die, think, and live for a new way.

However, to go back a few decades to see life in the late sixties...I can't imagine anything more depressing. To see the "Greatest" generation rushing as fast as it can toward servitude? To see their children turn to drugs, sex, and blank fog rather than use their minds? No, I have no interest in seeing that.

I guess I would rather take my chances with an ancient disease which attacks my body - so that I might see a whole new world being formed - rather than stay in the modern era to escape a physical disease only to see the world being slowly killed by an infection of the mind.

Post 7

Sunday, May 31, 2009 - 4:46pm

If it was a two-way ticket, then one of the ancient civilizations would be worth a visit, since I could bail out if my life was threatened by disease or whatnot. But, seeing as how it's a one-way ticket, none of these options beats being well-off and living near the beach in Hawaii in 2009 -- my current life.

Post 8

Sunday, May 31, 2009 - 6:40pm

Jim at first briefly, then I later at length, stated pros and cons and the reasons for our selection from the short list of available alternatives.

I am completing my review of The Man Who Found the Money about railroad financier John Stewart Kennedy. That time and place -- St. Paul, Minnesota, 1879 - 1890 -- was not offered to us. It might not have been a bad alternative, all things considered, to see the construction of the railroads, the infrastructure, the finance. It would be like living Atlas Shrugged. And I could argue for full and consistent laissez faire. But, as Jim noted, it is a one-way ride. And in 1968, I could do the same thing. You don't know how much you can change history until you try.

Also, being somewhat older, those of us who lived as adults in 1968 probably remember the Twilight Zone stories... one about a guy who was fed up with the modern world and wanted to back to a simpler time, like 1870. There is no better time. Certainly not in the past.

So, why was the future not offered? Certainly Dr. Who travels in all directions in all dimensions.

Q: How far into the future would you like to be transported for the rest of your life... remember that you have to adjust to language and other customs, so 10,000 years or even 1000 might be too much... 100? 200?... Would you live on Earth?

If you could live off Earth, where would you go?

Would you like to travel in interstellar space at less than the speed of light?
Would you orbit the Sun closer or farther away?
Mine the asteroids?
Harvest methane on Titan?
Colonize Europa or Ganymede?
Ride around the Oort Cloud?
Maybe something nice, like Mars or Luna?
Orbit the sun 90-degrees "up and down" at right angles to the plane of the planets?
Interstellar with a light sail, you might make Alpha Centauri in a lifetime ... no telling what's out there... or how long that lifetime might be... freed from gravity... linked to the ship, your mind and its body, an intersteller "cell."

Ahhh... but the Good Doctor's imagination is limited to Florence, and Victorian England. (Of course then, you could meet Sigmund Freud who would explain to you why you seek to return to the womb.)

Post 9

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - 5:36am