# Are we living in this time on purpose? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 1, 2025, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467 "2025-11-01T01:42:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SaSaLeLe2011](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@SaSaLeLe2011](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaSaLeLe2011)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/1 "2025-11-01T01:42:18Z")
In my opinion, I feel like there’s a reason why we’re living in the 2020’s. My biggest reason is that these European countries used to have big empires, spanning across the world, but now they don’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/2 "2025-11-01T01:44:01Z")
I am not understanding the question. Can you be a bit more specific? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/3 "2025-11-01T01:44:19Z")
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I blame not dying in the 2010s as my biggest reason. ---
**Author:** ![SaSaLeLe2011](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@SaSaLeLe2011](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaSaLeLe2011)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/4 "2025-11-01T01:46:42Z")
The world changed rapidly right before the 2020’s. All European countries gave up their empires. And there’s not a trace of Europe in Africa. Isn’t it crazy because those countries had empires for thousands of years, but we’re living a few decades after they gave up. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/5 "2025-11-01T01:48:27Z")
We are living in, by far, the most interesting era of history to date. The same has been true of every moment in the history of our species, and will probably remain true for every moment until we eventually go extinct. History is exponential. Everything always gets more interesting, and thus the current moment is always the most interesting ever. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/6 "2025-11-01T02:01:49Z")
We are living in these times because our parents had sex within a particular time frame. You might say that it is inevitable that we are right here right now….but what _isn’t_ inevitable when you look at it that way? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/7 "2025-11-01T02:04:36Z")
> [@SaSaLeLe2011](#): > > Isn’t it crazy because those countries had empires for thousands of years, but we’re living a few decades after they gave up. So we are. So _when else_ would we be living? I was born in the 1960s at peak decolonization, and made it to middle age, so of course I am living in the 2020s as they are, and not in the 2020s as they would be if the Palestine Partition had been accepted and succesfully run, if France had held Algeria or Patrice Lumumba had lived, if Vatican II had not happened or John Paul I had reigned 15 years or Gorbachev had succesfully reformed the USSR or all the Wall Street bankers had been sent to jail in 2009. The “on purpose” part of your OP question is confusing. (Oh, and the bulk of the Western colonial powers had only had their “empires” in the form we recognized them for a few centuries at best, not “thousands” of years.) ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/8 "2025-11-01T02:16:07Z")
If we weren’t living in the 2020s, someone else would. We individuals ain’t special just because we’re alive now, and this current era isn’t special because we’re the ones in it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/9 "2025-11-01T02:54:53Z")
> [@SaSaLeLe2011](#): > > The world changed rapidly right before the 2020’s. All European countries gave up their empires. And there’s not a trace of Europe in Africa. My history books tell me that almost all empires crumbled after WWI, more than a century ago, and the rest, living on borrowed time, fell after WWII, 80 years ago. Chuck any history book that tells you different. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/10 "2025-11-01T02:56:07Z")
For what it’s worth, OP, for one, couldn’t have died in 2010. He wasn’t born yet. That may shed some light on the post. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/11 "2025-11-01T04:00:20Z")
I did say the 2010s, which includes the whole decade. But yes, I understand the OP better now. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/12 "2025-11-01T04:06:00Z")
It is almost as if this great puddle was designed specifically for us drops of water. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/15 "2025-11-01T05:19:53Z")
We have no control over when we were born, and it has no special purpose. I am sure glad to have been born in the 1980s and not 1080s, though. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/16 "2025-11-01T05:25:03Z")
I living here now because 100 years ago, my grandparents were definitely not shot by death rays in the style of that era. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/17 "2025-11-01T05:27:23Z")
It’s like when you’re about to experience an epiphany. Either you are living in this time on purpose, or you and the people around you are aimless while the world itself is void of any meaning. Sometimes you have to make a choice. And once you do, everything else is confirmation bias. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/18 "2025-11-01T06:20:29Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > So we are. So _when else_ would we be living? June 23, 34,258 BC. Then the mammoth steps on us. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/20 "2025-11-01T06:33:41Z")
You missed all of the massive social change and progress of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, we knew that the world was a mess, but we were at least trying to make it better. Now the world is mostly a bunch of a-holes acting out of greed. Good folks trying to make the world a better place seem to be a minority. If I were going to choose a time to live in, it wouldn’t be now. I’ve lived through many decades that were better. But then, it wasn’t my choice. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/21 "2025-11-01T06:41:33Z")
> [@SaSaLeLe2011](#): > > And there’s not a trace of Europe in Africa. For very limited definitions of “not a trace”. IOW there is not a place on the planet that is not still affected in some way by European empire and colonization. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/23 "2025-11-01T14:21:48Z")
_…I wish it need not have happened in my time_…_and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us._ ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467/24 "2025-11-01T16:17:51Z")
Thanks, Gandolf. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-living-in-this-time-on-purpose/1024467.md?page=2)