# If you could have chosen the time in which you lived.. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 15, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805 "2004-11-15T02:29:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/1 "2004-11-15T02:29:56Z")
Which time would it have been? The Garden of Eden? Ancient Rome? The dark ages?..If you choose this…??? The Renaissance? Perhaps the future? ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/2 "2004-11-15T04:16:34Z")
Now. Right now. Go back more than 100 years or so, and you get into that whole “nasty, brutish and short” thing, and that’s no fun. Then there is the regular bathing that so many of us now enjoy. Besides, I have a disease whose treatment has only been available for the last 60 years or so, so I would have died even younger than normal had I lived at any other time. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/3 "2004-11-15T04:22:16Z")
Not to mention death in childbirth. No dentists. The whole “women are property” thing. _shudders_ Now is good. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/4 "2004-11-15T04:23:55Z")
If not now, sometime in the future. Or maybe a decade or two before I was born. I like modern amenities and do not want to have to use outhouses. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/5 "2004-11-15T04:32:20Z")
True, **Maureen**. My best friend has had 3 c-sections. I know she would have died during the first birth. ---
**Author:** ![saluki\_fan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@saluki\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saluki_fan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/6 "2004-11-15T04:34:08Z")
I would like to have been born around 1945 so that I would have been in my prime for the 60s and all that it offered. Plus, then I would know where to invest my money 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/7 "2004-11-15T04:42:21Z")
I got the best of the '60s, so I guess if I could pick another time it would be to have been of my father’s generation, those who fought out WW II. ---
**Author:** ![pokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@pokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pokey)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/8 "2004-11-15T04:54:39Z")
I guess it will have to be now since I’m a female. I don’t want to deal with all that sexism bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/9 "2004-11-15T05:36:41Z")
I second the 60s. Vietnam Civil Rights The Space Race Rock Music Muscle Cars All in one exciting decade. ---
**Author:** ![Keapon\_Laffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e274bd/32.png) [@Keapon\_Laffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keapon_Laffin)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/10 "2004-11-15T06:25:12Z")
Can I have special powers too? If so, I’ll pick the Middle Ages. Class: Magic-user. Level 20. And I shall rule the world. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/11 "2004-11-15T06:45:57Z")
okay, I had to have surgery that probably saved my life when I was 6 months old and it would have probably not been caught before ultrasound. Actually it wasn’t commonplace then, and was only done on a whim, so I guess I’m lucky like that too. Otherwise I’d have had kidney problems, so it wasn’t a good thing. Anyways, if I had been born sooner I’d probably have died or been very unhealthy, but… that’s not what this thread is about. If I could choose a time it would be Hemmingway’s Paris, or Paris in the 20’s before the depression. That’s why its also difficult for me to say that I wouldn’t want to stay there with the depression and WWII and all. Any other time than that? Hmm…I can’t really say. I know of no good time. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/12 "2004-11-15T07:45:06Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > Now. Right now. > > Go back more than 100 years or so, and you get into that whole “nasty, brutish and short” thing, and that’s no fun. Then there is the regular bathing that so many of us now enjoy. > > Besides, I have a disease whose treatment has only been available for the last 60 years or so, so I would have died even younger than normal had I lived at any other time. AMEN!!! And I wouldn’t mind seeing the advances that may occur in the next century or so. I find reading about “the old days” romantic and interesting. But also horrifying. Not just medically, but in the way minorities and women were treated. Wow. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/13 "2004-11-15T14:57:04Z")
My grandfather was born in 1898, and died in 1971. He often said that he thought his lifetime saw more change and improvement than any other in history, and that of all times, he would have chosen that one. Think about it. When he was a child, horse-drawn propulsion was almost exclusive, aside from a few hobbists messing around with “motors”. He remembered the Wright brothers first flight, and watched Armstrong walk on the moon. He saw the antibiotic revolution – when he was a child, you could die from a scratch. Pretty amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/14 "2004-11-15T15:04:27Z")
I would have liked to have been 10 years older in the 1960’s, but I’d really like to live in the 2100’s just to see how this time plays out in history. Fast forward to September 11, 2101 ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/15 "2004-11-15T16:00:53Z")
I’d choose 100 years ago—as a woman, I could still do the same work (writing, journalism, editing) I do now; hell, I could work for the same company I work for now, they’ve been around since the 1880s. I could see (and write about) the birth of the film industry. I could find my way around NY and Phila. pretty well, and I love the clothes, music, theater, architecture of the period. Problem is, in another ten years, WWI will break out . . . ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Roboto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Mr.Roboto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Roboto)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/16 "2004-11-15T17:27:43Z")
Being born in 1951… I would choose to be born 5 years earlier,1946, so I could really enjoy all the late ‘50’s had to offer. It was a grand time as I remember,cool music,cars beatniks & bongo’s, television- all those cool Westerns! The real Ozzie! Ozzie & Harriet Nelson and Rockin’ Ricky Nelson. Surfing was catching on. Wait a minute! I would have been drafted 5 years earlier and probably would have been killed in Viet Nam! ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/17 "2004-11-15T17:34:59Z")
Born 1870 in a small farming town, died in 1950 in a suburb of a major city (peacefully in bed, of course). That would have been exciting but not _too_ exciting. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/18 "2004-11-15T18:20:47Z")
City mouse gay boy? Now will do nicely, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Unregistered\_Bull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3da27b/32.png) [@Unregistered\_Bull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unregistered_Bull)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2004, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/19 "2004-11-15T21:58:24Z")
I’d like to have turned 18 just late enough to advoid the Vietnam draft. That would mean that what I like to do now would not be under attack by hate groups like HSUS, PETA, SPCA, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2004, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805/20 "2004-11-16T04:09:14Z")
Born in 1977. Content now. Definitely don’t want to live far off in the future. If not now, though, then I would have enjoyed being born in the late 1910’s. I believe my grandmother’s generation was the greatest American generation, ever. Never again will there be another generation with as much courage and strength of character, sad to say. Granny’s generation saved the world, had all the good music and dancing and lived in relatively safe times. Kids didn’t grow up sitting in front of the TV, they were outside playing all day, as well as doing chores. Sure, that period of time had its bad points, it’s not like any period of time has been perfect. But the bad qualities of the times I’ve lived in seem to be a lot worse than the bad times my grandmother grew up in. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-have-chosen-the-time-in-which-you-lived/274805.md?page=2)