This is a question that fascinates me…why a lot of people are not interested in their lives in the present time…when people are living better (on average) than at any time in history. Some people favor the Middle ages, others fantasize about being gladiators in Ancient Rome. Myself, I’d like to be a gangster in 1930’s Chicago…raising hell, selling bootleg booze, and blowing away my rivals with a tommygun! The era had much to recommend it-lots of booze, broads, and action. Also, i like the styles of the 20’s and 30’s-sharp cars, nice threads, and for music-it was the Jazz Age!
What period would YOU like to have lived in?
I fancy the IMHO era myself…so quaint…so devil-may-care in its posting attitudes.
I think that it would have been cool to live in the Late Classic or Early Post-Classic Mayan world. Watching them build and use their temples. And the wars, that was when the term “Heads Will Roll” was literal.
Also, I would love to have seen the artisans of the Moche culture in northern Peru work. The ceramics that they made are absolutely incredible.
I really like the period that I’ve lived in so far. There have been more changes made during that time than ever before. I’ve known people who lived before and have heard first hand about WWI and the “Great Depression” which adds to my experience of changing times.
My wife’s first telephone number was something like S9 and she didn’t dial the number but instead gave it to the operator. Yesterday, she ordered a new cell phone that she will not dial, but instead say the number. In an amazing way that is what goes around, comes around.
I remember when TV first came along; automatic transmissions; air conditioning; atom/hydragon bombs; jet engines (and breaking the sound barrier); breakable records/45’s/33-1/3/tapes/CD’s; washing machines without the rollers and dryers; penicilin/anti-biotics; transplants/artifical parts and thousands of other things that have changed the way we live.
I’ll stick just where I am, if for no other reason than the women keep getting prettier and sexier.
I’d like to be British landed gentry in the early-mid 1800s.
On a similar note, I recall an exercise where someone asked if you’d rather have lived in the previous century. Then they went through a whole bunch of questions such as, have you ever had a blood transfusion, certain illnesses, difficult childbirth, etc. And the bottomline was, a century ago any of those things would have probably killed you.
Recently I’ve come to favor being a teacher of math somwhere in the western half of the Roman empire. Londinium maybe at about, ohhh 120. I think I could make a nice living, become famous for ‘inventing’ some new forms of mathmatics and writing them down in manuscripts. And maybe die around 200. Sounds like fun. And oh for vacation I’d head west to Aquae Sulis (Bath) spend a few weeks there.
I’d like to live during the Biotech Age of the latter half of the 25th century. 
Pshaw, that’s all child’s play… at least when you go back in time, you have some ideas of what dangers are lurking, and you’d have tremendous intellectual advantages and foreknowledge.
What of the future? Would anyone be willing to dump the present and settle into the future world of 20 or 50 years ahead? Robots continuing to probe space; cures for many/most cancers and many other diseases; exponentially greater computing power and use of solar cells; an increasingly info-based global economy; Madonna a pop-cultural footnote…
But also, perhaps, wars over increasingly precious food & water resources; worsened ethnic/religious/class/linguistic tensions; massive unemployment and social unrest; “NBC” [nuke/bio/chem] terrorism; [nuclear?] war between Pakistan and India, or between Israel & its neighbors; the continued mutating of HIV; and even that old standby, influenza…
Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire!
This is a poll rather than a General Question.
Off to IMHO
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator
I’d love to live in India during it’s equivalent of a golden age. Hindu artwork is utterly amazing, and I could become a merchant or something and get rich off of my European swag that I have. Also, I wouldn’t mind living as a member of the aristocracy in Russia or Germany (well, then, Mecklenberg, Bavaria, yadayadayada…). I’d love to have a last name that begins with the dative-case preposition von. Hmm, Graf von Redukter (makes no sense, but sounds cool.)…
but if I had to live in another (earlier) period, it would probably be the emirate/califate of Córdoba, in Spain during the middle ages. Scholarly city(Córdoba), cleaner customs than its neighbors, and beautiful architecture. More advanced than its neighbors too.
The Highlands, sometime around 1560. That’d be nice.
USA, mid '90s would be good.
I like living in the present, personally. Greatest life expectancy, most material goods, most freedom to do as you like, no slavery, good medicine, the knowledge and culture of the world at your fingertips, etc. etc. etc.
Now, “What period in history would you like to temporarily visit as a tourist?” – that’s a different question. It would be fascinating to see ancient Eygypt in all its splendor. I’d also be interested in seeing how mankind made it through the Ice Age.
I would love to have lived in Hollywood at the turn of the century. There was movie magic here at that time!
I agree with Wumpus
I would like to visit several periods, but want to come home here…
I’d love to spend a year with flowers in my hair, being a hippy…
I’d love to experience ancient Japan, with samurai, daimyo, and all sorts of new things to tweak the imagination, coming from neighbouring countries…
I’d love to witness ancient Earth, see the first life form evolving (to settle that theory) to see what colour the dinosaurs really were… (I’m sure some had retro/citrus shades) and to see how man diverged from the apes, and document all the different branchings of that particular tree…
Mind you, I’d also like to live yesterday again, and get the kitchen floor cleaned, so I didn’t have to go and do it now :(…
Elizabethan England would be a cool place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there…
Rock was maturing into a serious form of music.
JFK’s assasination and Vietnam was making us take a good hard look at our government, and the Civil Rights movement
made us look at ourselves.
The Space program showing us the heights we can achieve, and talk about heights, the dope that was so new, the stuff wasn’t illegal yet!
AND THE CARS! MUSCLE CARS, MAN! BIG-BLOCKS!!!
Hemis, Bosses, SOHCs, Mopars, Javelins, Camaros, Mustangs, Corvettes, Challengers, Chargers, Chevelles, Novas,
(Gimme a big Tim Allen monkey grunt, y’all!)
i have often wished to be a victorian gentleman, puttering around roman ruins in italy, or chasing butterflies, or some such semi-scientific hobby, with plenty of time for tea.
I’d like to visit the early 1900’s, when my grandparents were growing up, say, 1900 to 1926, the year they were married. I’ve heard all the stories, but I’d like to see them in the flesh. If I didn’t go back to see family, I’d like to see the Globe Theater in London, maybe see Henry V in its first production.