Do you ever wish you were born in a different era?

[trooper6]

Eh, I guess every generation had it's vapid rubbishy music.

This is true. Every generation has music that some people consider vapid and rubbish. And every generation has music that some people consider authentic and meaningful.

I must point out that music that you think is vapid and rubbish, in all likelihood is authentic and meaningful to someone else. And vice versa.

 

[ThongBonerstorm]

I've always wanted to fly a Spitfire. I would also like to wear at hat all the time. 40's it is.

 

[trooper6]

What is the SCA?

Society for Creative Anachronisms. Think cosplay, but hardcore and historically accurateish.

Doesn't that idea kinda make it an oxymoron? How can something have anachronisms but be historically accurate?

Really though, that sounds kinda cool, and could be interesting.[/quote]

The members try to be as accurate as they can in many aspects (for example, one of the Kings of the Kingdom of Caid made his "tights" in a historically accurate way out of wool). People do lots of research and try really hard to get the clothing right, the calligraphy right, and all of that. The Rapier people go and real the old Renaissance fighting manuals, etc.

However, the group doesn't tend to want to keep the sexism, racism, scurvy, lack of bathing, etc. of the past.

They take the good, they leave the bad. So women can be Knights and heavy fighters. Men can do needlework.

They are serious about many things, but also modify this past-ness to conform to more modern ethical sensibilities. The Enlightenment was a good thing.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I wish I was a 90s kid in the USA so I could grow up with all those classic cartoons and games.

 

[DustyDrB]

I used to wish I was born in the 30s in New York so I could play pickup baseball games in the street with Sandy Koufax. But I don't know now. I don't think I could deal with all the racism.

And I would never say I want to live in the future. What if it sucks...or we're all dead?
What it some horrible thing happens and the world ends up like...well, Bill can say it better.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I like living now, but i wish there was someway an astral projection (or something along those lies) of myself could observe the past. That would be awesome, and would make history feel so much more real. Or even like a time machine kinda thing, but it just sends your mind to the past so you can "wander" around unseen and untouchable but able to go anywhere and observe anything. Think of the possibilities.

I dunno, you'd end up seeing an awful lot of stuff you'd dearly want to intervene in, but were unable to.

On the other hand, that sort of thing would guarantee you a job in the police force, until someone's secret service disappeared you.

Eh, I guess every generation had it's vapid rubbishy music.

This is true. Every generation has music that some people consider vapid and rubbish. And every generation has music that some people consider authentic and meaningful.

I must point out that music that you think is vapid and rubbish, in all likelihood is authentic and meaningful to someone else. And vice versa.

Alternatively, the music that was genuinely bad has been lost to time, whereas the modern rubbish hasn't had time to decompose [footnote]no pun intended[/footnote] yet.

 

[cgentero]

Yes the future, specifically around the time of later space colonization.

 

[Ambi]

Eh, I guess every generation had it's vapid rubbishy music.

This is true. Every generation has music that some people consider vapid and rubbish. And every generation has music that some people consider authentic and meaningful.

I must point out that music that you think is vapid and rubbish, in all likelihood is authentic and meaningful to someone else. And vice versa.

That's also true.

I think it's just that I look back on the past with rosy retrospection and romanticise eras I wasn't a part of. I get to skip all the mundaneness and hard work of past generations and just see the artsy-looking black and white pictures and footage of the most iconic moments and most involved people.

It's probably just my perception. It's easier to romanticise the past than to get up and get involved in something you may be able to be a part of in the present day.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

There are many eras that I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall, and just see if what's in history books or what's being written about it is actually true.

I wouldn't mind living in Renaissance Italy, specifically Florence since that where it mostly happened. Would be cool to see the politics, people, and architecture being built in that time, as long as I'm not dragged in the many wars and murdered I'm totally fine with it.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Heck no. We have the prosperity of the 1950s American middle-class ideal, but with the freedom of thought. Our technology has caught up to science-fiction and our art is not suppressed by anything.

 

[DanielBrown]

Born in the future, perhaps, but I'm ok with this era and I wouldn't want be born earlier.
It would be nice living in a less populated world, however, there were no video games or metal back then!

 

[LordOrin]

Present day is pretty rad. I bet the distant future is considerably more rad though, assuming we don't accidentally wipe out humanity or something.

 

[blankedboy]

I always wish I would have been born before World War II and been about 18 years old when the war started.

LOL WAT

I call someone who doesn't know how horrible WW2 was.

This era's great for me. Before is too low-tech, and after is too "earth-is-fucked-now".
Also, yay 5002 posts.

 

[RicoGrey]

Hell no. This era is FANTASTIC.

We fly on multi-ton vehicles, most of us have cars that can drive over 100 MPH, we cna construct objects so small you can't see them, we fly in space and send objects hurtling to other planets.

Do you realize just how fucking awesome we are?

This^ a thousand times

Everything prior to this era sucked so hard. Not neccessarily because those times were terrible(although in many ways they were), but mostly because this time is so fan freaking tastic.

We still have problems, BUT EVERYTHING is better, everything. There is less war(although modern war is certainly flashier), less crime, less poverty, and less illness. The only other era I can imagine that I would want to live in, would be a future one, but then I think, what if it gets worse, nah I will stay right here.

 

[Voidrunner]

Yeah sometimes I wish I could have been born a lot earlier when things weren't nearly as complicated, a place where you could wander around making your own way through a simple life without constantly having to deal with governments and a million other people hassling you and finding new inventive ways to rip money out of you. Sure the modern era has brought a great deal of improvements but in a lot of cases simple things have just gotten so pointlessly complex and painful.

 

[Littlee300]

Hell no. This era is FANTASTIC.

We fly on multi-ton vehicles, most of us have cars that can drive over 100 MPH, we cna construct objects so small you can't see them, we fly in space and send objects hurtling to other planets.

Do you realize just how fucking awesome we are?

This^ a thousand times

Everything prior to this era sucked so hard. Not neccessarily because those times were terrible(although in many ways they were), but mostly because this time is so fan freaking tastic.

We still have problems, BUT EVERYTHING is better, everything. There is less war(although modern war is certainly flashier), less crime, less poverty, and less illness. The only other era I can imagine that I would want to live in, would be a future one, but then I think, what if it gets worse, nah I will stay right here.

30 years later...
Escapist forum topic:
I am so glad I wasn't boring around 2010 or whatever. It would suck to not be able to enter the internet with your mind. In other news... Yahtzee is retiring from the escapist and plans to sleep on big bags of cash.

 

[trooper6]

Yeah sometimes I wish I could have been born a lot earlier when things weren't nearly as complicated, a place where you could wander around making your own way through a simple life without constantly having to deal with governments and a million other people hassling you and finding new inventive ways to rip money out of you. Sure the modern era has brought a great deal of improvements but in a lot of cases simple things have just gotten so pointlessly complex and painful.

You're going to have to go back to hunter-gatherer before you find no government.

And for most of history, the government didn't rip money out of you...the government owned you...and you didn't have any rights to your own property or money. And you couldn't just wander around making your way through a simple life because you were a serf and bound to the land you didn't own. You weren't allowed to travel off your land. You couldn't go hunting for food, because everything belonged to your liege. And they'd tax you on top of all that.

The only time when people aren't ripping money out of you is before there was money. And then people were ripping goods off of you. And the only time when people weren't ripping goods off of you is before surplus farming, when everyone lived hand to mouth and there was no one who had anything extra of anything. It was all hunter-gathering. And back then, while not some sort of government, you probably had a strong man/chief who got to call all the shots by virtue of being more violent and better at violence than everybody else--until someone killed him.

The past was not fun, and it certainly wasn't a libertarian paradise.

 

[Azdron]

Like 15 years from now, so that Im not old and sickly when the Apocalypse/fall of civilization comes. as it is Im gonna be sixty something when it all goes to hell. also in ten years gaming will be a respectable pastime.