If you could live anywhere and anytime in history, where/when would you live and why?

[Kuolema]

Kind of a stupid topic, but these sort of questions intrigue me.

 

[Soul]

Can I be prehistoric? The Late Cretaceous, to see these guys taking off

Quetzalcoatlus - Google Search

 

[Kuolema]

Can I be prehistoric? The Late Cretaceous, to see these guys taking off

Quetzalcoatlus - Google Search

Any time period whatsoever.
Edit: To answer my own question, I would probably live in Islamic Iberia, specifically during the reign of Abd al-Rahman the third. Because during this time in Spain science, art and philosophy were flourishing. Muslims, Jews and Christians lived in relative harmony. Slaves were treated quite humanely and could even rise to positions of power. And surprisingly the culture was very sexually liberal. It was only later when more fundamentalist dynasties invaded from North Africa that Islamic Iberia became more reminiscent of today's Saudi Arabia. Of course things only got worse when the reconquista took over and the inquisition was set in motion. Interestingly enough the earliest psychiatric hospitals were also founded in Islamic Iran in the middle ages, whereas if you were psychotic in Christian Europe during this time the local doctor would probably drill a hole in your head to let all the demons out lol.

 

[Orin]

A time when we all had foraging and hunting skills (pre-agriculture era).

 

[jake3d]

The 60s. Hippies, good music and lots and lots of drugs.

 

[Severen]

A time when we all had foraging and hunting skills (pre-agriculture era).

You'd need to be a part of a tribe though.

 

[Morphinekiss]

However far back I have to go to get eaten by a dinosaur.

 

[lastNamePicked]

i wanna die lol

 

[oopswronglife]

Don't want to go backward. I'd take forward many thousand years so there could be cures for things...mind uploads etc. Nothing in the past but romantic ideals and more problems.

 

[not_a_robot]

This time, I have a freaky spiritual connection to the Singularity and I need internet to commune with it most effectively, I think. Also I require comfort now, I am old, so now.
Would rather be in several different cities/countries if I could afford it though.
Or even just a different building in my current city. My situation sucks but I really love this town. It is becoming too expensive to live in for me.

Don't want to go backward. I'd take forward many thousand years so there could be cures for things...mind uploads etc. Nothing in the past but romantic ideals and more problems.

we will be extinct then.

 

[Kuolema]

Nothing in the past but romantic ideals and more problems.

True, I guess. But I'd still prefer to live in a time before industrialization and colonialism. Just because we're more advanced technologically doesn't necessarily mean we're better off psychologically.

i wanna die lol

I suppose I could have phrased the title better lol. How about which historical period are you most interested in?

 

[whoisdead12]

I would say in the '90s. I really like many movies of this decade, the way of dressing and the music, I would really like it to go to a festival if i could.

 

[262653]

Is that a trick question, like the infamous Russian "2 chairs" riddle?

This time, I have a freaky spiritual connection to the Singularity and I need internet to commune with it most effectively, I think.

Ok, now I absolutely must ask... What are you talking about?

 

[SinisterKid]

Is that a trick question, like the infamous Russian "2 chairs" riddle?

Ok, now I absolutely must ask... What are you talking about?

You should never and I mean NEVER ask that of not-a-robot

 

[Oblivion Lover]

I would rather stay on the present time. Future is uncertain and past is even worse than now for me, and I wouldn't stand the lack of modern technology. If I could choose any place to live in the present, I'd choose a big city on Canada. Sounds like a wonderful place to live.

 

[262653]

You should never and I mean NEVER ask that of not-a-robot

Oh, I'm relatively new around here... but damn, that only spikes my curiosity. What is most likely to happen?

 

[21Neberg]

Probably one hundred years ago. Guys my age would just get thrown into death on the front lines in WW1.
The First World War was hell. None of those guys deserved to be reduced to mere toy soldiers to be used by their generals. But a piece of shit like me deserves a horrible death.

 

[lastNamePicked]

of one yet to come actually: the machine age. most problems that occur for people result from being dependent on a social group in which they are not well-adapted; bad genetics, bad socialization and people are brandmarked for the rest of their lifes with a label of inferiority. this makes life itself a laughing stock for me because i'm thrown into life with bad parameters that i cannot change. this applies to every era yet and can only chnange and be improved upon in the future. life will evolve further increasingly mechanizing; we will have more control over how we design machines and how it can alter its own architecture than over this primitive shell of flesh and blood that is designed randomly by the rules of genetics.

True, I guess. But I'd still prefer to live in a time before industrialization and colonialism. Just because we're more advanced technologically doesn't necessarily mean we're better off psychologically.

I suppose I could have phrased the title better lol. How about which historical period are you most interested in?

 

[JoeFailure]

Probably on Hermosa Beach in California. 70's all the time, could play sand volleyball year round at the beach. Could've been a nice life.

 

[JJ-NOHOPE]

Difficult question.
Probably not in future times, because I believe it very likely will be a dystopia rather than a utopia.

That past was riddled with disease, body parasites, death, etc. Anyone who doesn't think so doesn't know much about history.
And there have been very few times in history that women were treated better than they are treated now.

So I guess very reluctantly I would have to say right now.

The world pretty much sucks no matter what time period you look at.

 

[Kuolema]

That past was riddled with disease, body parasites, death, etc. Anyone who doesn't think so doesn't know much about history.
And there have been very few times in history that women were treated better than they are treated now.

This is true. I was reading recently about this coprolite archaeologists found in Yorkshire (one of the biggest ever found) and it was absolutely riddled with parasitic eggs. I do tend to romanticize the past, because I like to think that there was some sort of Eden hidden somewhere in the pages of History. I'm pretty naive and childish like that. There were places in certain times where people had greater equality than we do today, but as you say diseases and parasites sort of negate that anyway.

To re-answer my own question I would live now, probably somewhere in Scandinavia or a country with easy access to euthanasia medicine.

 

[Severen]

I would answer but too many people would be triggered because they live in their own fantasy worlds, today.

 

[Life sucks]

I would not like to exist at all. However, I strongly disagree with anyone glorifying the shitty past in anyway. No, its shit and full of shit. Diseases and wars, massacres and genocides, torture and atrocities. Getting programmed and indoctrinated to invade other lands. Excessive racism and xenophobic everywhere. No thanks, fuck the past and its one of the big reasons we still have the shit today, its what made the shitty systems today and the root of the hatred and problems we have today, we inherit the shit and suffer because of our ancestors. Bullshit of the ancient.

Humans at least got a step forward with scientific and technological advancement and have the ability now to analyze how bullshit everything is. You get info and can see how things were bullshit and can improve. How to avoid hurting others and how humans are the same, it is all clearer now thanks to advancement instead of the toxic past when everyone thinking their people are the best and rest are shit.

People will always blame anything but themselves and the whole shitty life.

 

[been_there]

Humans at least got a step forward with scientific and technological advancement and have the ability now to analyze how bullshit everything is.

Tech advancement drives conflict and the war machine more than it drives music. People don't analyze how bullshit everything is and improve it. They use it to bully and enslave more people and drive down wages. The past is toxic, the present is toxic and the forseeable future will be toxic. Its called capitalism and politics.

Why should people blame themselves for this crap they're served up? On this site there are so many people suffering purely cos society's full of self-righteous cunts who have religion, or morality, or whatever other faux-value set, but wouldn't know what empathy was until it had a breakdown and went on a shooting spree.

 

[not_a_robot]

of one yet to come actually: the machine age. most problems that occur for people result from being dependent on a social group in which they are not well-adapted; bad genetics, bad socialization and people are brandmarked for the rest of their lifes with a label of inferiority. this makes life itself a laughing stock for me because i'm thrown into life with bad parameters that i cannot change. this applies to every era yet and can only chnange and be improved upon in the future. life will evolve further increasingly mechanizing; we will have more control over how we design machines and how it can alter its own architecture than over this primitive shell of flesh and blood that is designed randomly by the rules of genetics.

I love it. I change my answer, I would come back in fifty to 100 years to see if AI is doing a better job overseeing the planet than we did. And since it's a fantasy, I can bring anyone along, I bring @Alan James with me.

 

[been_there]

I would come back in fifty to 100 years to see if AI is doing a better job overseeing the planet than we did.

if it were really AI overseeing the planet our species would exterminated by then.

 

[Life sucks]

Humans at least got a step forward with scientific and technological advancement and have the ability now to analyze how bullshit everything is.

Tech advancement drives conflict and the war machine more than it drives music. People don't analyze how bullshit everything is and improve it. They use it to bully and enslave more people and drive down wages. The past is toxic, the present is toxic and the forseeable future will be toxic. Its called capitalism and politics.

Why should people blame themselves for this crap they're served up? On this site there are so many people suffering purely cos society's full of self-righteous cunts who have religion, or morality, or whatever other faux-value set, but wouldn't know what empathy was until it had a breakdown and went on a shooting spree.

Not really, it is humans themselves who are toxic. Everything else is a tool which can be used as good or bad and that doesn't mean the tool is bad. The facts are clear now that their archaic ideologies are shit. Not everyone will use technology to analyze but the percentage is higher than the past, just look at the forum for example and how many people that follow pro-choice or antinatalist ideas for example and compare it to the past. Although I hate the toxic world but its still an improvement, there are toxic people who use everything to shit on others and those are the higher ups who feed on conflicts and wars but with technology they are exposed and that's why they hate and make propaganda about negatives and even trying to limit it and turn it into a mere cash grabbing tool.

And lets not talk about politics which is something I avoid talking about, how everything is exposed now. It doesn't matter if most people are dumb and don't even read or think when info is very accessible and easy to get but people who are aware are increasing. Many now knows that wars are bullshit and nonsense that make deep suffering. Compare it with the shitty past when everyone thinks war is great thing because other people are evil and their people are heroes.

Toxic being will always find a toxic way to ruin or abuse something. No matter what the circumstances are, toxicity will still be there.

 

[been_there]

So why are humans toxic?

 

[not_a_robot]

Oh, I'm relatively new around here... but damn, that only spikes my curiosity. What is most likely to happen?

"Singularity" as it's presented in the Futurist context is usually just 'snake oil', a phony techno-religious movement for rich people who think they can buy immortality, who knows, maybe they can.
To me it is my own conception of the universe, technology and time as an organic system with the Earth being equivalent to a brain or cell, with humans functioning like neurons, building an artificial neural net that spans Earth, and populating it with our thoughts and algorithms for learning about us and itself, the same way a human brains develop
consciousness. The earth being part of a larger Singular organism that we are unaware of yet, which is not fully conscious yet.
And a bunch of other stuff.

Have you read any Neal Stephenson? I would skip right past Kurzweil (or take all of his stuff with a huge grain of salt)and go straight to Stephenson's fiction, and maybe Vinge (but he's not really necessary) if you want a little more background.
You will probably really like Stephenson. He rarely if ever addresses the concept of Singularity but gives great conceptual overviews human connections creating technology, technology creating more human connections, more human connections making more technology, until everything is connected in a network that seems conscious. I recommend the easiest ones first, Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon. They're more fun to read.

 

[Life sucks]

So why are humans toxic?

The answer can be long but I'll try to make it short. First, biological functions and for example when one is hungry they'll get angry and hurt others. Humans first live in a brutal life and the descendants got remnants from brutality, because of the conflicting nature of humans, fighting over resources and wealth made the brutality directed against each other.

Some toxicity though is inherent biologically . I don't know much about evolution but you can see how creatures like monkeys can troll. It is something like a default programming of the brain.

What make everything worse is the shitty ideas that got developed like religions. This on other hand is a cumulative development and not made by one person. The cumulation of error (and toxicity of course) will make absurd directions and ideas.
The absurd ideas are developed and it turned into superficial religions and the way people contact with each others does not reflect what's inside them, hence, inherently hypocrites and pretending to be cool on the surface while hurting each other on the other side.


Heirarchies also are toxic and a development of humans in which some people abuses others inherently. This is also related to biology and probably genetics. It is complicated thing that adds elements of culture and politics.

Moreover, there is the information distortion and lying, there is a clip about how info got distorted, they put hundreds on a line and told the last one to do a certain movement and tell the person on front of them to do the same movement, when the cycle finished, the first one in the line did completely different movement than the last one. If a simple experiment like this distorts info this much then what about the whole history which is nothing but lies and how some utilize lies for their benefits and ride the wave.


It is not impossible as a human to get out of this shitty inheritance and mind control and stop hurting others but its very costly (forum people for example and how many broke barriers of society and view every wrong, some people are very nice and won't hurt anyone but everyone irl is hurting them). So yea the cost is very high and can be depression or any mental illness, it can cost one's life because not everyone can handle the harsh reality. That's what's sad in this life, if you become truly a good person you suffer more