When Was The Best Time To Live In History? - And if you had a time machine, when would you live?

[Judge Dredd]

As the title says, when was the best time to live in all of human history, and why?

And if you had a single use time machine, when would you go back to, if at all?

For the sake of argument, the rules are

• The time machine only works once. Once you're gone you can't come back.
• No major changes to history, so no going back in time to kill Hitler or save JFK.
• You don't have time to research. So you can't look up the lottery numbers, but you do take your existing knowledge with you, so you can buy Bitcoin or invest in Enron or bet on the super bowl whatever.
• You don't get to choose your social class.
• It's assumed your set up with basic necessities. A place to live, your savings (adjusted for inflation), you know the language, etc.

 

[555777555]

2004-2007.

 

[thhrang]

As the title says, when was the best time to live in all of human history, and why?

Right now, unironically. Modern luxuries generally mean that even the most downtrodden people in first-world countries live better lives than Kings did centuries ago. Flushable toilets, germ theory, supermarkets containing practically any type of food from around the world, you get the idea. I would generally not want to temporally relocate to a time beyond a hundred or so years ago.

And if you had a single use time machine, when would go back to, if at all?

The Eighties, so I can get rich from my modern knowledge and see a bunch of classic rock bands perform live in their prime. I guess I'm basic.

 

[AirdropShitposts]

Well, the best time is now because I get to post on the Kiwi Farms.

But if I could jump back, I feel like 1998 is around a sweet spot where technology is going to catch up fast enough for my enjoyment and I could short the dot-com bust.

 

[cybertoaster]

• You don't get to choose your social class.

Gonna pass then, plebbitards like to harp on how we live better than a medieval king because we've smartphones and shit, and while I'm not gonna argue that modern medicine is much better than getting leeches from some weirdo with a beak you can also be in 2025 but living in a slum in calcutta.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

The 1950s. By all statistics, it was the most prosperous time in human history due to almost much every country having very fast growing economies and unprecedented social mobility. Even inherently bad economic models like communism produced fast growing economies (USSR economy grew 38% from 1950 to 1960, China's grew 54% from 1950 to 1958 but then Mao drank the retard juice and did the Great Leap "Forward"), although they weren't as successful as capitalist countries at economic growth. In the US, you could buy a house if you worked 40 hours a week in retail. Women were interested in starting families and weren't whores, communism was kept safely locked down, the US economy was 30% of the world's, and even the uppity negros weren't too bad yet since the only ones most people ever saw were nicely dressed men and women who would just sit there as a protest. Europe was even nicer, since you could also readily afford a house, the cities were safe, and the economy was booming.

It's sad to look back and see how far we've fallen since then. It's even crazier to think that people who lived through the 50s can't recognize that. It's not surprising the media triese and gaslights us into believing the 1950s were an era where evil straight Christian white men brutally oppressed women, children, minorities, gays, and communists just for kicks.

 

[Vernon Dozier]

From 1946 to 2001, there was a period of relative stability, though conflicts like the Korean War and the Vietnam War were significant challenges. However, in general, it was a prosperous time for the West, especially for the United States. Even today, life is much easier compared to most of human history. Consider the existence of lolcows people who, in a more difficult time when food and resources were scarce, would have had to work grueling jobs to survive rather than relying on The government dole.

 

[Magicicada_septendecula]

That would depend a lot on where you live. For Americans, West Europeans, and some of the more advanced Asians, it was probably the second half of the 20th century. It was a time of relative peace (except for the US fucking around in a few shit holes away from where the first worlders lived), great economic expansion, and technological achievement. For eastern Europe, a shorter amount of time in that same era, between the death of Stalin and the beginning of the late Brezhnev stagnation. Not perfect here either, given the USSR could be heavy handed in keeping the Eastern Bloc in line and had its own engagements in weird parts of the word. For most of sub-Saharan Africa, their greatest time to be alive was either when they were selling the people from the next village over to the people on the big ships or when some obscure king who modern western historians frantically try to elevate to a major figure was making his hajj and dumping tons of gold along the way. For China and India, there's never a great time to live there. For both of those countries, it's poo, foreign domination, fragmentation, totalitarian dictatorship, or lemming-like acts of self-destruction (or some combination thereof).

 

[*Grunts Softly*]

50's
niggers were domesticated and sang doo-wop in suits
the faggotry virus hadn't spread yet
men were men and women were women
just a fantastic time to be alive

 

[Fyrnite]

I would say 1980 and experience the 80s as they were, instead of just pretentious plebs who pretend they knew what the 80s were except they were born like a decade after it was over. I would just indulge in pop culture, and I know the economy wasn't the greatest, and politics were shit then. But if you can manage to tide over both of those and enjoy what there was in pop culture at the time, it'd be great.

 

[Turquoise]

The stone age. Our natural habitat.

 

[Monolith]

GLORIOVS ROMA

 

[Rose Breeder]

kill Hitler or save JFK.

You have the order backwards.

As for a time period proper, mid to late 1990's.

 

[Bothriolepis]

you can also be in 2025 but living in a slum in calcutta.

That would be my first thought here. If you want to go back to the 1950s, then statistically you're probably going to end up in China right before the Great Famine, Africa during a time when every country in the Northern Hemisphere wanted to fuck with your government, etc. Your odds of winning the lottery and finding yourself in Western Europe or even an East Bloc country (which would be bad, but still a hell of a lot better) would be significantly lower than your odds of ending up in a developing country that got its shit fucked up by one of those global superpowers.

Things get a little better in the 21st century, but why risk ending up in South Kivu during the Second Congo War for a chance at living in the time of your choice for a decade at most?

 

[I too am Alpharius]

1100s crusades
1950s woman and economy
1980s music
or maybe the late 1990s, just like Matrix told us.

 

[Fae Supremacist]

When Was The Best Time To Live In History?​

Let's roll the numbers.
Assuming your birth is randomly determined, you'd want a period where the chances of you being born a European are the highest, since (excluding the pre-Age of Exploration period) it had the highest standards of living, reasonable population density and you'd be white as a bonus. The other population powerhouses of India and China are pretty much in constant turmoil and you'd be another peasant abused by warlords and invaders.

The answer is the Great Peace of 1815-1914, the Pax Britannica after the defeat of Napoleon.
The European population is at its highest percentage of world population it ever was (30%) giving you good chances, it is the height of the Concert of Europe and the balance of power/sphere of influence diplomacy, so there are 100 years of continuous European peace, with no great state wars you'd be drafted and die in. Technology is progressing rapidly and you'd get to live through the Industrial Revolution. The Americas are right in the peak frontier era if that's what you're into. If you fuck up and get born African you'd get to experience the Scramble for Africa and get some running water and malaria pills, just pray you're not in the Congo.
Only way to fuck up is if you're Chinese because you'll be minced in the Taiping Rebellion.

 

[Soup Sammiches]

I'd say around 6:30 PM.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I'm surprised how much love 1950 is getting. It makes sense though. It would be followed by the 60s, where you could watch the moon landings, and was a time where you could buy a house with a part time summer job, if boomers are to believed.

Let's roll the numbers.

Nice. I had heard before that "Rome during the height of the empire!" to be the correct answer according to numbers, but haven't seen it actually layed out. It assumes a middle or upper class existence however. I included the "you don't get to pick your social class" rule because I expected it to get chosen a lot.

The Eighties, so I can get rich from my modern knowledge and see a bunch of classic rock bands perform live in their prime. I guess I'm basic.

Same. For me it was mostly my interest in computers. But lots of things. The best cars. The best movies. And I'd get to enjoy subcultures in their prime before enshitification ruined everything. Even getting to visit Japan during the 80s and 90s would've been great. Sounds a bit consoomer when I put it that way.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

That would be my first thought here. If you want to go back to the 1950s, then statistically you're probably going to end up in China right before the Great Famine, Africa during a time when every country in the Northern Hemisphere wanted to fuck with your government, etc. Your odds of winning the lottery and finding yourself in Western Europe or even an East Bloc country (which would be bad, but still a hell of a lot better) would be significantly lower than your odds of ending up in a developing country that got its shit fucked up by one of those global superpowers.

Things get a little better in the 21st century, but why risk ending up in South Kivu during the Second Congo War for a chance at living in the time of your choice for a decade at most?

Actually no. Europe had almost twice as many people as Africa in 1950, over 1/5 of the world's population. The US and Canada combined had about 2/3 as many people as Latin America (about 5 percent of the world population). Nobody even knows how many people lived in China in the 1950s (commies use this fact to lie about how many people Mao killed), but it was a smaller proportion of Asia's population than today since Japan (which had things like modern medicine) had a larger share of the population.

And even if you had to be a black dude in Africa in 1950, you might get lucky and be the guy who got free shit from the president/dictator. A lot of African leaders in the 60s and 70s are to this day really famous in their own countries even if they mostly followed cargo cult socialism. That's because they knew how to hand out free shit. The problems with the French and the UK/US and shit mostly didn't start until the 70s when you had shit like the Biafra War and the first generation of African leadership ran into the problem where they either had to start looting to fund their government (which would cause a coup) or decided to loot foreign corporations on their territory which obviously caused a coup. Africa in the 60s was a rather different place. It was stable and "successful" enough that African governments helped put the medical workers on the ground who teamed up with foreigners to totally eradicate the smallpox virus.

 

[cybertoaster]

it is the height of the Concert of Europe and the balance of power/sphere of influence diplomacy, so there are 100 years of continuous European peace

What is the Franco-Prussian war, the Italian war of independence, the wars of the prussians against the danes and the austrians.

Assuming your birth is randomly determined, you'd want a period where the chances of you being born a European are the highest, since (excluding the pre-Age of Exploration period)

Not really, being a native in the Americas would suck much more but then again so would be being in the thirty years war, specially if you're german where in some areas half the population died. Or spanish during the succession wars, or french during the wars of religion.

GLORIOVS ROMA

>gets born as a gaul

"I-I meant the roman republic!"

>gets born as a carthaginian