What period of history would you guys most liked to have lived in and what would your title/profession/job/class be?

I would like to have lived in 12th Century in Japan, at the time of the fall of the house of Taira - fighting alongisde Minamoto Yoshitsune.

What about you guys?

Oooh, this is a fun one.

I think I'd like to live in the old west - when the plains were open and wild, when the Native Americans still roamed free. Laura Ingles Wilder days.

I would have been a cowboy. I know that women didn't have many rights back then, but the wild west was so rough that the oppression of women was hardly a priority. I think the ability to avoid society when you wanted to, or to become part of society when you felt so inclined was a great opportunity. How exciting.

Of course my American bias shines through.

I would have to say Mid-Evil or Renaissance Era. And my profession would Either be a blacksmith or knight of course

I am a professional Historian, so this one strikes a particular chord with me.

I would have to say I would want to be some English gentry, possibly soldier turned explorer in the early to mid 1800s. When huge swaths of the world remained unexplored and un-navigated, when central Asia and central Africa were akin to the far side of the moon. The chance to explore and discover something truly unknown would be wonderful.

My back-up choice would be an academic in the early roman Empire, under Augustus or Claudius, when the intellectual development of Rome hit its peak. Then philosophers were like rock stars today, and the exploration and discovery of the world around us was a priority for both individuals and the state itself.

I would live in New York in the late 1930's. I don't what it is, but I'm in love with the cars, clothes, fashions, attitudes and architecture of that time.

I would like to live during the end of the human race. I am curious of how it will end and anticipate some very good parties.

What a coincidence.... that's right now!

edited to add; Ok, please don't jump all over me for that, geesh....

My perfect time would be and occupation would be at the point when Jesus was calling disciples. To follow Him and see his works would have to be amazing.

Of course, I don't know if I could deal with all that walking. I would definitely be the person in the Bible praying for a scooter...or at least some shoes.

Ditto Vermillion so far as historical periods. I'm also attracted to the Late Medieval/Early Renaissance, but only if I'm a noble.

But the time I'd really want to live is in the future, when humans are exploring the stars. The Star Trek universe would suit me, if only the Federation weren't so socialist.

Allow me to throw some doom and gloom into this thread. This is where I go all historian on y'all.

People have an astonishingly romanticised version of the past, likely brought on by film and television. many people have a great deal of interest in the Medieval period, but to live there?

Personal hygener simply did not exist in this era, people were filty and ridden with every imaginable kind of parasite, lice, skinworms, you name it.

A liberal assortment of diseases flourished among this filth, and everyone had one or two of them. Those that were not terminal were often disfiguring, most common was small pox which caused a whole seris of craterous scars all over the face (hence the legendary beauty of milkmaids in all the old fairy tales). Rotten or missing teeth were common by age 20, which was mid-life for most people. Any injury tended to go septic, resulting in gangrene, amputations and often a lingering death.

Apart from diseases, there were also a whole host of ailments brought on by malnutrition: scurvy, rickets and so on. This latter tended to kill most women, as often during a bad labour the brittlepelvic bones would just snap.

Women died in childbirth, period. Most women tended to just have kids until one of the labours killed them, few died of old age.

That was the everyday life. Then you get unusual events, like the various plagues, culminating in the 1346 plague, which killed about a third of Europe.

That is about 1% of the unpleasantness which was life in our glorious past.



Keep that in mind when you want to travel back there, or live in a time gone by...

Good topic. I would be a city merchant, or possibly a traveling one, in 15th century Tenochtitlan. As people at the time tended to not live more than 52 years over there, I am fairly sure I could avoid Cortez and plagues that followed him.

Victorian, England...spiritualist/psychic, master of phrenology, purveyor of snake-oil, and somnambulist exhibitionist extraordinaire...

Right now. The KOOLEST stuff is going to be happening.
Sooner or later there will be more space exploration
The sciences of Medicine are coming up with all sorts of things which will banish much of what ails us.
We may break the code that causes death.
at least 5 more Black Sabbath Farewell Tours
Fuel cells. What this technology alone will change and make possible is going to be incredible.

Honestly I want to live for 1000 years just to watch the world change and see what the human race becomes. I am an optimist I see wonderous things ahead.

I'd like to go back in time just 10 years, so that I can then think up all the cool ideas, inventions, movie scripts, games and dotcoms of the 90s before they exist

19th Century Germany so I can punch Karl Marx in the face...Actually I would probably prefer the turn of the 20th century New York as well.

CP

I'd like to invest in them before the bubble bursted.

In the 60’s, living in Southern California (or in the Haight Ashbury district), professional surfer.

I think it would have been fantastic to have been old enough (I was around just too young) to participate in everything the 60’s embodied. I’ve always felt there was more change (from music, culture, art, civil rights, technology, and science) than any 10 year period in history.

Second choice would have to be the mid to late 1700’s here in the US. And only if I was able to ‘hob nob’ with our founding fathers and participate in the debates of the day.

I've always wanted to live during the early 1800's, just because of my genes.... almost everyone in my family back around then lived in rural Maine hunting and fishing

I live in rural New England, and it ain't that that great to me, and its the Early 2000's. Right now it's -3 without a wind chill factor. Some of these towns out here could be still stuck in the early 1900's. I think its ok to visit, but would want to live like this.

I'd like to be in an Irish abbey, fairly far from the coast (away from the raids of the Norsemen), illuminating manuscripts and leading a life of contemplation, maybe about 1100 AD.

I would like to go back to the period between 1954-1965 when crime wasn't rampant, leave your doors unlocked, jobs were plentiful and people were more trusting,at least in the rural area where I lived.

I know it's all romantic to imagine being an ancient hero in pre-industrials times... But life was cruel, brutish, and short back then.

In Ancient Greece about the time of the Bachanillian super party-orgies! Oh Yeah!

Uhm Paladin forgive me I CANNOT resist this temptation.

I think I know that one. Its one of the books my wife likes to read.
Isn't that the one where all is peaceful until the arrogant brash young Irish lord rides into her life.

Yeah, ya got me.

*shudder* Something about living an ultra-religious life just...... irks me

It comes from playing a lawful good Paladin character too long in AD&D, Bean. It becomes a very comfortable mindset.

Ah, it would appear that's the reason indeed. A chaotic evil gnome illusionist that goes around towns stealing potions and items would seem to differ slightly from a paladin

I would probably wish to be a rich Frenchman in the 19th century, a dandy somewhat similar to Robert de Montesquiou, who had a live tortoise's shell encrusted with gems simply for aesthetic purposes. If I remember correctly, the poor creature died of stress, but Robert was glad of this, because when thinking of the beauty of the shell he hadn't factored in the more mundane problem of what the tortoise would do to his carpet.

Possibly France during the Enlightenment. The opportunity of meeting Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Denis Diderot, Jean d'Alembert, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson without having to leave Paris is just too tempting. I would have to have been a writer and philosophe - and, of course, a Freemason.

The only other age I would maybe choose would be the Fifth Century BCE. I would have to have been a Persian ambassador and, if I timed things right - like the central character in Gore Vidal's Creation - could have met Darius, Xerxes, Ajatashatru, Siddhartha Gautama, Lao Tzu, and Confucius - and then retired to Athens in time for the "Golden Age" of Pericles.

To be frank, though, I'm pretty pleased with when I was born - the mid-1950s. I think, if anything, I would maybe have liked to have been born thirty or so years earlier (even if it meant being blacklisted by HUAC) - and died shortly before the 2000 election when it looked as though the dawn of the new millennium in America might just have been the Aquarian Age as imagined in the sixties. I would have missed out on America's Debate, true - but I would have remained blissfully unaware of the nightmarish crypto-fascist dystopia which America has instead become.

I'm too much of a wimp to enjoy living in the past. I like modern comforts too much.

As a long-term optimist about humanity, I'll take the future. How far? Well, too far and I'll be a victim of severe culture shock. Let's say sometime in the late 21st century. Of course, there is some possibility that there will be some terrible disaster or other, but I think the odds on our my side. Set me down in 2089 or so and have somebody there to introduce me to the culture and the gadgets. I think I would have a good time.

I'm with you, Silverwolf, but would go deeper into the future say 300-400 years futher. Have always loved the "Star Trek" philosphy of the end of needing money to survive. Hate is eliminated. We could hit the snooze button one more time as those transporters would eliminate the hours of traffic we sit in.