OT: Thought Experiment: How Much Money Would You Want to Live in the Past?
I was discussing this with some friends over the weekend and wanted to discuss here. The premise is simple: how much money would you want to be given in order to live in a different era? $63,000 is the median household income in the U.S. today. That doesn't make someone rich, but with that salary one can have a smartphone, a TV, air conditioning, refrigeration, a car, access to travel, internet, and many more modern luxuries that we take for granted today.
Would you trade having a salary of $126,000 to live in 1950, a time when TV was its infancy, there were no computers, there was no internet, travel was incredibly expensive. How about earning $1,000,000 per year in 1900? Medicine was nowhere near what it is today, air conditioning and refrigeration did not access, cars were not mainstream, air travel was unheard of. How about living in 1800? $10,000,000 per year? Or how about living in the middle ages? Would you trade your current position for being a King or Queen then?
The idea of this is to be pretty open-ended. Also don't overthink the implications of inflation, investing, salaries vs. net worth, etc. This is really just gauging how much money you would want to have/earn if you were to live in a time with fewer common luxuries.
I’d go back to caveman times if I got to be the only person with fire.
You would have all the women.
smoke chasers...coal diggers?
“I ain’t sayin’ she’s a coal digger....”
One of the things I hate about going back in time is that even when you get the date exactly right, if you don't precisely account for the physical movement of the universe, there you are in 1865 but you're floating in space rather than at Ford's Theater.
This is a great point that nobody ever talks about.*
*And when I say it that way it makes it sound like I've been thinking about it a lot and so I get to feel smart that I'm on top of it, when in fact this issue hadn't really occurred to me before reading your comment and now I'm never going to watch time travel movies the same way again.
Wormholes deliver you right where you need to be
Kings take on change the past in 11-22-63 is a great lesson in time travel problems. Even if you were at Ford's theater would the results be good or bad?
I laughed hard at Frieze's comment. Physics geek stuff here.
Due to my extremely gifted sweat glands, no air conditioning is the deal breaker for me.
This is a question that rely on applies to white people and as a Jew its not so fun either. To answer your question the furthest I'd go back is the 70's or 80's and it would take millions to do it.
WTF?
I mean, it's a valid point. History is filled with very shitty conditions for many different groups of people. The white catholics are not among those that get looked upon as "having it bad". Saying this stuff really ruffles the feathers of some of us whites and I don't know why. There's always this overly defensive stance as if people are asking us to feel guilt and bow down and kiss feet. Instead it's more, just take a minute and realize...we've had it good.
Being fed to lions was no picnic, I’m assuming
Daniel fared well...maybe they liked his dessert.
April 21st, 2020 at 11:22 PM ^
Well, there wouldn't have been Catholics that far back. And Christianity was much bigger in the eastern provinces at that time, so a lot of them likely weren't white. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. Important to note though ancient Romans didn't at all have the same racial worldview as Americans do. Egyptians were sure as hell more civilized than the Germans.
Perfectly valid point, and it's not a dig at white people. I bet nobody, regardless of race, would want to live in, say, the 19th century of ANY country in which they are not the majority race.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:05 PM ^
Give me a British lordship and the $ that goes with it and I'll live in any of the empire's territories.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:55 PM ^
Hatter you would be screwed the minute you disagreed with the King.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:59 PM ^
Why would I ever do that?
April 22nd, 2020 at 12:31 AM ^
That made me laugh.
Ok, would you be willing to trade places with Mansa Musa? One of the richest people in all of history, but you would be living in the 13th and 14th centuries. Would you want to make that trade?
Well, living before modern medicine means that the chance of recovering from a basic infection or stomach bug is less than 50%.
Nevermind...I thought he made his riches by selling slaves but I'm probably wrong
He made his bank selling salt and trading gold.
As a person of color, I'm with you here. I would NOT want to live in the USA before 1980. And I wouldn't want to live without modern medicine, so going back to pre-Industrial revolution societies, before colonialism, would also be miserable.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:58 PM ^
I’ll settle for going back to 1999 so I can run over Ralph Nader in a vintage Corvair Monza.
April 21st, 2020 at 11:01 PM ^
I liked this point better when Louis CK made it.
Not it to be a head of state in the middle ages ... the whole people coming for your head from all sides thing is not appealing. And ruling over people (which I suppose is the upside -- because almost everyone on this board lives measurably better in terms of physical well-being today than royalty did back then) holds no interest for me.
Living in 1800 would be really freaking weird ... although if I had $10MM a year in that context, I think I could make good use of my time and resources as one heckuva abolitionist.
I would never go back past the creation of MGoBlog.
Do I get 1,000,000 MGoBrianPoints now?
April 21st, 2020 at 10:58 PM ^
But you could be the 1st to create MGoBlog....
I would definitely take the money. I would love to live as a medieval baron or an ancient king. I might not live as long, but I think I could live better. Not just in a hedonistic sense either, though I do think that these people lived in ways that we can't fully fathom, for all our modern conveniences. But beyond that, I think I could do some real good as a medieval baron, improving the lives of the people around me.
I wouldn't need that much money as long as I had my copy of Gray's Sports Almanac.
Thank you! I was going to say the same thing if someone hadn't already (I'm surprised it took this many posts)!
Fun and interesting thought experiment, OP.
I use the WWW so often daily (work and home) that it's not easy to imagine enjoyably going back to even the early '90s.
I would go back to the 80 or 90's with my current pay(it would be a lot for back then), Michigan was Michigan then
I'd chose the 60's if not for that ugly war and the corresponding draft
Most of us own things that the richest people in the world would have cut their left arms off for 80 or 100 years ago. Even 15 years and 3 months ago the entire digital regime was completely different, and the norm today of streaming video, smartphones, and social media was basically theoretical.
The cheap phones they sell at mall kiosks that are affordable to people with meager incomes would have prompted millionaires to camp out at store entrances a few years ago. Bargain tvs stacked in the aisle at Walmart weren't even possible 20 years ago, much less cheap.
The world has changed quite a bit. It has its downsides, but I'm not going to pretend that I won't be streaming some video or something tonight.
Oh, and I'm never going somewhere where my wife and family are not present. So, no.
As a mid-30s type....I've always said I'd fit in well in the 60s/70s. Simpler times I could handle...we'd all be in the same boat. Though someone above makes a good point. Do I get to pick what I'm doing or is there a chance I'm going to Vietnam?! Because....fuck that noise.
Spread the word, the party's now at the moontower!!!
well, I had a cancer (20 years ago) that was incurable until about 1970. So there is no amount of money that would get me to go back very far.
Everyone lives like relative Kings today.
If I knew what I know now I would go back to high school and get back together with my smoking hot naughty high school girlfriend and also buy some Apple Stock.
Give me a million to live in the 70s, so I can see Jaws and Star Wars as it came out, invest in Nintendo and Microsoft in the 80s, and then get Amazon in the 90s.
April 22nd, 2020 at 12:13 AM ^
I gotta be honest with, speaking as someone who was born in 1970, the 70s kinda sucked. For the first third of it, I was just sort of staring blankly at the walls while shitting my drawers. Then, my parents introduced me to this concept called "school." And then we finished the decade with stagflation. Throughout the whole decade I had 4 TV channels to choose from, and the only good shows were Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood. I guess Electric Company was pretty good too.
we kind of do live in the past. i am fond of electricity and indoor plumbing, but i don't know, as long as we get to keep the farm and i have either machinery or the right plow animals/hay equipment, etc. then i guess life wouldn't be too dramatically different. will need enough money to make sure we can get books, seed for the fields, some things like that but that's chump change compared to any comparable 'salary' for those times.
and like SRJK said above, i'm not going anywhere without dear wife and the children. besides, whose going to work the farm?!
Like in a hot tub time machine?
You can live in the past right now if you put your mind to it.
I'd go ASAP with same relative money as I make now. IMHO life was way better, way easier, and we were happier before the internet became fast and readily available to everyone and we all had smart phones. No one would have to pay me more. So, basically anything pre-1995 would be great, within reason. I wouldn't want to go back to the 1600s or anything, but anything after early 1900s.
This is what I was thinking at first as well, but it would probably be best to avoid the Great Depression and both World Wars if possible.
I guess, that's also kinda the point. So long as you don't die or suffer some major injury/illness having some national struggle is also what makes us less selfish, gives us a better sense of community, and makes us happier. That and no internet.
I’d pay to live in the 50s
You could transport me back to 1870 with $1000, two pairs of work clothes, a pair of Sunday's best, and a revolver... I would go tonight! There are far too many people in the world right now. Every place you could go that is semi-inhabitable is lined with houses. We have destroyed this beautiful planet. I want to explore and go places no-one has been before. I'll take the other side of the coin: I would pay to "lose" the common luxuries.
April 22nd, 2020 at 12:15 AM ^
Or you could just move to Utah.
April 22nd, 2020 at 11:17 AM ^
...or most of Montana, most of Idaho, most of Nevada, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington...