You probably would have been that child that dies and takes his mother's life during childbirth because no modern medicine, but okay...
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(TITLE FROM REDDIT r/HistoryMemes)
It all depends I suppose, on what your world view is and what you can live without. One constant in history is people of any time period thinking one in the past was better. We aren’t the first generation to dream of being knights or Romans- in fact in both cases those things were Romanticized essentially right after their falls from prominence- and with both knights and Romans, within the time those were common things people romanticized earlier versions of them. Married people often lament how lucky their unmarried friends are for things like freedom or financial autonomy and single people often bemoan how lucky those in relationships are. As humans we tend to be short sighted, if we aren’t happy or think we could be happier we will often assume that if we had the things we don’t have that we would be- and we often project the things we want.
It is also often the case as we age that the past looks better. A combination of factors conspire between our own changing perceptions and the changing world. We get used to things and then they are gone because of change. Of course our logical minds will often correct us- those “bygone days” weren’t that great right? So we often go to times before our own- again- it’s that “the thing we can’t relate to” seeming better than the thing we know.
So some people really might be happier or at least fit in better in another time. If you’re a person who holds religious beliefs that don’t allow you to take advantage of modern medicine- you probably won’t miss a world without it. Through much of time and history there is some group of people, usually males, who generally had things better, and if you happen to be a member of a group that had it better then a certain time might appeal to you if you aren’t too hung up on the way others are treated and only care about your own life.
If you don’t know much about things like science or technology you might not mind being in a time where people knew less about those things. If you don’t watch Tv much or use the internet much… etc etc. so I can’t say the past is always such a bad place.
A lot of it is relative to the person. The fact is just like people have often looked backwards or forwards in time and yearned for a “better time” there are people in just about every single time who have been happy and content. They’ve lived good lives by their standards. I mean hell- a lot of us still alive grew up before internet and cellular phones and many modern conveniences. The world today is much different and some things we like and some things many of us dislike. Some of us would gladly go back and others wouldn’t trade what we’ve gained- but we lived before internet and such and many of us were perfectly happy. Of course there were inconveniences that aren’t so big a thing today- if the store didn’t have it you could MAYBE order it or you were stuck with what they had. If you didn’t live near certain things you just didn’t have access generally. We couldn’t “instantly comunícate” in the same ways and had to use paper forms and such. Mail things, many things took longer and
we’re more effort- but it was just how it was. Maybe in 20,50 years or less we will have some technology that makes modern internet and cell phones look cumbersome and primitive. Someday maybe we will have some sort of technological telepathy. Who knows- but people today just live mostly fine with why there is today, we might fantasize about how things could be better but it generally doesn’t ruin our lives. Someday every home may have high grade industrial 3D printers and the thought of needing to wait for things in the mail or for a delivery will seem like a big deal. People will just print whatever they want and pay a subscription or for downloads or whatever the model might be. But as cool as that sounds, today, you live in this world and are used to it.
Should the day come that almost everything is downloaded and printed at home many kids right now might be adults or old geezers like me and you might not think printing everything is as cool as it sounds. You might bemoan the disconnection or the loss of certain experiences or feel uneasy in the new rules the world works by. You may have trouble understanding and keeping up with the “simple” technology your kids seem to get intuitively. If the world becomes vastly more conservative many people will likely pibe for the “golden age of liberalism” they may see our time as from their vantage, and the world could become so liberal that even radical liberals of today would feel confused and morally outraged or upset. And one day you or your kids or their kids might talk about the golden 2020’s and how good we all had it and how great it would be to live right now- and if you’re still around you might agree or you might cackle at their ignorance.
But the thing is that even if you fit in another time, if their values and beliefs are more aligned to yours and you are in a group that wasn’t socially or otherwise in a bad spot in general- even if you weren’t in a position to be at the bottom of the socio economic ladder and such.. you’d probably not like it or be liked much. The odds that your values truly align are slim and the context of the culture and such are very unlikely- even someone with a PHD in the society and life of a period would likely have trouble fitting in and would tend to need to walk on eggshells not to make some slip up because they are used to living in this world with its many differences and things that don’t exist or haven’t happened.
Language is a huge one- even if you could travel to Ancient Rome do you think you could speak to them or read or write? Even if you have some knowledge of the language of a place, time changes language and even if you knew the classical form are you fluent enough to not seem like an imbecile? Would you get the puns and cultural references and humor and slang and nuances? Probably not. You don’t have to even go far back in time within a native spoken language that still is in common usage to begin to have such problems. We tend to take for granted and not realize how much of many languages like English are very modern. No, they did not speak like you in the 1940’s. Many common sayings and idioms and such didn’t exist then in English. There are many that aren’t commonly know to the average speaker that were common then.
Going back less than 100 years might not make communication that difficult in a broad sense that you could probably understand people and conduct essential conversations, but you’d likely speak strangely to them and vice versa, you’d likely seem odd, and there would be issues most likely in general communications the more integrated you were into society and the more you interacted. Go back much further and things become much worse generally. Beyond spoken language are unspoken communications. Manners, customs, laws, so many things that the further from your own time and culture you get the more it becomes likely that you would quite possibly or most certainly get yourself into various trouble even if you could form and understand sentences like a native.
So I mean… it is possible some people would enjoy and do well at some past points of history, it is possible that some people might like it if the modern world adopted certain things from various points in history. The majority of people probably not so much. In short it tends to be a case of “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
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(TITLE FROM REDDIT r/HistoryMemes)
If you don’t know much about things like science or technology you might not mind being in a time where people knew less about those things. If you don’t watch Tv much or use the internet much… etc etc. so I can’t say the past is always such a bad place.