[High/Deaf]

......when would you go?

I've occasionally thought about this. Let's say it wasn't a free-for-all and you could only go to one other time (and maybe back again once), what would interest you?

The curious thing for me is, if I couldn't come back to now, I would be inclined to stay right when I am. I think this may be the best of times. I got to see crazy cars and loud music - stuff I think is fading away. People had social interactions with each other. I got to live in the era when we pissed away our natural resources just for fun - again a bygone era. I'm pretty happy with when I live.

But I am curious to see what this place is gonna be like in the near future. If I could go and come back, I'd want to check out 2070, just to see where all of the current tech is leading us to. But I don't think I'll like it, thus the return trip proviso.

 

[KapnKrunch]

My home town was a mining town in the middle of a wilderness. I grew up in a canoe. Our playground was the bush. A brand new Gibson was $300. I paid $200 for a Fender Bass Man. Check the drug store for the latest comic. Check the Hudson's Bay for the latest record. Drove a 1949 Fargo. Etc, etc...

The Sixties.

 

[SaucyJack]

Summer of '84.

 

[Mooh]

Back about 500 years just to fish the waters that I know now, pre white man fucking up the continent.

Forward about 500 years just to see if humans ever got smart enough to correct their bad behavior.

But I would return to now.

 

[Budda]

Does "time" include timelines? Im more curious to know if there's a different version of my life and what it is like.

 

[BGood]

Woodstock 1969 for the long weekend, then back in ... well why not ... '69. But at the age I was then.

 

[keto]

About 1929, find a way to get my hands on some dough, and invest it all just after the crash. A recurring fantasy, though I also think about going to other times.

 

[colchar]

Can we replace our younger selves on this time trip? If so, I would go back to when I was about ten and then live my life with the knowledge not to do things that turned out to be mistakes.

If we can't replace ourselves I would go back in time and kill a particular someone whose existence ended up causing significant problems in the future.

 

[johnnyshaka]

Interesting question...figuring out a time to "visit" is tough but then I'm complicating things with where I'd like to visit, as well.

I'm thinking I'd like to fast forward a couple hundred years and likely head even further north assuming that the planet will have heated up significantly making Yukon's climate more like Montana or Washington state. I'd also be curious to see how much of the Earth's population would be living underground or in climate controlled "bubbles". And I'd also like to see how much of Earth's population lives on other planets or in orbit.

 

[butterknucket]

Late 60's....see Woodstock. Enjoy the 70's.

 

[Robert1950]

At least not before antibiotics were in use. I'd hate to go back to some time where I might die of the plague or something.

 

[mhammer]

Back when I used to interview musical notables, one question I liked to ask was "If you could be a member of any group, at any point in the history of music, who would you want to play with, and what instrument?". Leonard Feather told me he would have wanted to play piano in Count Basie's Orchestra. David Wilcox wanted to play in Stevie Wonder's Band. Marshall Crenshaw wanted to play bass in Gene Vincent's band.

If I had any desire to travel through time, it would be to avoid making a few bad choices in life. But as far as other eras go, I'm fine with the present. As much as we travel with a view that other places are so fabulous we just gotta go there, there are untold millions of people who think that where we live is amazing and they just gotta go there one day. We tend to undervalue what we have and where/when we are, and overvalue other times and places. We don't have that much distance from "the present", so I imagine we tend not to see its finer points. Nothing wrong, though, with being curious about other times/periods that intrigue you. Just don't expect it to be "better".

At the same time <sic>, as I'm fond of telling people, there are no better reasons to want to live forever than children. I just gotta know how things turn out for both them and whoever they produce, and whoever they produce, etc. People make the very best stories, and I really really really want to know where the story goes. from here. Not really a desire for time travel, since I don't want to miss anything. I want to be "present" for every last bit of it.

 

[johnnyshaka]

At the same time <sic>, as I'm fond of telling people, there are no better reasons to want to live forever than children. I just gotta know how things turn out for both them and whoever they produce, and whoever they produce, etc. People make the very best stories, and I really really really want to know where the story goes. from here. Not really a desire for time travel, since I don't want to miss anything. I want to be "present" for every last bit of it.

I thought about wanting to know how my kids turned out as but at the same time if it wasn't as well as I'd hoped, for whatever reason, then I'd be pretty disappointed. Kind of like being a fly on the wall at your own funeral...a poor turnout would be gut-wrenching for some.

Maybe ignorance is bliss...I don't know.

 

[mhammer]

Give it time.

My dad was a machinist, and brought me to the engineering open house at Carleton University when I was 12. Having just seen Goldfinger, and then seeing a laser beam up close, I was pretty dang impressed...with universities. But I never went into engineering like he'd hoped. Flash forward 3 decades. Our older son decided that what he wanted to do was go into engineering...at Carleton. he applied to mechanical (my dad's preference), but ended up in civil.

So, don't confuse how things turn out in the short term with how they turn out in the long-term.

 

[cheezyridr]

well, it would depend on other circumstances. i might like to meet tomoe gozen. or maybe not so far back, and meet mineko iwasaki, before she met shintaro katsu.
it might be fun to meet king taejo and sambong/ jeung dojeon and see josan being formed. it would be really interesting to see first hand the struggle between them.

edit: actually, there are a ton of historical events and people i would love to see and know first hand.

 

[Mooh]

I wouldn't mind meeting the real Jesus, to see if he was anything like any of the current iterations.

But really, seeing southern Ontario, particularly my stomping grounds, in a pre white man state would be an immeasurably amazing experience.

 

[knight_yyz]

I'd go back 10k years and watch how they built the pyramids

 

[Guest]

or the building of stonehenge

 

[LanceT]

My mom grew up Doukhobor in BC's interior during the 1930's. There was a faction known as The Sons of Freedom that were the radical sect known for their public nudity, arson, and bombings, among other things. My mom's parents belonged to this group.
These individuals protested over things like sending kids to school and materialistic living and so on. A bit hard to fathom in today's terms.
During the 30's the government of BC didn't know what to do with this unruly mob so decided to round up the trouble makers and incarcerate them, my mom's parents included. They ended up in an internment camp outside of Victoria named Piers Island.
I think my mom was maybe 3 when this happened. She, along with her siblings and all of the other kids who's parents were imprisoned, were dispersed among various foster homes throughout BC.
My mom ended up in Vancouver with it seems a loving family from what she remembers. She was with this family for 3 years until her parents were released from prison. When she was reunited with them, she no longer knew them, could not speak the language any more and was thoroughly frightened and did not know why this was happening (again).

So in the interest of keeping a long story short, I guess my wish would be to return to this period in time to see what could be done about integrating and understanding a culture when the norm was persecution and ignorance.

Yeah there's more noble and fun things to consider but I've listened to my mom's stories my entire life on this and if it could do any good for my mom and her family, it's what I'd want to do.

 

[Accept2]

I would copy the movie The Time Machine. Go way, way, way, way out into the future. Then break the machine and live there as a relic of the past.........