You must pick a point in human history before the 1950s to be spend the rest of your life in. What era and place would you choose?
You would still have the same age, gender, personality, skin color, etc. and you would be able to speak at least one local language and would know basic information of the era and place. Your family, social standing, and such would be randomly picked.
Given that there were 2 world wars in the early 1900s and that I like tech in general I would also choose 12/31/1949. At least I might have a PC sometime in my lifetime and I'd probably live to use it and not be a corpse on some beach somewhere.
Lincoln’s booth in Ford’s theater on the night of the assassination right before it happens. Saving the president will immediately give me some credibility and influence, and it could improve reconstruction of the south to an extent that positively impacts modern America.
I mean, tune it just right and you can get the Industrial Revolution started a couple millenia early and maybe bypass the whole colonialism nonsense. Middle ages is too late, too much theocracy. Common knowledge gets you in grecorroman spaces, but maybe you can overshoot a touch and get some nice Phoenician traders to bankroll your plan to mass produce bycicles or Ikea-style furniture and ship it all over the Mediterranean.
Just... hope you stay healthy or that the rules let you pack a bunch of antibiotics. Or maybe learn a bunch of modern medicine before you go. Maybe prioritize the whole "discovering penicillin" thing when you get there.
The surgery that kept me alive at birth wasn't invented until the late '80s. So I guess I would just be fucked no matter what. So put me wherever they want, any time before 1950 is going to suck ass for me.
Now assuming that part of my time travel comes with being able to fix my heart stuff. I would like to be born in the early 1900s. I can't think of a single time where I'm not going to fight both war and awfulness in the general world. But at least then I could be around for some cool developments.
The location, geography and placement is randomly picked?
Then like the other guy said December 31, 1949 11:59 pm
To be born before this time randomly anywhere in the world means that there is a high chance you'd be dropped into an impoverished hell hole with nothing, no chance and no help .... God help you if you are female.
1940, as there are crazy things that will be going on in the world of computer science (and science in general) over the course of the next few decades and that would be really cool to experience.
Kind of sad though to not be alive once we achieve human-level artificial intelligence, would be interested in seeing how that will turn out.
I would probably chose America, as I wouldn’t want to spend WW2 in Germany where I live in the present.
Alternatively I think I would very much enjoy visiting Ancient Greek, although I’m not too sure when would be the best time for that; maybe at the peak of Athen.
Maybe ancient Athens? Just sit around eating grapes and talking about triangles and shit. And even if I get rng'd into slavery, I could draw the Pythagorean theorem in the dirt, and a passing scholar would be like "holy shit, come with me dude"
If I could speak the local language and know basic information about the era and place, I would join the Navajo people from whence 12.5% of my DNA originated because I identify with that the most, it's strong in me. I feel like a fish out of water currently. I would be so happy with them. In fact I was recently in Arizona and I wanted so much to join the Navajos but I know it doesn't work that way. You have to be born in there in order to assimilate.
And I'd choose a point in history long before they were conquered by Europeans. I don't want to deal with any of that traumatic massacre bullshit.
If you're going back to before technology got good anyway, might as well always travel to ancient greece (preferably Athens, as they're a bit less violent).
As a gay man, maybe early empire Rome? Or even like early nomadic tribe times? Like, before there were institutions large enough to oppress people en masse. I'm sure there was plenty of gay sex happening as a nomadic hunter or trader.
I think the key to ensuring a successful outcome for yourself would be to pick egalitarian societies, because then you have the highest chance of not spawning as enslaved or lowly.
So something like the late neolithic Samarra in ancient Mesopotamia, or maybe one of the American continent societies that had democracy.
@hungryphrog
That's a difficult one. On one hand if I went to the early/mid Victorian era, it'd be pretty easy to re-invent some shit, and I wouldn't have to worry about having to re-learn reading in the local language, but on the other hand it's... the Victorian era.
Antibiotics isn't as simple as simply getting a fungus to grow in a medium (such as penicillin in cantelope): there can be bad byproducts that also need to be removed, and scaling up the growth to significant quantities can be a big problem. What miiight be easier actually is using viruses to kill bacteria, but you need access to good quality meshes. And industrialization also isn't as easy as some books make it seem.
I think I'd take one for the team and go back to some ancient mostly egalitarian (but still some excess goods to support specialists) queer friendly society guaranteed to not immediately get wiped out, and get them started on the scientific method early, and hope to butterfly/forewarn the worst shit away.