My hometown paper had this as an on-line poll, and I thought it was actually an interesting question.

Great question. Either way, I think that it is probably difficult to fit in....

On one hand going back in time with the knowledge that I have would be very useful. On the other, trying to live through the Spanish Flu pandemic, WWI and WWII and the Great Depression would be difficult.

However, looking at the changes in the last 100 years, going 100 years in the future and I might not recognize this place. The U.S. is probably no longer a super power and I might not be able to function without a workable knowledge of Spanish or Mandarin.

I think I would pick the past....

My grandparents were a big influence on me so attitude wise I could easily go back 100 years to where those attitudes were more prevalent in our society.

Knowing that the past existed is a compelling factor.

I would rather enter into a recognized room lighted by a single candle than blindfolded into an ambiguous room.

I'll take the future myself. Perhaps I can move into space and really get away from everybody...

the past. my buddy and i romanticize the st louis world's fair. it was the first burning man

100 years in the future.

I want to see if technology can overcome government and humanity's flaws.

Why would any Niggra want to live 100yrs ago with slavery just ending, oppression, KKK rallys everywhere, and blacks working in the cotton fields.....etc, etc, etc.....damn that.

Now there may be some white folk that would like to live back then for these very same reasons..........just sayin. No racist.

(09-04-2013 12:45 PM)lebomb Wrote:  Why would any Niggra want to live 100yrs ago with slavery just ending, oppression, KKK rallys everywhere, and blacks working in the cotton fields.....etc, etc, etc.....damn that.

Now there may be some white folk that would like to live back then for these very same reasons..........just sayin. No racist.

as despicable as slavery was, with the ability of hindsight (which i imagine is alloted in this endeavor), it beats living in africa. but i guess with this scenario you wouldn't reap your children's children's "rewards." hell, around that time anyway, europe was in it's heyday of imperialism.

Future. I prefer the unknown. I hate watching something as non-consequential as a football game if I know the outcome. I can't imaging watching WWII knowing what was really going on.

If you are talking about a visit - the past. I'd love to visit that grassy knoll in Dallas on 11/22/63. Knowing my luck, some guy would toss me his gun just as the police arrived!

(09-04-2013 01:12 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  Future. I prefer the unknown. I hate watching something as non-consequential as a football game if I know the outcome. I can't imaging watching WWII knowing what was really going on.

If you are talking about a visit - the past. I'd love to visit that grassy knoll in Dallas on 11/22/63. Knowing my luck, some guy would toss me his gun just as the police arrived!

but the question was 100 years ago. that would have been right before the interesting war

I would prefer the future. Let me try to figure out what we've become instead of where we came from.

Now, as much as I agree with this quote (me being a black man and all)...

(09-04-2013 12:45 PM)lebomb Wrote:  Why would any Niggra want to live 100yrs ago with slavery just ending, oppression, KKK rallys everywhere, and blacks working in the cotton fields.....etc, etc, etc.....damn that.

Now there may be some white folk that would like to live back then for these very same reasons..........just sayin. No racist.

Niggra? Really? What the hell, man?


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(09-04-2013 12:43 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  100 years in the future.

I want to see if technology can overcome government and humanity's flaws.

You now been pleasure to 4 Terminator movies.... you already know how this goes!

(09-04-2013 11:11 AM)AngryAphid Wrote:  Knowing that the past existed is a compelling factor.

I would rather enter into a recognized room lighted by a single candle than blindfolded into an ambiguous room.

But once you go back you are in a new timeline of events as your presence changes things.

(09-04-2013 10:54 PM)PirateTreasureNC Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 11:11 AM)AngryAphid Wrote:  Knowing that the past existed is a compelling factor.

I would rather enter into a recognized room lighted by a single candle than blindfolded into an ambiguous room.

But once you go back you are in a new timeline of events as your presence changes things.

Hypothetically, the Butterfly Effect suggests that the future can be altered as well.

We currently live in a time where people and events are constantly diverting the course of a would-be history… not being conscious of those adjustments makes it a non-issue.

Although, Robert A. Heinlein's All You Zombies seems less and less like science fiction.

the world moves too quick for a has been like me. i'm not in the mood for change. i envision myself on a front porch rocker, if they have them when i'm old and gray. i will be your grandfathers harking back to the bygone days. but we assimilate, slowly, but surely. our tried and true methods that once preserved us are but relics in the eternal golden age. we can fight, but we will assimilate all the same. thus spake, the nostalgic

(09-05-2013 12:34 PM)Lush Wrote:  the world moves too quick for a has been like me. i'm not in the mood for change. i envision myself on a front porch rocker, if they have them when i'm old and gray. i will be your grandfathers harking back to the bygone days. but we assimilate, slowly, but surely. our tried and true methods that once preserved us are but relics in the eternal golden age. we can fight, but we will assimilate all the same. thus spake, the nostalgic

Yeah, I feel like that often too. But that's largely b/c much of the change these days is simply for the sake of change.

I had this discussion yesterday: Is MS Office 2010 really any better than 2007, 2003, or even 1997? Small pieces are, but they could have fixed those as patches or just sold better systems. They didn't need broad changes, especially in the most pointless (yet time consuming) areas like tab locations.

Same w/ Windoze. 98 worked, XP was better. ME sucked, vista sucked, Win 8 sucks...really, that's a lot of work keeping up w/ changes, many of them bad.

And that's not work I want to do. Those are supposed to be tools for me to do my real work. Spending all my time just learning a new tool is not productive. And when the tool is worse, it's counterproductive.

I can handle some change. I don't need college football on AM radio, I really like ESPN 3 on my iPad. But note, that's a change for the better!

So I don't think I'm so much nostalgic as I am just wanting to get things done effectively.

(09-05-2013 02:07 PM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(09-05-2013 12:34 PM)Lush Wrote:  the world moves too quick for a has been like me. i'm not in the mood for change. i envision myself on a front porch rocker, if they have them when i'm old and gray. i will be your grandfathers harking back to the bygone days. but we assimilate, slowly, but surely. our tried and true methods that once preserved us are but relics in the eternal golden age. we can fight, but we will assimilate all the same. thus spake, the nostalgic

Yeah, I feel like that often too. But that's largely b/c much of the change these days is simply for the sake of change.

I had this discussion yesterday: Is MS Office 2010 really any better than 2007, 2003, or even 1997? Small pieces are, but they could have fixed those as patches or just sold better systems. They didn't need broad changes, especially in the most pointless (yet time consuming) areas like tab locations.

Same w/ Windoze. 98 worked, XP was better. ME sucked, vista sucked, Win 8 sucks...really, that's a lot of work keeping up w/ changes, many of them bad.

And that's not work I want to do. Those are supposed to be tools for me to do my real work. Spending all my time just learning a new tool is not productive. And when the tool is worse, it's counterproductive.

I can handle some change. I don't need college football on AM radio, I really like ESPN 3 on my iPad. But note, that's a change for the better!

So I don't think I'm so much nostalgic as I am just wanting to get things done effectively.

So, what was your pick? I didn't see it.

Very easy question for me to answer: The past.

I've always been interested in turn-of-the-century stuff, and it would mean the Roaring Twenties were just around the corner. That decade in itself would be worth the trip. Yes, I own the novels Time & Again and Bid Time Return (which was made into a schmaltzy but entertaining film Somewhere in Time back in the 80s). Both involving time travel back to roughly 100 years ago.

Though it'd be interesting to see what has changed, I don't have much desire to zoom ahead 100 years. No thanks.

(09-04-2013 10:54 PM)PirateTreasureNC Wrote:  

(09-04-2013 11:11 AM)AngryAphid Wrote:  Knowing that the past existed is a compelling factor.

I would rather enter into a recognized room lighted by a single candle than blindfolded into an ambiguous room.

But once you go back you are in a new timeline of events as your presence changes things.

But what if one of those changes includes killing your father as a young kid, in which case you were never born to make the trip back and kill your father anyhow?

One of two things make traveling back possible: it's already dictated that you cannot and will not kill someone that would prevent you from being born - or - once you set foot in the past, your timeline branches off into a new parallel timeline where a multiverse of many universes exist.