Would you rather be middle class in 2040 or rich in 2011?
Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
You wouldn't miss things that you don't know exist. I "miss" not having a heads-up display in my glasses or contacts or optic nerve, and not being able to prevent my body and mind from failing due to aging. I'd choose middle class in 2049 over rich in 2011 for the same reasons that I'd choose 2011 over 1973.
Yes but you're talking about life-altering technology...That's the author's whole point, most of that stuff already happened by 1973. That's why he'd take 1973 instead of 1900 or whenever. We mostly live the same way now as we did in 1973, just with more gadgets. If you said "I miss not having holographic phones and VR porn" that would be a better example.
All I can say is, your life must be a hell of a lot different than mine.
My job (writing programs used by people around the world, all from my home office in small city Michigan) could not have existed in 1973. Indeed, my house probably has computing power equivalent to that of a good-sized university of the time. A sizable percentage of the food I eat was not available anywhere outside of a Chinatown then. My favorite genre of games, role-playing games, had not yet been invented. Nor had the high blood pressure pills I take. The surgery I had at new year's would have meant days rather than hours in the hospital.
And my son could never have been born. Life-altering? Hell yes.
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#43You've not taken into account the social changes:
You'd hate the way people talk and act in 1973.
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#44Rich in 1900 is my choice. I'll bet the food then rocked - I'll just take one year's income at face value and the house I'm living in now, without 111 years of intervening decay. The rich industrialist who lived here in 1900 will have to find new digs. But no contest. I'd turn back that clock right now.
If you're into the "local food" movement you might like the food in 1900. There was very little refrigeration and limited transportation. That meant plenty of fresh fruits and veggies in the summer and fall, but nothing but pickled and smoked food in the winter (along with root vegetables from the cold cellar). Preserving food was a serious business because your family could starve if you screwed up.
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
No sushi. No TV. Few interesting books. I could go on.
> Few interesting books. Except for Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, Austen, Twain, Dostoyevksy, Tolstoy, the Bronte sisters, Melville, Arthur Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Thoreau, Marx, Henry James, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Joseph Conrad, Ibsen, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde ... (I could go on.) Yep, it was a real literary dark ages back then.
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Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
No sushi. No TV. Few interesting books. I could go on.
> Few interesting books. Except for Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, Austen, Twain, Dostoyevksy, Tolstoy, the Bronte sisters, Melville, Arthur Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Thoreau, Marx, Henry James, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Joseph Conrad, Ibsen, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde ... (I could go on.) Yep, it was a real literary dark ages back then.
Quite honestly I find most of those pretty boring. Jules Verne is fine but not if you know Herbert Frank exists (or will exist).
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#47Rich in '73 -- I'd invent Smalltalk before Alan Kay did.
Too late. :) He already had Smalltalk-72 under his belt by then.
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#48If I can have dinners at expensive restaurants, yachts, manors, apartments throughout the world, unlimited access to high class prostitutes, the respect, deference, fear, and love of the masses who stand in awe of my wealth... rich in pretty much ANY time. No matter what year it is it's always better to be on top. That's where most of the human pleasure comes from. Xboxes and iPhones are really no substitute for bein…
Sorry, but you sound like a shallow prick and possibly a sociopath.
If I can see my (future) children grow up happy and healthy, keep learning my whole life, earn my living solving interesting problems, etc., that's not just quantitatively worth more than a yacht; it's qualitatively a better life.
To answer the actual question, of 1973 vs. today, I'd take today. The Internet is, frankly, awesome. Not having the entire world living in fear of nuclear winter is also kind of nice. I don't think cryo firms like Alcor existed in 1973. Those are just a few things off the top of my head; I'm sure I could come up with a much longer list given time.
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#49Rich in '73 is such an obvious choice...
I'm not sure if my being born in the late 1980s would make me more or less likely to choose 1973 over 2011. On the one hand it would take some getting used to a world without computers and the like, having never experienced that before. On the other, it would be more like travelling to a new place than going back in time, which at least sounds more exciting. My question is - how far back would you go?
> My question is - how far back would you go?
If seriously confronted with this proposition, I would probably not take the risk. My father died of cancer, as did one of my aunts (from my mother's family), so, I would be weary of being too far from more modern treatments and/or diagnostics. It would be tempting, of course, to be able to witness some key events in our industry first hand (maybe even nudge them in a better direction). I would, certainly, be at the homebrew computer club meeting when Woz presented his Apple I. About a year later I would talk Woz into (or help him with - I still remember 6502 well enough) integrating floating point into Apple's BASIC. Then, I would try to persuade the IBM execs not to ditch CP/M-86 for PC-DOS. And then I would call it a day and head back to a much nicer 2011.
I could also lobby for Thorium reactors in the 50's...
Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
#50If I can have dinners at expensive restaurants, yachts, manors, apartments throughout the world, unlimited access to high class prostitutes, the respect, deference, fear, and love of the masses who stand in awe of my wealth... rich in pretty much ANY time. No matter what year it is it's always better to be on top. That's where most of the human pleasure comes from. Xboxes and iPhones are really no substitute for bein…
> No matter what year it is it's always better to be on top. That's where most of the human pleasure comes from.
You know you will be happier if you enjoy what you have, not the fact you have and others don't.