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Would you give up your life in 2018 to live a billionaire's life in 1918?

Would you give up your life in 2018 to live a billionaire's life in 1918?

  • Total voters
    51
Helix said:
not a chance. i like being me, and living in this time period. i also like the medical advances in the 1970s which allowed me to live past a week old. i had a congenital defect which would have probably resulted in my death had i been born a decade or so earlier.

it would be cool to time travel to the early twentieth century and walk around my hometown, though. i have some images from that time period, but i would like to see it in person and to go to some of the shops.
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I wonder how many on this board would already be gone, if not for modern medicine. I know I would be, and I don't even have any congenital conditions or chronic diseases, just one or two serious enough accidents that required the best we had to offer to keep me upright.
 
calamity said:
I wonder how many on this board would already be gone, if not for modern medicine. I know I would be, and I don't even have any congenital conditions or chronic diseases, just one or two serious enough accidents that required the best we had to offer to keep me upright.
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i'd speculate that the percentage would be significant.
 
Nah brah I wouldn't be able to see the Saints win the Superbowl.
 
radcen said:
1918, not 1018.
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medicine has grown exponentially since 1918. if i were born that year in, i doubt that i would have lived very long.
 
Helix said:
medicine has grown exponentially since 1918. if i were born that year in, i doubt that i would have lived very long.
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Agreed. And per your previous post about your situation you have a valid point. But, some seem to be taking it too far in a, "Oh my God we'd all die!" scenario.
 
radcen said:
Agreed. And per your previous post about your situation you have a valid point. But, some seem to be taking it too far in a, "Oh my God we'd all die!" scenario.
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well, you do have to take this into account :

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we wouldn't all die, but a significant number of us would have, most likely.
 
radcen said:
Plus, 1918 was the height of the flu epidemic, IIRC.
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that was awful. my great aunt caught that flu and did not survive it. she was quite young.
 
No Air conditioning....bad
Completely above the law....good
Get a spider bite and they cut your hand off....bad
endless wine, women, and song....good
investments in land and technology I know will be coming....neutral....I am already a billionaire
No insulation in any house you would buy....bad
No central heating in any house you would buy....bad.
Hire hitmen to hunt down and kill Hitler and Stalin....good

I think i am undecided, but may have to give the nod to NO. I personally have grown fond of antibiotics, insulation, central heating and air conditioning.

I also feel like I am a very rich man in life anyway.
Being loved by your wife, and well thought of by your peers has a richness all its own.
 
Black Dog said:
I am black. No I would not want to live in a 1918 America were minorities...

Three African-Americans and two whites are killed in the Chester, Pa. race riot. Within days, another race riot erupts in Philadelphia killing three African-Americans and one white resident.

Eighty three African-Americans are lynched--many of them soldiers returning home from World War I. At the same time the Ku Klux Klan is operating out of 27 states.

There are some things money can't buy.
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Yeah, but on the plus side: No television!
 
Would you trade 2018 for 2118? I wouldn't take the chance...

With the doomsday clock now at 2 minute to midnight for humanity...I'm afraid I would be dropped off into a world plagued by nuclear holocaust, disruptive global warming, famine, water shortages, food shortages, solar mass ejection, energy shortages, invasive species, mass oceanic dead zones, mass migrations etc...

I think it is possible we currently live near the pinnacle of human progress, and it's all downhill from here if we don't change our ways and soon.
 
Winston said:
That's an interesting scenario, no, I wouldn't.

I enjoy the advances in dentistry and health, as well as the social progress we've made thus far.

I prefer to live a comfortable life, rather than a lavish one.

Also none of my favorite music would be around yet.
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And in my case, I'd rather not go back to 1918, speaking as a gay female. I'm sure I would be treated so well.
 
Lutherf said:
Corruption, violence and hypocrisy? Like we don't have that now?

Travel would be limited by today's standards but trains and ships were readily available and safe. Air travel would have been a bit of an adventure at that point but you could do it to some extent and cars were definitely available. Hell, with a billion dollars back then you could have been the first to own a Duesenberg. You could watch Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig play ball. You'd have enough juice to never get busted at a speakeasy. If you moved to Los Angeles you could actually hang out with Wyatt Earp. There's just so much cool stuff you could have done and ESPECIALLY with the financial resources you'd have available.
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That sounds great. For a straight white male. It may be fun for you, but for someone like me or Black Dog. Hell no it wouldn't be.
 
TheGoverness said:
That sounds great. For a straight white male. It may be fun for you, but for someone like me or Black Dog. Hell no it wouldn't be.
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Actually, the 1920's was kind of a renaissance for homosexuals. It was the beginning of liberal progressivism in this country and right about the time homosexuality started to come out from the underground. I'm not sure how much of an activist you are but with a billion dollars back then you could have had the opportunity to make an impact that changed the course of LGBT history in this country.

Black Dog would have had a harder time finding general acceptance but he would also have been in a position to possibly create great changes in how society progressed. He'd have been in the era of George Washington Carver, WEB Dupois, Lewis Latimer and Garrett Morgan. Again, the opportunity to influence social changes that might have changed the course of history would have been at his fingertips.
 
Lutherf said:
Actually, the 1920's was kind of a renaissance for homosexuals. It was the beginning of liberal progressivism in this country and right about the time homosexuality started to come out from the underground. I'm not sure how much of an activist you are but with a billion dollars back then you could have had the opportunity to make an impact that changed the course of LGBT history in this country.

Black Dog would have had a harder time finding general acceptance but he would also have been in a position to possibly create great changes in how society progressed. He'd have been in the era of George Washington Carver, WEB Dupois, Lewis Latimer and Garrett Morgan. Again, the opportunity to influence social changes that might have changed the course of history would have been at his fingertips.
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Possibly.
 
TheGoverness said:
Possibly.
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You're a PoliSci major, right? Consider this. Where there is the greatest adversity there is also the greatest opportunity to effect change for the good. Today, for some of the reasons people in this thread have cited, there is not too much adversity and, as a result, not much opportunity to effect sweeping changes in the conscience of society. 100 years ago, however, there was ample opportunity to do so. The Temperance movement, for example, took advantage of just such an opportunity. If you worked at it you could have had just as much influence and done so for more worthwhile reasons.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
I think it would be maddening see the violence, hatred, and ignorance of that time. But then again, we are in 2018 and all this technology has made peope violent, hateful and ignorant, and there are plenty annoying things now like people living their entire lives with their heads in their phones (might as well be up their ass)
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You wouldn't see very much of that.

Communication was very limited back then.
 
Lutherf said:
You're a PoliSci major, right? Consider this. Where there is the greatest adversity there is also the greatest opportunity to effect change for the good. Today, for some of the reasons people in this thread have cited, there is not too much adversity and, as a result, not much opportunity to effect sweeping changes in the conscience of society. 100 years ago, however, there was ample opportunity to do so. The Temperance movement, for example, took advantage of just such an opportunity. If you worked at it you could have had just as much influence and done so for more worthwhile reasons.
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With substantial resources and proper application of said resources, could have had unknown influence. Very good thought.
BUT... We are looking back at that time with this time's eyes and knowledge. I'm not sure you could make the same assumptions about what actions we would have taken then vs the action we think we would have taken.
 
Lutherf said:
Billionaire in 1918? Oh hell yeah! I’d have no problem living without computers and television
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You realize you'd lose all that money in the Great Depression, right? You'd have one good decade.
 
Harshaw said:
Think about all that it would entail.

It wouldn't even occur to me to do so.
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Unquestionably, no.

In some ways I have a better life now than a billionaire had in 1918, and I certainly don't want to go back 100 years of progress in social, economic, and technological terms. Not to mention WWII.

I mean, I doubt I could significantly change history even if I remembered it after this hypothetical time travel or however this occurred.
So that means I would have to live through all the **** that happened after 1918...and not be able to change it.


This gets worse the more I think about it.
 
Nope, the present is the best time to be around (so far.)
 
KevinKohler said:
You realize you'd lose all that money in the Great Depression, right? You'd have one good decade.
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Well, one good decade as a billionaire is better than what I've got now. Besides, while 1929-32 sucked things started to turn around after that.
 
The Mark said:
Unquestionably, no.

In some ways I have a better life now than a billionaire had in 1918, and I certainly don't want to go back 100 years of progress in social, economic, and technological terms. Not to mention WWII.

I mean, I doubt I could significantly change history even if I remembered it after this hypothetical time travel or however this occurred.
So that means I would have to live through all the **** that happened after 1918...and not be able to change it.

This gets worse the more I think about it.
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That would be the only draw for me, to simply bankroll Germany after WWI, thereby short-circuiting WWII.

With a billion in 1918, that'd leave a few hundred million excess for clap-ridden hookers, opium, and stage plays.
 
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