[Seadog]

The time machine thread reminded me of something I had been thinking about, and that is if you were able to pick a year to be born, what year would you pick?

A lot is to be said for modern day with the marvels of technology, efficiency, antibiotics and relative peace, although with that comes complacency, ignorance, big brother monitoring your locker room talk(and you being fired for it), and SJW outrage over made up issues since there are no real ones like hunger. By going backwards, not only do you avoid the bad of today, but I think however there is a certain nostalgic appeal to an era when men were men, everyone wasn't afraid of everything, people were far more self reliant, a good deal of the world was unexplored, and society looked to politicians with dreams of great accomplishments (moon landing) vs as the great documentary "the power of nightmares" points out, someone to protect you from the brown folks.

[The Beast1]

1989. I get to watch feminism, socialism, and leftards eat themselves in a massive racewar. I'm happy i lived now instead of any other time!

[Robert Hedrock]

No time like the present

[StudebacherHoch]

I am so glad I came of age in the '60s/'70s (born 1955) - it was a magical time to grow up, and I've had countless younger people tell me THEY wish they'd come up during that time!

[wi30]

It's almost impossible to answer this question because of hindsight. Sure, being in your prime during the 50's with a white picket fence and perfect wife and mother of your 2.5 children sounds great. But we don't look at all the issues people had to deal with back then. It's easy to remember the good and forget the bad. Shit, even looking back at high school seems glamorous because I remember all the great times and forgot all the mundane time that was spent.

People in the 50's had their problems too. I'm sure the perfect wife was fucking the milkman and your shit job at the factory was driving you to alcoholism. You'd also have 1-2 notches and have kids and a mortgage at 19.

Hell, everyone since the beginning of time has had problems. Our problems are way fucking easier than our ancestors the past couple hundred years. We don't worry about disease, our children dying during birth or infancy, or basic sanitation practices. I'll take my first world problems over burying 6 of my 9 siblings because they all died from diseases or illnesses that either don't exist anymore or is now cured with a simple antibiotic.

[UroboricForms]

(10-08-2015 04:19 PM)StudebacherHoch Wrote:  

I am so glad I came of age in the '60s/'70s (born 1955) - it was a magical time to grow up, and I've had countless younger people tell me THEY wish they'd come up during that time!

I envy you.

[El Chinito loco]

(10-08-2015 04:19 PM)StudebacherHoch Wrote:  

I am so glad I came of age in the '60s/'70s (born 1955) - it was a magical time to grow up, and I've had countless younger people tell me THEY wish they'd come up during that time!

You should write more about that era from your perspective especially with regards to women back then. Mainstream media has distorted 60's-70's nostalgia a lot so most of us have no real idea of what it was like then.

[Vanguard]

Delete

[pathoma]

[Hygiene]

I think it really depends on your social station. For example, if I was relatively well to do in previous eras--say Ghibelline period or Greek golden age--then it would be worthwhile to live in, but if I was a serf in any time period obviously the present would be much more alluring.

[Pride male]

If you are European the Age of Exploration. Swashbuckling adventure and banging foreign girls.

[CleanSlate]

Because my situation is unique and I am deaf, now (born 1980 and onward) is the best era for me to live.

Yes, the women may have been much better and it may have been much easier to raise families way back then, but I wouldn't want to live in that time as a deaf individual. Life was hard for such individuals, very hard. In many places, especially before the 1920s, deaf people were pretty much confined to mental institutes because they couldn't speak properly, so people thought they were mentally ill or just retarded. If they were lucky enough to have sympathetic families, they would be kept in the house as "pets" whom they feed and take care of, but not much else.

And that's not even the worst case scenario. In Nazi Germany during the world wars, the nazi's would put people in a lineup and pick out which ones had the correct or incorrect accents (e.g. French or British). Most people could fake the correct accent and get away with it, but when a deaf person tried it (or refused to speak) they would know instantly that something was off with that person. Then the nazis would grab that person, kneel him down, and execute him right on the spot. Born at the wrong place, wrong time, and under the wrong circumstances.

In present time? Even as tinder pretty much killed my bread and butter of online game, I could hire a speech therapist to teach me how to speak clearly and go out to day game after that. I could go to school, get a sign language interpreter, and pass those classes with a good GPA. There are countless apps that could help me learn another language, like Spanish. I can get a job. I can make money, buy a plane ticket, and travel the world...

Most importantly, I control my destiny.

Back in the good ol' days, people like me had zero control of their destinies. I'm grateful I was born in this time.

[Comte De St. Germain]

Here and now. I have what ifs about being born in a golden age with the knowledge I have now but I would still miss today.

My life is easy, the women are hot/easy/shaved/slutty if you know where to look, and I have minor problems that 1-2 years from now wouldn't matter.

As much of a cynic I am about the world I'm deep down damned happy to be here and now.

[rudebwoy]

60s/70s is the easy winner. The birth-control pill was invented and the bonking began.

It may sound a bit morbid, but I also think during WW2 and post WW2 would have been some good times. Just so we are clear, i mean if you were not a soldier and got to stay home.

[scorpion]

I would like to have been born at some point during the Victorian Era, so basically the second half of the 19th century. Let's say 1870 if I had to pick an exact year. I think this period through the onset of WWI marked the apogee of Western Civilization when all factors are considered (i.e. technology, culture, economy, community life, spirituality, etc...). It was a time of tremendous optimism and progress in the true sense of the word. Technology was advancing rapidly and yet traditional social structures remained largely intact. The world was still a very big place, ripe for exploration. Multiculturalism and the global consumerist mono-culture were nonexistent. If you traveled to another country you were in a completely alien environment and culture. There was no mass media actively trying to brainwash people. No culture of distraction enabled by internet and smartphones. Libraries and universities were treasure troves of knowledge, whereas today they are homeless daycare centers and youth indoctrination camps respectively. Men still mostly worked "real" jobs. No one sat in front of a computer all day. Feminism as we know it today was essentially nonexistent. Women could not vote. Communism and Cultural Marxism had not yet begun to destroy the social fabric that held society together. Populations were homogenous and tight knit. People knew and trusted their neighbors. A young man of that era looked forward and saw great promise and potential both for himself and his posterity.

This period of peace and optimism was shattered by World War I. You can really say that Western Civilization received a mortal wound from 1914 - 1918. We've been living through a period of slow death and decline ever since then, in every respect but the technological, and the technology we've gained has largely been detrimental to our overall wellbeing (i.e. television: amusing entertainment at the cost of mass brainwashing and the death of community. Internet: education and communication at the cost of social atomization and social media narcissism). I would easily trade modern conveniences like air conditioning, computers/internet, airplanes, etc... for the society of the late 19th century. Also, for a bit of a mindfuck, let's say you were born in 1870 and lived to be 100 years old. In your lifetime you would go from men riding around in horse-drawn carriages to landing on the Moon. Pretty amazing span of human history there.

[The Lizard of Oz]

(10-10-2015 11:51 AM)scorpion Wrote:  

You can really say that Western Civilization received a mortal wound from 1914 - 1918. We've been living through a period of slow death and decline ever since then, in every respect but the technological

That is a truly remarkable thing to say. You're not a fan of the movies, I take it?

Setting aside the "technological" for the moment (even though the true ramifications of what is described by that modest word are vast and all-pervasive). The flowering of film in the twentieth century, particularly during its great height from the 1940s through the 1980s or so, is among the most unprecedented explosions of artistic genius in the history of mankind; indeed, I am convinced it will be seen in time to be the greatest such explosion, far exceeding those of the Renaissance and of antiquity in its strength, sweep, reach, creativity, and the sheer amount of artistic material produced.

One can go through the genres almost endlessly, but I will say this: in their different ways, the American film noir of the '40s and early '50s; the Westerns of various times but especially the '50s; and the sci-fi films of the '50s and occasionally '60s -- these represent not only the most superb and unthinkable heights of great, intimate, and permanent art, but also the foremost example of moral greatness ever expressed in artistic, or any, form. The terrible knowledge of noir of how a whole life can go irreparably wrong because of a single moral mistake; the stern truth of the Western, that only a very few men in an ordinary town have the honor to stand up for what is right; and the beautiful confidence of golden age sci-fi that it is man's greatest and most natural calling to explore, understand, and conquer the world that surrounds us -- these represent permanent moral truths that had never before been rendered in such a loving, loveable, and unspeakably intimate and human medium.

Some of the most moving texts you can find anywhere on the Internet are the occasional movie reviews by old men, who remember seeing these miracles of artistic expression when they first came out, perhaps in a '50s drive-in. There will be some little-known gem of a sci-fi or a noir, and an older gentleman in Texas, say a retired engineer, will charmingly come on IMDB or some other site, and say, yes I saw it 50 years ago, and I never forgot it... that one really stayed with me. Those are the true testimonials of the artistic supernova that the twentieth century really was; but we are still too close to the eye of the storm to understand its true sweep.

[scorpion]

Movies are interesting to consider from the artistic perspective. The nature of an audiovisual medium does allow for a certain complexity and artistic freedom that is not present in more traditional storytelling forms such as theater and novels. However, movies are unmistakably an outgrowth of these older forms, and totally reliant on them at a foundational level. In other words, movies are, at root, essentially just recorded theater productions. And theater is obviously nothing new. Ultimately what captures us as human beings is the nature and power of the story being told rather than the technological medium being employed. I imagine that a skilled producer could turn most of your favorite old films into quite fine theater productions that conveyed all of the artistic moral greatness you experience on film. After all, a film is just a cinematic capture of actors working off a script on a set. It's just a play recorded on a camera and distributed on a reel to a thousand theaters, as opposed to the old fashioned method of actors traveling around and performing the play live in front of an audience. I think that any talk of the artistry inherent to film, i.e. cinematography, editing or visual effects is mostly just posturing and conceit. Is there an art to shooting a movie? Of course, just like there is an art to shooting any photograph. But I view this as low art. The real artistic merit of a film comes from the story it tells, which is 99% a product of the script, actors and director. Artistically speaking, the same things that make a great movie make a great play. The aspects that make movies unique from theater (primarily visual effects) are essentially cheap gimmicks, which is very obvious in today's exceptionally low quality and mindless box office fare. Out of curiosity, Lizard, do you feel there are any great classic movies that could not be turned into equally great plays?

[TigerMandingo]

Definitely the current era. Everything is at our fingertips!

(10-10-2015 12:48 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

. The flowering of film in the twentieth century, particularly during its great height from the 1940s through the 1980s or so, is among the most unprecedented explosions of artistic genius in the history of mankind; indeed, I am convinced it will be seen in time to be the greatest such explosion, far exceeding those of the Renaissance and of antiquity in its strength, sweep, reach, creativity, and the sheer amount of artistic material produced.

Utter nonsense.

[The Lizard of Oz]

(10-10-2015 04:47 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Out of curiosity, Lizard, do you feel there are any great classic movies that could not be turned into equally great plays?

Well, of course not. It's a strange question and you truly must not be a fan of the movies or even have thought about them for a moment to ask it in all seriousness.

Here is just a very brief list of the things that movies can do that have nothing whatsoever to do with the theater:

-- A movie can give you a closeup of the human face, the most meaningful and important thing in the world for the human mind and eye to look at. That is why a great movie star can have a screen presence without saying a word, and without even acting. You look at the face of a James Cagney, a Cary Grant, or an Al Pacino at a certain moment, and it says more than the most eloquent words.

-- A movie gives you the textures of a world; the incredible alien hardscrabble landscape of the American West, or the streets of New York City in 1972; or the LA aqueduct in 1949. The narrative and story of the film are not separable from these textures; they form an artistic whole.

-- Editing and cutting allow the movie a narrative scope and continuity that is different in kind from what a play can do. Any transition in a play is infinitely clunky by comparison.

One can go on and on and on, and on, but maybe all that really needs to be said is this. "Jaws" is a great movie; I'd really love to see someone try to turn it into a play. It might be the one play worth going to.

What you called "cheap gimmicks" are part of the heart and soul of the movies; and the fact that film is dead right now even though its technological capabilities are greater than ever does not mean that it did not have a peerless and beautiful heart and soul when it was at its height (which was not so long ago).

There is too much to say about this subject for a brief post, or even a long one, so I'll add just two things:

First, my point about film was not that its existence was enabled by technological advances (even though it was, of course). Forget about how or why it came to be -- all that matters is that it happened, that this art flourished in the past century and produced countless masterpieces that are, as great and permanent art, beyond anything mankind has created before. My point is not about the film as abstraction -- it is about the immense bounty, the unthinkably luxurious harvest of the hundreds and thousands of beautiful movies that have been made; not just a few hoary classics, but an explosion of creation unlike any other.

Second, the most important way in which film is different in kind from the art that precedes it is not, in fact, technological (though again these things cannot be separated). It is precisely the fact that film is not the creation of a single author; it is not the director's movie in the same way that it is the writer's book or even the playwright's play (and when it is, when film is too harshly directed and too constrained by a single artist's vision, it usually fails of greatness). It is that magical freedom -- the happy and profound felicities that can come about in a fundamentally collaborative art beyond the control of any single mind -- that gives film at its best its special companionable warmth, that allows us to step into it and live alongside it as if we were at large in it, not driven forward by the necessarily limited and straitened conceptions of a single mind.

*******************

I have seen hundreds and hundreds of movies, and yet I know for a fact that I have hundreds more to see, some of which are as great or greater than any I've seen before. This is not some abstract consideration; it's like knowing that you have been granted an endless bounty of beauty, warmth, interest, texture, and truth -- enough for many lifetimes of the most pleasurable concentration that the human mind is privileged to enter into. The least I can do with such an embarrassment of riches is to acknowledge it, and that is why I mentioned the movies as a particular gift that was bequeathed to us by the last century.

[RatInTheWoods]

I think now is the best.

I am the first generation of men who didn't have to go to war.

We have untold abundance, safety and security.

Now is the best of times.

[EL CHAPO]

(10-09-2015 03:31 PM)rudebwoy Wrote:  

60s/70s is the easy winner. The birth-control pill was invented and the bonking began.

It may sound a bit morbid, but I also think during WW2 and post WW2 would have been some good times. Just so we are clear, i mean if you were not a soldier and got to stay home.

I read that during WWII, Black and Mexican American G.I's were smashing pussy in the countries the allies liberated, particularly in France and England.

The French and British women probably thought they were from a different planet.





http://www.mix-d.org/images/cache/2f5432...5c4cc9.jpg

http://mason.gmu.edu/~jlemza/img/GHI%20F...%20[2].jpg

http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/wordpr...26x286.jpg

http://histomil.com/viewtopic.php?f=95&t...start=1380

http://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/1.129...203016.jpg

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4081/49036...c688_b.jpg


It was tough for minorities in America during the 1940s, but the Blacks and Latino GI's were getting it in, in Western Europe. They had their fun.

[Dusty]

Probably the best part of living in the present since the late 1990s is the bald pussies.

[azulsombra]

I think being born in 1965 would have been ideal for a minority in America.

By the time you are 10 the majority of the civil rights struggle is over as well as official Jim crow style discrimination, so the future looks bright and new doors are open especially in the government and military. The divorce rate has not run rampant yet throughout the nation so your parents are likely married.

You are 15 in 1980. Girls are traditional enough to make you wait a bit but on birth control so still not super hard to bang. No Nintendo yet, so you take up boxing or play football after school with neighborhood kids.

You graduate high school in 1983 and join the military or other government job during the cold war era when the US was dumping tons of money on defense and end up banging foreign chicks in the Phillippines, Japan and Germany at a time when there are no major conflicts.

In 1995 you're 30 years old, the NBA and Hip-Hop popularity are at an all time high. The internet is something you only access from a desktop in your office and hardly anyone has a cellphone. You are able to take advantage of the favorable male/female ratio in Atlanta and make business/property investments in the city prior to the 1996 Olympic games. Women don't aspire to a Sex and the City lifestyle because the show hasn't premiered yet.
You actually have to be drunk to get a DUI.

By 2005 you are 40 years old and have passive income from your investments in Atlanta. High speed internet is becoming extremely common and you experiment with managing your business online while you spend weeks a few hours flight away in Latin America. You get plenty of easy lays off of Myspace with DHV pics of you in America. You're the first american most of these girls have ever met.

2015, at 50 you've seen an increase in male thirst, obesity, flaking, and shitty tattoos on women the West. Women at the 7 and 8 level you would have smashed with ease in 2005 are deluded internet models now that LOVE Dubai. At this point you are fluent in two or three languages, know the culture well, have local friends and ready to expat for good. You find a beautiful, humble 20 yr old in [non-anglo country] and decide to settle down.

[RawGod]

I would have chosen to be English, born in the 1820s and die around 1900. A lifetime lived under Queen Victoria, assured of the greatness of Britain at all times. With technological advances to see every year, and a wealth of scientific and cultural riches to enjoy.

Of course, I would not choose to be among the bottom 80% of the population.

Ideally, I would have liked to have been a gentleman's club confidante of the anonymous author of this classic erotic memoir who chased "cunt" as he liked to say, in energetic fashion all over London and beyond.

[Herr Dickenstein]

Objectively speaking, Anglosphere and Western Europe from the end of WW2 to the 90s was undoubtly the best place to be alive in human history. It wasn't that far in the past, so it was a modern civilization with all of it's benefits - modern healthcare (one of the most important things, no one wants to get sick in the motherfucking middle ages when the only available cure were leeches up your bum), access to all kinds of entertainment (I can imagine how easily one could get bored in an age before the TV), good music, good movies, good economy and job availability, decent social norms and yet technology still wasn't as developed as it is today to the point when it alienates people from each other, fuels social awkwardness in real life interactions and gives rise to an entire generation of socially retarded people. Internet is both the best and the worst thing that happened to humanity.

So basically, second half of the 20th century in the 1st world. Anything before that would mean that you'd be forced to live in a primitive world where people shat in the woods, died in infancy, didn't have access to running water and other commodities we take for granted today.