General Discussion

would you?  And if so, what period would it be and why?

I wouldn't want to live in a point in history.  I would want to live in the future.  Way in the future.  I feel like I was born too early a lot of times.  I look forward to the day when we figure out how to manage the silly things like illness, over population, aging, and death.  I would also like to live in a time when space travel is common place.

1000 years in the future.

  Ancient Athenian Greece.

    Massively liberal society. Working, fairly uncorrupt democracy. Emphasis on education, especially philosophy and art. A golden era of prosperity, trade, a beautiful landscape. Excellent medicine and healthcare for its era. A fairly large life expectancy. And a pretty badass military, too (though they weren't Sparta).

Of course I'd want to live in the future. It'd be worth it just for the gamble. Do I find a lifeless planet in the middle of an Ice Age? Or do I find a Utopian Society full of technology I could only dream of?

As for the past, I'd love to visit many historical times and places including Ancient Rome, the American Old West shortly after The Civil War, London England during Charles Dickens time, and many more. However I wouldn't want to permanently live in any of these times. Not just due to lack of technology, which does matter a lot(to my shame), but also do to a lack of hygene and medical knowledge. Even if I had 10X the chance to find me a hot wife, she would probably smell terrible...

Moses...I would realy like to walk with him...I would like to see his face before and after he spoke with God.And I would love to be their when he a came back and and spoke with Jesus before the transfiguration.

How about this period of history, only 5 years ago, after recording lotto numbers, sport statistics for betting, etc.

Aside from that, and the possible future clause, no, there is no period of Earth's history I would rather live in than the present, and I'd be willing to bet almost anything that those saying they'd like to go to Greece or the hight of the Chinese Empire or whatever, will regret it for the rest of their quite possibly rather short lives.

Now, if you could offer an alternative form of history, and I was allowed to define my role in it, then you might catch my interest.

In the future, when robots/computers/machines take it over and cater to us.

AI will take over eventually, and it will most likely keep us for sentimental values/back up...not to mention that the extra considerations and limits would help it evolves beyond...and it could even use some of our inputs here and there.

AI will be a far better master than fellow humans, especially that it doesn't crave for the same things we do.  Even the definition of "power" would be different for an AI control than it is for us, with our petty considerations.

In the movie I, Robot, you see an unlogical fear of this.   A bad AI as well.  The taking over wouldn't be a struggle, as it would merely take the responsabilities we don't want.  Eventually, it would have all responsabilities, it is a matter of time.  And catering to us is always an extra for this AI.  The ressources "wasted" on the humans are in fact studies, analysis, intel, considerations...and by no means "wasted".

The only thing which scare me, is would we maintain ourselves and developp as we should?  Or would we regress since everything is done?  See, the AI is comforting in every possible way.  I do think we would developp ourselves a LOT, since by nature, we want to do SOMETHING with this time, and no matter what we do, we would developp in a way...or another.  Yet, again, this is me which scare me, not the AI. :P

I, Robot the movie was one of the worst sci-fi movies ever. Almost as bad as Battlefield Earth (omg I said the BE words!). Read the book.

Now is actually quite an interesting time. Right before the Singularity.

Everything before now is less interesting because history evolved a lot slower, people lived shorter and odds are (maybe) greater you'll end up being in a pretty pointless existence (not unlike now where you have a whole bunch of illusions to convince you otherwise).

The future would be nice too, of course. But shame there's only "a future" and no "the future". Even with a Singularity it'll be same ol' same ol'.

What I would like to live trough is an ISOT (Alternate History jargon for Island In The Sea Of Time, which is a quick way of saying that a person/nation/thing/Island/whatever is being transported to another time) of myself to any pre-industrial time. I wonder if I'd be able to make a living and induce a time of progress. Probably a matter of re-inventing gunpowder and then finding the nearest warlord I guess.

Alexandria post-Alexander's death.  Hell, living at any time in the hellenistic world would be awesome.