this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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You would still have the same age, gender, personality, skin color, etc. and you would be able to speak at least one local language and would know basic information of the era and place. Your family, social standing, and such would be randomly picked.

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago (1 children)

11:59:59 December 31st 1949. Fuck the olden times.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah honestly. People don't realize that if you go too far back you'll likely cause a pandemic and even if you go back to 1949 medicine was still pretty fuckin whack.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Lobotomies for all!

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (4 children)

New Zealand 800 years ago. The rest of the question doesn't matter because there were no other humans there.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In that case, I also choose NZ 802 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

There are now no humans there 799 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh you mean the ones that went extinct not longer after meeting us?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

And people ask why Gandalf didn't call em up to fly to mount doom.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

That means you would doom yourself to die alone...

Or you have to spend your whole life building a boat, collecting food and being able to navigate, just to rejoin civilisation

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

Dec 31st 1949.

I'm a queer woman, so these sort of time travel questions boil down to preserving as many rights as I can.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

as a queer brown man; i don't want to be anywhere at all.

why 1949 and where?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

You would have been just fine in, say, North or East Africa a few hundred years ago.

I think they picked 49 because it's as modern as they could get within OP's parameters.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Would fit in with the ancient Greeks

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Maybe back to like ancient Greece or something?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where, the U.S.? Seems like there's gotta be other times and places that were more woman- and queer-friendly, right?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You'd think places like San Francisco would be better, but 20 years later the Stone Wall riots happened. It was pretty rough all around to be gay in that time, though I'm sure some places were worse than others.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Given that there were 2 world wars in the early 1900s and that I like tech in general I would also choose 12/31/1949. At least I might have a PC sometime in my lifetime and I'd probably live to use it and not be a corpse on some beach somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Just pick Switzerland.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Just kill me

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Lincoln’s booth in Ford’s theater on the night of the assassination right before it happens. Saving the president will immediately give me some credibility and influence, and it could improve reconstruction of the south to an extent that positively impacts modern America.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It may complicate your life though. You'd have no explanation of who you are or why you're there.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's OK, just tell Abe you're there to kill vampires and he'll let you into his secret society.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I mean, tune it just right and you can get the Industrial Revolution started a couple millenia early and maybe bypass the whole colonialism nonsense. Middle ages is too late, too much theocracy. Common knowledge gets you in grecorroman spaces, but maybe you can overshoot a touch and get some nice Phoenician traders to bankroll your plan to mass produce bycicles or Ikea-style furniture and ship it all over the Mediterranean.

Just... hope you stay healthy or that the rules let you pack a bunch of antibiotics. Or maybe learn a bunch of modern medicine before you go. Maybe prioritize the whole "discovering penicillin" thing when you get there.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Problem with that plan is you don't know if you will be a slave.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Not necessarily insurmountable, but still a good point.

You may still have an easier time getting things up and running as a slave in antiquity than as a serf in the Middle Ages, depending on where you end up. Pretty sure you'd have a better shot as a slave in antiquity than in the US or other colonial areas, both because colonialism reeeeally sucked and because you'd have relatively more valuable skills.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

About 4 to 6 million years ago. Choosing biological history of humans, see what I can mess up when humans first started

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Having as much sex as possible with as many individuals as possible.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Somewhere before the advent of mankind, really fuck with some historians

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The location, geography and placement is randomly picked?

Then like the other guy said December 31, 1949 11:59 pm

To be born before this time randomly anywhere in the world means that there is a high chance you'd be dropped into an impoverished hell hole with nothing, no chance and no help .... God help you if you are female.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The surgery that kept me alive at birth wasn't invented until the late '80s. So I guess I would just be fucked no matter what. So put me wherever they want, any time before 1950 is going to suck ass for me.

Now assuming that part of my time travel comes with being able to fix my heart stuff. I would like to be born in the early 1900s. I can't think of a single time where I'm not going to fight both war and awfulness in the general world. But at least then I could be around for some cool developments.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

1940, as there are crazy things that will be going on in the world of computer science (and science in general) over the course of the next few decades and that would be really cool to experience. Kind of sad though to not be alive once we achieve human-level artificial intelligence, would be interested in seeing how that will turn out. I would probably chose America, as I wouldn’t want to spend WW2 in Germany where I live in the present.

Alternatively I think I would very much enjoy visiting Ancient Greek, although I’m not too sure when would be the best time for that; maybe at the peak of Athen.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The only correct answer, the past, was the worst. I like having antibiotics, not dying in childbirth, hot running water e.t.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Can always take the knowledge with you. Memorize how to do critical parts of plumbing. The antibiotics part yeah that would suck.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Memorize how to do critical parts of plumbing

Ok, we need to go to the store and buy some pipes.

What are pipes?

Oh. I think I fucked up.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

1870s in the Southeastern United States. I'm gonna make goddamn sure Reconstruction doesn't just end and Jim Crow functionally re-invents slavery.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yikes. Uhh. 1950. Cause you’re really pushing your luck before that if your background is random.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Caveman era. Give me a heavy rock and a cave and ill make do somehow.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

1600 India. I'm royalty and get to meet my ancestor and favorite historical figure Akbar. And yes the mughal empire is my roman empire

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Social standing is random though based on OP’s rules. It would be terrible to end up as part of the lowest caste.

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