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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure any sensible person would.

If only because you'd be rolling a huge pair of dice with respect to health care, dental care, etc. Your children have decent odds of dying young. Women in childbirth. Infections. No modern dental care etc.

Sure, some made it to old age without serious problems. (And people die young today in spite of modern medicine.) But I'll take the bet on today's medicine.

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It's not just that. Most everything you did was physical. No indoor plumbing. No ice cream. No fresh vegetables in winter. Itchy clothes. Hardly any books. Travel was difficult, slow, and quite uncomfortable. Lousy shoes. No A/C. Roasting or freezing indoors in winter. Little information about what was happening more than a day's walk away. A rotting mouth. No movies.

Hence "if only." Given sufficient money, you could still have a pleasant life with plenty of entertainment options and reasonable comfort in many climates. [ADDED: Which Virginia is not especially.]

And does what's happening far away really have that much of an impact on my life even today? We're used to knowing all these things but information flow was a lot less even a few decades ago.

For me, dying/pain/etc. is a lot more relevant.

In no way arguing your point, just an interesting fact - George Washington adored ice cream: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/george-washington-...

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