Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?
themoneyillusion.com
themoneyillusion.com
rich in pretty much ANY time.
No matter what year it is it's always better to be on top. That's where most of the human pleasure comes from.
Xboxes and iPhones are really no substitute for being on top of society.
If I can see my (future) children grow up happy and healthy, keep learning my whole life, earn my living solving interesting problems, etc., that's not just quantitatively worth more than a yacht; it's qualitatively a better life.
To answer the actual question, of 1973 vs. today, I'd take today. The Internet is, frankly, awesome. Not having the entire world living in fear of nuclear winter is also kind of nice. I don't think cryo firms like Alcor existed in 1973. Those are just a few things off the top of my head; I'm sure I could come up with a much longer list given time.
If you're rich you can still do these things. Whether you're rich in Ancient Egypt or rich in 1973 you'll have access to this stuff.
>No matter what year it is it's always better to be on top. That's where most of the human pleasure comes from.
The second half of my comment addressed the 1973 question, and made it clear that it was doing so.
You know you will be happier if you enjoy what you have, not the fact you have and others don't.
I would be enjoying what I DO have. Which is the ability to pay others to do whatever I want.
I want massages and blowjobs and chefs and chauffeurs and butlers and servants. Who doesn't want these things?
A rich person can get these things no matter what year it is. A poor person will always be denied these things no matter what year it is.
if i get bored of blowjobs i'll do what other rich people do for fun - social engineering.
Tinker with the lives of the little people like the peons they are.
But no contest. I'd turn back that clock right now.
And it isn't the food that would get you. It's the smallpox.
Similarly, in the novel of Casino Royale, avocados are used to signify how exotic the casino is.
This only takes you back to the 60's.
Well, in the summer, anyway. And in the winter I shall take the train to Cuba and have oranges till I burst.
Except for Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, Austen, Twain, Dostoyevksy, Tolstoy, the Bronte sisters, Melville, Arthur Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Thoreau, Marx, Henry James, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Joseph Conrad, Ibsen, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde ... (I could go on.)
Yep, it was a real literary dark ages back then.
There are plenty of interesting books in a library that's way classier than the one we have now - and the Wright Brothers live down the street (well; they might have gone to Dayton by 1900) and plenty of other tinkers and inventors. There were more patents in this county in 1900 than any other county in the United States.
1900 in Richmond, Indiana was where it was at.
Really?
Sure, sun-ripened fruits eaten at their peak would be delicious. But you'd be stuck eating whatever could be had within a few miles of your home. You could migrate with the seasons to widen your annual food selection, but that would be extremely costly.
The quality of many individual food items in the early 1900s would probably be better than 1960. Take instant coffee, Coors, and Wonderbread for example. But Starbucks and micro brews have paved the way back to high standards for these items nowadays.
Yeah, but... 2011 is a win on every front there except the last. (And that may be debatable; you better like your exotic spots very exotic.) If you do not confine yourself to pre-1970s books, firms, and music right now, it's because you like the stuff that came later better, no matter how nostalgic you think you are. You may think there's more garbage in 2011 but there's a lot more good stuff, too, and a lot more well-populated niches.
I mean, sure, wealthy in 1973 over middle class today in the broad sense, but not for that reason. And I will take middle-class 2011 over rich 1900. I'm not sure where the exact cross-over is, but it's certainly within that bound.
In 500 BC I wouldn't know about vaccines so I wouldn't miss them, but that doesn't change the fact that living in a world with vaccines is a hell of a lot nicer.
I "miss" not having a heads-up display in my glasses or contacts or optic nerve, and not being able to prevent my body and mind from failing due to aging. I'd choose middle class in 2049 over rich in 2011 for the same reasons that I'd choose 2011 over 1973.
My job (writing programs used by people around the world, all from my home office in small city Michigan) could not have existed in 1973. Indeed, my house probably has computing power equivalent to that of a good-sized university of the time. A sizable percentage of the food I eat was not available anywhere outside of a Chinatown then. My favorite genre of games, role-playing games, had not yet been invented. Nor had the high blood pressure pills I take. The surgery I had at new year's would have meant days rather than hours in the hospital.
And my son could never have been born. Life-altering? Hell yes.
Wikipedia, open-access academic literature, online reservations for various things, and home data-crunching abilities are nice, though.
My question is - how far back would you go?
If seriously confronted with this proposition, I would probably not take the risk. My father died of cancer, as did one of my aunts (from my mother's family), so, I would be weary of being too far from more modern treatments and/or diagnostics. It would be tempting, of course, to be able to witness some key events in our industry first hand (maybe even nudge them in a better direction). I would, certainly, be at the homebrew computer club meeting when Woz presented his Apple I. About a year later I would talk Woz into (or help him with - I still remember 6502 well enough) integrating floating point into Apple's BASIC. Then, I would try to persuade the IBM execs not to ditch CP/M-86 for PC-DOS. And then I would call it a day and head back to a much nicer 2011.
I could also lobby for Thorium reactors in the 50's...
1973->2011 = 38years
1900->1973 = 73years
Although it does make me aware of an interesting question. Obviously I'd rather be rich last year over middle class this year. How about five years ago? Ten? A hundred?
As fun as questions like this are, we don't get to make that choice. Might as well just focus on getting rich now :-/
You'd hate the way people talk and act in 1973.
http://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-097.pdf
In 1973, 628,000 families made less than $1000.00 per year. That's $.48 per hour for a 40-hour week. 8.1 million (14.1%) families made less that $5000 that year.
In 2011, annual unemployment benefits for an individual can reach about $20,000. In 1973, that amount would rank in the upper 18% of all family incomes.
Making $50,000+ in 1973 would rank in the top 1%.