Filthy rich but stuck in the past - yea or nay?

Summary of debate: Booster Gold - smart type guy or stupid idea guy?

So for those of you with "lives" and "friends" and who enjoy going "outside", I should explain: Booster Gold is a DC superhero from the future who steals future tech, travels back in time, uses it to become a superhero, which he uses (along with his knowledge of "history") to make megabucks. So, if he is successful, he is rich. Yay! But... he is trapped 500 years in the past.

All other considerations aside, would you be willing to live in the distant past but with a huge load of wealth? Or, do the benefits of the present outway the benefits of affluence is a time where bathing is optional and slavery is mandatory?

Go.

Hmm, I steal a load of tech and go back 500 years into the past to 1510. Henry VIII has just ascended to the throne and there are plenty of wars with France going on. If I start showing off flashy tech then, I probably get burnt at the stake as warlock

On the other hand, if the Tech can be used for beating the French, I'm set for life. Not to mention becoming nobility in the process.

I'd still pass though, I like my modern creature comforts too much to give them up.

A middle class man today is better off in most ways than a King in 1510. Though I admit to liking a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Which is essentially the same idea.

(Also clearly I have many reasons to stay put here and could not abandon my family.)

No. In fact, hell no. The richest man in the world in 1510 still only bathed three times a year, and quite possibly had a mouth full of rotting teeth keeping him in a state of constant low-grade pain.

I'd rather be homeless in 2010 America and take my chances at working/lucking my way back from it, than one of the Medici.


ETA: You know, this was rather Eurocentric of me. The idea of being filthy rich in, say, 16th century Japan, sounds much more appealing. Better than being homeless in the present. But I still wouldn't trade my current existence for it.

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Originally posted by OneCentStamp

ETA: You know, this was rather Eurocentric of me. The idea of being filthy rich in, say, 16th century Japan, sounds much more appealing. Better than being homeless in the present. But I still wouldn't trade my current existence for it.

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I was going to comment, but you beat me to it with your edit. Yeah, the lifestyle of the filthy rich in feudal Japan wouldn't be too shabby (if I could somehow be turned into a Japanese man instead of being "that freakishly tall, strange woman with orange hair who doesn't speak our language but has frightening weapons"), but I'd probably still prefer being an ordinary person with access to all the modern conveniences.

Yes, I would be happy to take back modern weaponry and technology and create my own fiefdom. I bring you progress people of the past, I bring you glory.
http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/4...ifemilitar.jpg

Yeah, no.

I am too fond of hygiene and the ability to sign my own contracts.

Now if this was, say, 2000 years into the past, I might be more tempted. At least the Romans had public baths.

I don't think, necessarily, that going from 2500 AD to 2000 AD is the same degradation of quality of life that going from 2000 AD to 1500 AD would be, however.

What, for example, is the average life expectancy in 2500? While we've had some dramatic life enhancing developments in the early part of the twentieth century, the latter part did not see nearly the same dramatic extension of life expectancy. ISTR that for most first world economies the life expectancy has pretty much stagnated, or gone up by some marginal amount over the past thirty to forty years. Now, it could be that you'd be giving up ten years of your life to go from 2500 AD to 2000, but ISTM that we're really approaching a lot of built-in limitations on the human body when you reach about 80 years of age.

Obviously - a revolutionary technique, treatment or technology is still quite possible. But without that, and they are chancy to predict, I'm sure I see the equivalence in degradation that the OP posited as being viable

Similarly, looking at just population curves, various natural resource availabilities, and other reasonable trends, I'm not convinced that life in 2500 AD is going to be necessarily better than life in 2000 AD. Let's say that some of the more hopeful population trends work out and we cap global population at 9 billion (12 billion seems to be the better smart estimate from what I've read), that's still about 40% more than we have on the planet today, with energy and food demands of their own. There are already places where food production is questionable, in the best of times, and the Ogalla aquifer is still being drained at an insupportable rate. If the choice is between 2000 AD first world living, and some dystopian future where yeast cultures provide the majority of caloric support, and power is rationed at 200 kW-hr per person per day, coming back to 2000 AD would start to look lovely.

For that matter, even going back to 1500 AD from here could be supportable, with a proper choice of target area, and preparation. And depending upon you starting point: If I were, say, a Somali pirate - I'd take the deal to be rich in 1500 any day of the week, even if I recognized I would be stuck only as a wealthy merchant (e.g. financially secure but with tightly constrained political power).

Besides, BG also had a self-contained battlesuit, and a Legion Flight Ring. ;) Those can help a lot, too. Heck, if I get those, I'll go back to 1500 AD.

There is a Star Trek TNG episode that deals with exactly this.

Guy claims to be a time traveler from the future, but is actually from the past, and is ripping off stuff to "invent" when he returns to his own time.

There is a Star Trek TNG episode that deals with exactly this.

Guy claims to be a time traveler from the future, but is actually from the past, and is ripping off stuff to "invent" when he returns to his own time.

What use is taking back tech if there's no one on the other end of the internet? Be sides I like flush toilets.

Hey look, Oliveloaf went into the future, stole his own post, and brought it back to post in the past, just moments in advance of his actual post.

Pretty cool trick.

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Originally posted by AllWalker

Summary of debate: Booster Gold - smart type guy or stupid idea guy?

So for those of you with "lives" and "friends" and who enjoy going "outside", I should explain: Booster Gold is a DC superhero from the future who steals future tech, travels back in time, uses it to become a superhero, which he uses (along with his knowledge of "history") to make megabucks. So, if he is successful, he is rich. Yay! But... he is trapped 500 years in the past.

All other considerations aside, would you be willing to live in the distant past but with a huge load of wealth? Or, do the benefits of the present outway the benefits of affluence is a time where bathing is optional and slavery is mandatory?

Go.

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If I get to do it like Booster Gold where I've had time to prepare myself with the history of the era and can bring back present day technology, sure. But just going back with my currently shitty knowledge of history and, like, a lighter but with REAL MASSIVE WEALTH would suck.

Perhaps it is because I am such a leftist class warrior, but I think some of you are underselling the benefits of being on top of the totem pole. Absolute standard of living is all well and good but your relative position gives you something else: the ability to live your own life and shape it according to your wishes, in practice and not just on paper. Perhaps you consider that exploitative, but as long as you are rich enough you should be able to strike a balance that lets you appear as a philanthrope by contemporary standards. Shitting into buckets and dying early might be a price worth paying.

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Originally posted by CatInASuit

I probably get burnt at the stake as warlock

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You'd probably get the same treatment if you went back and told them about toilet-paper.