Past or Future?

Has anyone ever asked you what era you would choose to live in? Most people might say that they want to return to Roman times, the Renaissance, or even the Medieval times. I am usually confused by these ideas. Yes, there were some geniuses during these eras and we tend to learn about the wealthy who seemed to live wonderful lives, but what about the common folk? If you choose an era but not what social class you would belong to, the most likely scenario is that of a poor farmer or even a slave. These people were plagued by disease, there were no sanitation facilities let alone a sewage system, and the average life expectancy was less than 30 years. Many people say they want to go back in time because they don’t appreciate how technology has affected our lives. But the question should be, how has technology improved our lives? Antibiotics did not exist until 1928 and although vaccines were created in 1796, they did not become popular until much later.

In high school, we might encounter problems like homework, an upcoming test, problems with fellow classmates, or forgetting to bring a lunch to school. Going back in time would cause day to day problems to rise exponentially. Even as a middle-class worker, just being able to provide food for a family could be a never-ending struggle. Of course, we have larger problems today but most of these don’t involve life or death situations. As technology increases so does the problem of military equipment being made accessible to the public. We have governmental problems and recently many natural disasters have occurred. Looking back through the eras, however, shows that every era had its own specific problems and that these problems could vary dramatically.

I think that going backwards in time would also limit our rights as citizens. The right to vote and the right to free speech did not exist. Instead of going backwards what about traveling forwards in time? Would this be beneficial? One problem with traveling to the future is that we don’t have any information about the eras to come. What if we have another devastating world war? We could destroy the world with all the technology we have discovered. Personally, I would give a bland response to the question of which era would you prefer to live in. I think that now is the best time to live because we can’t know what’s coming but that makes life interesting. Even if we did travel back in time there are always problems and at least we can have an impact on solving our problems now.