Before we get started, I have a quick message just for my students: you’re not as sneaky as you think you are. I can see when you’re texting, even though you hide your phone behind your notebook, beside your book, in your lap, or in your coat pocket. Stop it. This is your last warning.
Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program. Yesterday I asked two of my classes to write an in-class essay on the question, “if you could choose to live in a different historical time period, in America or another country, which one would you pick and why?” Here are a few of their answers with a quick summary of their reasons.
- Medieval Europe
- To be a king and have all the power, comfort, and women that come with that position
- To maybe see a fire-breathing dragon
- Central America during Aztec Empire
- Witness their advanced technologies
- See great things being built such as pyramids
- Beautiful and interesting culture
- Germany in the 1930s
- For the opportunity to build up an army to stand against Hitler
- Help the Jewish people become stronger
- War time is an excellent time to seek fame
- America in the 1920s
- Beautiful clothing
- Men were romantic
- Life was more relaxed
- Miami in the 1940s
- Booming economic time in Miami, so great time to become rich
- This is when their football team won the Superbowl
- Time of the dinosaurs
- Opportunity to watch life-cycle of dinosaurs
- Research their interaction with one another
- America in the 1970s
- Time of love, peace and drugs
- Jimi Hendrix was a big influence during this time
- America in the 1960s
- Great fashion period for women (though not men)
- Cars were beautiful
- Fun dancing styles
- Victorian England
- Beautiful fashions
- Women held themselves to high standards
- Great literature written
And me? I would choose the here and now. There's nothing like it.
9 comments:
I wwould like to be around one hundred years from now.
Stich,
You and I probably would live for 1,000 years now if rationality instead of the dogma of religion settled 2,000+ years ago.
Imagine what kind of headstart we'd have if it was not for the "dark ages".
By the way, Midwest Skeptics will be showing "Here Be Dragons" this Saturday 7 p.m. A fascinating documentary into pseudo science, dogma and irrationality. Check out the site http://skeptics.meetup.com/137/calendar/12383204/
Dagney,
If I were to chose the time to be in and experience it, I'd like to be a witness to two things
a) Big Bang as we know it now and Pre Big Bang and Pre Pre Big Ban and Pre Pre Pre Big Ban, etc - in eternity. Though as we know it space expanded through hyper inflation, my being there would be an almost certain impossiblity, but I'd like to know if there is a way to circumvent the nature to be a witness.
I have a feeling that energy/matter/time in our dimension are finate as we see/expereince the Unvierse we are in. We may not "know" the Truth fully, but it's there somewhere. I have a hunch that matter/energy/space/time are intertwined through some common denominator and they change form/shape/consistency like water in ice, vapor, liquid.... Can be unseen or very seen or even hurt you when you frigging hit your head on it. I have a feeling that the Universe we live is like this - call it a "personal spiritual" experience :) in the freethinking atheistic dimension. It changes, expands, then rips, then recombines in a different way withotu end or begining.
Or maybe we are all just a matrix?
And b) I'd like to talk to god if she is there...
Just don't know how she is going to survive all the Bangs :o)
Dagney, I agree with you, but no offense, my dad said it first. Now is the best time to be alive. Whenever people wax nostalgic about "The Good Ol' Days" I usually quietly reassure myself that NOW is far better than then.
Iggy, I also agree that the Dark Ages were a sad time for science. I just hope there is not a new Dark Age where the majority of Americans turn their back on scientific evidence supporting things like, say, oh I don't know, evolution?
I would like to live a couple hundred years from now, knowing what I know now. That would be fun! Of course with a little mix of the 1960-70s
Cole,
As a senior with long gray hair and a funny hat you wear, I recommend you reconsider your appearance if you were to live in the future.
OK this just cracks me up.
1. There were no fire-breathing dragons in Midevial times or any other time. It's a legend, a myth.
2. There's no evidence that Aztecs had advanced technology. I think someone may be confusing myths about the Mayan calendar with the Aztecs.
3. The first superbowl was in 1967. The Miami Dolphins won Superbowl VII in 1972 and Superbowl VIII the next year. Someone would be very disappointed to travel back to the 1940's to watch this.
Thomas- true, but this was in in-class essay with no opportunity for outside research, and I do keep telling them to be more creative in their writing...guess a few took me at my word.
What, nobody wanted to go and visit the celestial stables of the Invisible Pink Unicorn? Or have an unlimited supply of pasta in the Flying Spaghetti Monster dimension?
I am disappointed.
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