why do you say infinitely preferable? out of curiosity

i'd say either 60s or ancient Greece

An individualistic, anarchistic, nihilist. Hmm, interesting. Tell me how you imagine life there? At least your life? What position would you hold in the hierarchy? Do you think you'd still disdain life? Is your existential nihilism a product of philosophy or misery? Is there any way I can help?

Free love. And minimize my chances of having to live through the 90s again.

Somebody's tweaking my posts. Ok, I won't argue that one.

Ah, yes, a simple phrase, or subconscious refutation of nihilism. A classic Freudian slip.

This is hard to answer without sounding either like a crackpot survivalist or a hopeless romantic. So here is mpethy sounding like a crackpot romantic:

I find modern society distasteful. Basically, you are forced to have a career at which you work to make money so you can buy a lot of stuff that is only necessary because of the structure of the modern world (cars, internet service, cell phones.

I really like the idea of living in a time where survival is boiled down to its essence.

The trade off for the lack of freedom and the complexity of modern life is a longer lifespan and material comfort. Neither of those have ever been important to me.

If I could be gauranteed to avoid the terror I would love to be about in the French revolution. Times would be mad exciting with the modern world pretty much changing with every decision.

Failing that the '60's does sound like a winner. So long I was the same middle class white guy as everyone else presumes to be, other wise life would be pretty hard unless you could luckbox your way into hippydom.

Also @ mpethybridge; I'd say the complexity of modern society is only prevelant if you allow it to be: any one who thinks about it will find life in any society complicated. Also in regards to freedom- how free can you be in a stone age hunter gatherer society? You have so much less choice, and a much larger threat of death restricting your actions, i.e. other people's freedom to kill you if they so choose. This is what gave them a shorter life span imho. Some place like Smurf village would be closer to what you want I think; if I was less high i'd hope to be able to place that in a real historical context

You don't need to travel back in time to experience the essence of survival. Although i do admire your principles.

haha, really? This is your response? Smurf village? Remind me to condescend back at you at the first and all future opportunities.

In fact, I am well aware of what it would be like t live a hunter-gatherer life style. I have been in some extreme survival situations and have enjoyed them immensely.

Modern life is boring, stultifying and the freedom you think you have is largely an illusion for which you have fallen.



Experience, no, live it, yes.

i'd probably opt to be a native american in the northeast US, part of the Iroquois league, before white man came

definitely in north america pre-Columbian. it would have kicked ass to live with nature and not dealt with all the **** modern society comes with

A lot of you guys could just pick up a backpack at Big 5 and be on your way. What's with all of this "omg society/modern times are just horrible"?? It's not like the outdoors went anywhere.. It's not like anyone is forcing you to cling to your material possessions.. It's not like it's "THE END" (that's not for another 21 months).

But blah blah, I know what you guys meant. Life does suck sometimes. But believe me.. the grass on the other side.. is always there, on the other side. It's not any greener no matter how long you spend looking at it.

Sorry, was pretty strange thing to point out, didn't real put across what I was trying to say.
I am interested in why you think you have all the freedom though.
You can leave society to go live the hunter gatherer lifestyle; obviously there's Alexander Supertramp (biggest douche of all time) but then you do get lots of relatively normal people doing it- I read an article about a guy who went of to Alaska(well prepared) and spent a year just living around their doing as he pleased.
If we have the choice to do this, as well as the choice to live modern life, how can you say we are more free then than now?
Back then you'd be stuck in a relatively enclosed area; now you can choice more or less any environment in the world to give live this lifestyle which gives a load more freedom.
If you then say that government/other people would just get in the way; that would have happened then anyway.
Or if your arguing that people obviously need other people and society to survive, and to join this society; and to completely remove a group of people from modern society is ridonkulous this is probs fair to.

But all in all other than the fun of survivalist, I'd still rather have the choice to enjoy all or at least some of what I do today; some sort of music, art, literature, sport, and obviously modern medicine and food.
Back then food was so awful they fought wars for pepper, i dunno if i coulda handled food that awful. Thats why I'd stay at least in the past 300 odd years

Once again though, sorry for being a bit of a dick

Id go back to the 80's and give myself a sports almanac.

To those picking ancient times, you do understand that you shortening your lifespan by about a half? Also, when estimating "your place in society", there was no middle class till fairly recently so its not looking too bright...
I'd pick 18-19th century US or 17th century Russia...basically frontier times for both countries.

There's a huge difference between walking around the modern USA with a backpack and living, say, in a Native American community prior to the arrival of Europeans.

And I guess by your post then we can conclude that there's no worthy answer. every time and place sucked. no one is allowed to have a reasonable preference or choice. because everything is just as bad as anything else.

why do you take such offense to people playing the game in this thread?

Would love to go back to 30ad to see if Jesus was real and if so what was he like

There is a huge difference, yes. But it doesn't change much of what I said. No one is forcing you to live a modern life. Afaik you can "go back" as far as you want and live like people back then did. The Quakers don't seem to mind.. the Amish.. there are tons of communes that cater to the ideal of living outside of modern society. Then there are survivalists and naturists (those nude freaks).. and I'm sure there are many others.

Ok, I'll own it - a big reason why those aren't feasible is I don't know how to do that stuff. I didn't learn it in school, or from my parents, or from society. I know how to drive a car, start a computer, log onto pokerstars, but in so many ways we are now removed from growing up in a life that depends on nature. So yes, a part of me romanticizes growing up in such a society.

That doesn't necessarily mean I want to become Amish, or go live like Ted Kaczynski. Now if all my friends and family and neighborhood instaknew how to live off the land and we all collectively decided to walk around in underwear and live free, well, I might be down with that.

I know what you're saying (and I think you get what I mean, too). I think it's a shame that mankind has wandered so far from mother nature. She's always been there for us, providing, and all we can do is "suck her dry for all she gots". It's something I think mankind will definitely suffer for in the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9...feature=fvwrel

(nsfw) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzbUR...eature=related

Wait, how is that related? Honest question.

Agree. I also think that psychologically, people are going to come undone. I don't think we are meant to be so separated from the natural world. Some scientists, engineers, doctors, farmers, other manual laborers among others keep that relationship somewhat in check. But many of us live in ways that Mankind hasn't for tens of thousands of years. At a desk pushing paper and acting the fool.

Individually it can be avoided somewhat. But as a whole, it will definitely bring mankind down. We are a part of nature no matter how you look at it. We are not independent creatures (we depend on nature big time). And when it's time to pay, mother nature never pays. We do.



it's not

Probably go back to the year 0 and live from there, and see if Jesus was real and all that