Recently, I received a forwarded email that suggested that right now, in the year 2010, the world is worse than it has ever been. The email claimed that currently, people are more evil than they have ever been, and that things are only getting worse. As evidence for this claim, the email mentioned Roe v. Wade, the legalization of gay marriage in some parts of the US, the secularization of Europe, the fact that evolution is taught in science classes, the USA's military entanglements, and the spread of AIDS in Africa. There were other demonstrations (it was a long email with large letters and multi-colored fonts), but I'll leave them out for now.
Obviously, not everyone agrees with the claims made in this email (myself included); however, the email did make me start thinking about when would have been the best time to be alive. So, here's a little thought-experiment that I would like to conduct with the readers of this blog: Imagine that you have a device (a sort of time machine) that can transport you to any time in the history of the world. Unfortunately, the device has some limitations:
- You will have to be born in your new time period, and you will have to experience childhood, etc. In other words, infant mortality rate matters!
- You cannot choose where you will be born. The location of your birth will be random, although it will be weighted by population density. In other words, you will be more likely to be born in India, where there are many people, than in Iceland, where there are few. But then again, you could luck out and get Iceland!
- You cannot choose the circumstances of your life. Your race, gender, physical appearance, general health, intellectual capacity, etc. will be determined randomly, with the probabilities weighted by frequency of actual occurrence.
- You will not know anything which was unknown in the time that you choose. For example, if you choose to live in a time before the development of the germ theory of disease, you will think that diseases are caused by witches or evil spirits or an imbalance between the four humors.
(Readers of
John Rawls will recognize these conditions as being a rough approximation of '
The Original Position,' which is a philosophical concept that Rawls thought should be used when making moral decisions. In practice, the people who make the rules are the ones who have the power to enforce the rules to their benefit. The people who cut the pie also get to choose which slice they want to take. Rawls suggests that a rule is fair only if we would agree to it without knowing what our lot in life would be. For instance, we would not agree to allow slavery if there was a possibility that we ourselves might be born into conditions of slavery. In other words, the people who cut the pie should do so as if they didn't know which slice they will get.)
I sometimes feel a little bit nostalgic about the 1990s, the time of my childhood. Things seem like they were simpler (and maybe more innocent) then, although I think this is probably a product of the fact that I was a kid during this time. There was crime and violence in the 1990s. People had abortions and got divorces and contracted AIDS in the 1990s. I was just too young to really notice it. Really, when everything is considered, I can't think of any time that I would rather be alive.
Questions for Discussion:
- If you could use this time machine, in what year would you choose to be born?
- Why did you pick this year?
- What is the best-case scenario for you in your chosen year?
- What is the worst-case scenario for you in your chosen year?
