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To whence shall we roll back the clock?
We joke about the glory years, the years when Things Were Better, which just so happen to coincide with people's younger years. You get me to say what years I would like to roll back the clock to and live, I would probably say somewhere around the 90s-late 00s. I am an outlier, as far as I know. Virtually no one I know would like to roll back the clock to spitting distance from two thousand and fucking-eight.
Back when the most lefty thing on the internet was a girl telling people that she didn't appreciate being propositioned for sex on an elevator. Pre-tiktok, the era of old forums. The iphone still a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye. The era when Google and Microsoft weren't the undisputed emperors of your lives.
Actually, forget that. We all know there's nowhere to roll back to, we can only roll forward, embracing the aesthetics of what we imagined the past to be. I, for one, am glad that I am not eternally inundated with "WOW DAE PARENTS ARE BOOORIIINNG????" ads. You can pull my 70-lb tub of legos accumulated over more than twenty years out of my cold, dead hands, NSA. And it's probably true that in the next 30-40 years that democracy and republicanism-as-we-know it will no longer exist.
No seriously, whence come the true techno-king? Who are the contenders for the first immortal god-king of humanity. I joke in the phrasing, but it is not exactly an incorrect joke now, is it? It is very probable that we will have the first actual trillionaire human in the next thirty years. The first effectively-emperors of mankind.
The only reason companies don't do governance of humans is that they're shit at it, actually, and Democracy is surprisingly efficient over long timescales. But assume for the sake of thought experiment, that the singularity happens, and we have our first crowned god-emperor of humanity thanks to the creation of AGI. Who are our contenders?
Personally, I should expect them to:
As such, pick your top 5 most likely individuals to become humanity's first true techno-kings, and why. Do you have any you think are sleepers?
I'll hold back my top-fivers for a couple days or so.
So, I'll dodge the techno-king question and express amazement at people saying "Forward!" or that they wouldn't roll things back.
I thought it was a foregone conclusion that the early 00s were a superior time to be alive. Freezing technology at that instant would have been perfectly fine. About the only thing that's made my life demonstrably better since then is Google Maps. Let me count the ways:
All good points. But the earlier decades had their charms too (at least for me, as a white American male).
The 40s allowed every healthy young person to sign up and be "a hero" in the greatest war the world has ever known, which for Americans mostly meant hanging around in England or the South Pacific islands, dating the local women. Then you have lifelong bragging rights as "the greatest generation."
The 50s: ridiculously strong economy. Just walk into your local factory, shake the boss's hand, and you've got a job that lets you buy a house and support a family. "Support a family" meant being head of the household, where the wife is fully devoted to taking care of you and the kids. Or go into the cities, rent an apartment ridiculously cheaply, and live as a beatnik, making a name for yourself in all the new forms of music. Or tour the world, which was all destroyed from WW2, so your American middle-class salary made you relatively rich. Buy yourself a new car every year, because each new model year is better than the one before and you can afford it. Or become a professor, since all the universities were hiring like mad.
The 60s: Much the same, but with better music and movies. You can also move out to California and be hippy, living in a commune for practically nothing or going surfing all day. If you were organized enough to buy a house there back then, it's probably worth millions now. Or get a regular office job, wear a suit and tie, have a secretary, and be on the golf course by 4 every day. Enjoy listening to the local news tell of amazing technological progress like "man lands on the moon" while your wife cooks you dinner and your 4 children play outside. Or if you're more adventurous, go to Vietnam, experience what it's like to kill a man, then go work off the stress by banging a dozen hookers (no worries about condoms or aids).
The 70s: Even better music and movies. Any guy with a guitar can instantly become a "rock star," possibly getting rich, but at least having a good time playing local shows. Or hang out in disco clubs, dancing with the beautiful women who flocked there. Take one of them with you to the drive-in theater, in the back of your massive Cadillac. Complain about the middle east and gas prices, but ultimately it's not your problem. Cities, beaches, and international travel are still very affordable. Host a party and impress everyone with your stereo, record collection, and maybe some blow.
The 80s: Get into finance and live like a king with some basic math. Or computer programming, or hardware electronics. Hang out at the local arcade, impressing people with your mad pac-man skills, or at home on the NES. Wear a crazy colored jacket. Watch "Cocktail" and then start a cocktail bar. Enjoy the feeling of your country's supreme military dominance and victory in the cold war. Watch all the classic sci-fi movies on first release, then over and over, and talk about them with your local crew. Rock out to the coolest hard rock shows of all time. Travel to Japan and see it at the height of its bubble, but while also being an exotic foreigner.
I think what all of these decades have in common was we were rich enough to have materialistic comforts and freedom, but still doing thingt in the real world instead of being all addicted to our screens. That, and relative status is also important for human happiness. I also like the aesthetics of pre-1940s architecture, clothes, and music, but there's probably too much poverty back then for me to enjoy.
Starve to death in the Bengal famine.
Welcome to state socialism, enjoy your stay.
Post 2000s-
Whew, living in the Third World almost becomes bearable thanks to the internet.
It's easy for you Americans to forget that for most of the globe, things are the best they've ever been. Even your current struggles are a minor blip in the face of near unrelenting improvements of the things, which if they were gone, you'd miss the most.
We're Americans, not Canadians. We want to know what's in it for us. If the benighted third-world masses are doing better that's great, but it doesn't offset the slightest drop in US QOL.
Speak for yourself, please.
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