June 30, 2025
You have been chosen to participate in a time travel adventure, (You’ll end up the same area as you are now.) You get to choose between traveling 150 years in the past or 150 years in the future.
Which do you pick?
Before I begin, I’ll make a confession. When we were considering where to live after retirement, scientists’ guesses of anticipated environmental changes played into the decision. (Plus changes we’ve already seen. The weather along the southern coast of Oregon is different from what it was when we lived there 35 years ago.)
What the question doesn’t specify is how long the adventure would last. A day? A week? A year? That would play a huge part in my decision.
Would I be given appropriate clothing for the era? (How would scientists know the correct clothing for the future?) How about money?
I’ve always been a bit of a history buff, so going back 150 years sounds satisfying. This area was the center of the new oil industry and fortunes rose and fell as wells were drilled and ran out. But 150 years ago, the area was in a downturn from the oil boom and the economy was rough. So, I’d like to make sure I had enough cash to last the anticipated visit. A long stay might necessitate a job and that might be hard to come by at my age.
By Niagara – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21009058
It doesn’t appear that I’d run into any of my ancestors. Most of them were farmers and came from various parts of Europe 25-35 years later. (And the genealogy records don’t indicate that any of them ever lived in the little village where we moved to.)
But it was part of the Gilded Era, and some of the grand old homes in the area were being built. So, there was money to be had, if you were in the right line of employment.
If I had the opportunity, I’d want to interact with the local native tribe, called the Senecas by white settlers. (Although the tribe has been displaced by the U.S. Government a couple of times, some of their descendants still live in the area.)
What about 150 years in the future?
Well, I expect the climate will still be livable. (One reason we chose to move here.) It shouldn’t be underwater or a desert. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it were more heavily populated as more people migrate from bigger cities.
I won’t even try to guess at the political climate. Hopefully, the medical field has continued to advance, and many common ailments have been cured. It would be nice to know what the future looks like for the sake of my descendants.
So, given the choice, I’d choose to go back 150 years. What about you? Backward or forward?
How about the other authors? Would they choose to go back 150 years or look to the future? Find out by following the links below.
As always, until next time, please stay safe.
June 30, 2025
Yes, I’d choose to go back too. The pace of life was slower then, and there were fewer people.
I’m in an area with fewer people. It had its advantages and disadvantages. Fewer choices when it comes to goods and services without traveling being tops on the list.
I’d prefer forward, far too many incurable diseases about in the past.
And we keep discovering new incurable diseases that used to get clumped in a broad category.
I’d prefer the future. There are far too many incurable diseases about in the past.
Oops, LOL!
I chose forward because of the lack of people here in 1875, but if I lived somewhere with an actual human history, I’d have chosen going backward. But IDK, I think I’d like to do both. The future is very attractive to us speculative fiction writers. Yeah, it might be very dystopian too.
Have any of you read or seen the movie Timeline by Michael Creighton. Turned out 14th century France was a very dangerous place. We think we’d love the past, but we may not know the past as well as we think it does. Unlike Richard, I’m not afraid of infectious diseases and I know the American West wasn’t really all gunfights and murderous Indians, but it was also a place with racism and sexism and…well, you get my point.
I’ve not read the book although I have heard of it. I suspect many time frames were dangerous, especially if you weren’t a part of the upper classes.
A short visit would be interesting as a historian, but it’s gonna be rough! I agree it could be bleak either way.
or the future could be sunshine and roses. There’s always hope.