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mycomancy: Oct 16, 2016

Euphoriaphone posted:

assuming you can't use current knowledge for personal gain, i'd probably choose to go back to the late 80s or early 90s. if i could use my knowledge for personal gain, i'd pick 2016 since i think the best time in history to be super rich is right now, when they have the most power and technology/communications enables them to do the most psychotic poo poo their black hearts desire

it's funny that the Matrix picked 1999 as the perfect moment in history to be endlessly emulated since that just happened to be when the movie was made, but for an american they were 100% correct.

this is an insane way to phrase it. who doesn't mentally insert "no" before "reason", the opposite of what his meaning is?

EDIT: this is a good one ↓

I was 16 in 1998, and I feel like if I was 10 years older then I would've been golden for the rest of my life. Someone upthread said that it was rough being in your 20s in the Aughts, and they were correct except for being in your 20s now lmao poor bastards

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:28

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# ? May 25, 2024 10:00

Marenghi: Oct 16, 2008; Don't trust the liberals,
they will betray you

Euphoriaphone posted:

it's funny that the Matrix picked 1999 as the perfect moment in history to be endlessly emulated since that just happened to be when the movie was made, but for an american they were 100% correct.

It was of the times. The cold war was over and history ended. Capitalism was all that was left. People began to feel ennui as they realized life forever more would just be consumerism until you die. Lot of movies with similar themes and of wanting to escape the 'system'.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:33

Aglet56: Sep 1, 2011

In Training posted:

If you're guaranteed to live a long life starting from the year you picked I'd go with like Russia 1895 - 1970. Live long enough to see your parents overthrow the tsar, contribute to the destruction of Nazi Germany and work on the first socialist state in human history and die thinking the whole world is going to go out in nuclear blaze any day before you have to see the reformists tear it all to pieces. Would be pretty chill

living through the 1920s famine and then the nazi invasion would be a bummer but at least your politics would be based

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:37

Mustached Demon: Nov 12, 2016

In Training posted:

If you're guaranteed to live a long life starting from the year you picked I'd go with like Russia 1895 - 1970. Live long enough to see your parents overthrow the tsar, contribute to the destruction of Nazi Germany and work on the first socialist state in human history and die thinking the whole world is going to go out in nuclear blaze any day before you have to see the reformists tear it all to pieces. Would be pretty chill

challenge there is surviving Stalingrad.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:39

The Oldest Man: Jul 28, 2003

Mustached Demon posted:

challenge there is surviving Stalingrad.

that was only like 4% of total soviet war dead

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:42

double nine: Aug 8, 2013

gently caress all this noise, china born in the 1990s and witness the greatest advancement of a society during your college years (so far)

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:43

Casey Finnigan: Apr 30, 2009; Dumb ✔
So goddamn crazy ✔

mycomancy posted:

I was 16 in 1998, and I feel like if I was 10 years older then I would've been golden for the rest of my life. Someone upthread said that it was rough being in your 20s in the Aughts, and they were correct except for being in your 20s now lmao poor bastards

I'm technically still in my 20s. Yeah it sucks

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:45

Aglet56: Sep 1, 2011

anyways, surely the answer is germany in the 1840s-1870s? you'd only have a few wars to contend with and you could befriend karl marx and hang out with him and ask him what the heck is going on in the money-definition section in capital vol 1

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:48

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

1999 was when the Cluetrain Manifesto was published & I'll never stop lolling at how gullible I was that these things were happening & would stay this way because of the internet:

quote:

95 Theses

Markets are conversations.

Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.

The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.

These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

What's happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called "The Company" is the only thing standing between the two.

Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business � the sound of mission statements and brochures ��will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.

Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.

Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.

Companies attempting to "position" themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.
Bombastic boasts ��"We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ" ��do not constitute a position.

Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.

Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

Elvis said it best: "We can't go on together with suspicious minds."

Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable ��and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.

Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" taught us to ask the question: "Loyalty? What's that?"

Smart markets will find suppliers who speak their own language.

Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can't be "picked up" at some tony conference.

To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

But first, they must belong to a community.

Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end.
If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.

Human communities are based on discourse � on human speech about human concerns.

The community of discourse is the market.

Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.

Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce.

As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company � and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines.

Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right.

Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.

Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.

A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union.

While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to "improve" or control these networked conversations.

When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.

Org charts worked in an older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from on high.

Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.

Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.

Paranoia kills conversation. That's its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies.

There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One with the market.

In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control.

As policy, these notions are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met with hostility by intranetworked knowledge workers and generate distrust in internetworked markets.

These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other's voices.

Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.

If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up.

However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.

This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.

Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false � and often is.

Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.

De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.
We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.

We're also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script.

As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other?

As markets, as workers, we wonder why you're not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.

The inflated self-important jargon you sling around ��in the press, at your conferences ��what's that got to do with us?

Maybe you're impressing your investors. Maybe you're impressing Wall Street. You're not impressing us.

If you don't impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don't they understand this? If they did, they wouldn't let you talk that way.

Your tired notions of "the market" make our eyes glaze over. We don't recognize ourselves in your projections ��perhaps because we know we're already elsewhere.

We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

You're invited, but it's our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.

We've got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute?

You're too busy "doing business" to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we'll come back later. Maybe.

You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party.

Don't worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it's not the only thing on your mind.

Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?

Your product broke. Why? We'd like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no sense. We'd like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she's not in?

Research in the field of medicine. Now it is easy to buy viagra online for men.

We know some people from your company. They're pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you're hiding? Can they come out and play?

When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn't have such a tight rein on "your people" maybe they'd be among the people we'd turn to.
When we're not busy being your "target market," many of us are your people. We'd rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing's job.

We'd like it if you got what's going on here. That'd be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we're holding our breath.

We have better things to do than worry about whether you'll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?

We have real power and we know it. If you don't quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that's more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.

Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we've been seeing.

Our allegiance is to ourselves � our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.

Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can't they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher.

We're both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they're really just an annoyance. We know they're coming down. We're going to work from both sides to take them down.

To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:48

BRAKE FOR MOOSE: Jun 6, 2001

Aglet56 posted:

living through the 1920s famine and then the nazi invasion would be a bummer but at least your politics would be based

and you're fighting age during the entirety of WW1. what a psychotic time to pick, it's a hell of a life to live but sure not an easy one.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:50

the popes toes: Oct 10, 2004

Leroy Diplowski posted:

without fussing too much over what the situation is going be in a few years because no one loving knows. Especially not this thread.

mods?

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:57

palindrome: Feb 3, 2020

quote:

95 Theses

[...]

Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can't be "picked up" at some tony conference.

[...]

This one is true though, you need a least a TED talk or maybe TEDx

# ? Apr 12, 2024 21:59

PoundSand: Jul 30, 2021; Also proficient with kites

Leroy Diplowski posted:

Everybody prognosticating on housing prices and interest but I reckon, if you have the means to buy a place and you can find one you like then move on it without fussing too much over what the situation is going be in a few years because no one loving knows. Especially not this thread.

I think the means to buy a place with present interest rates is really the issue.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:00

Thoguh: Nov 8, 2002; College Slice

Number is strong.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:00

post hole digger: Mar 21, 2011

Thoguh posted:

Number is strong.

💪

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:03

In Training: Jun 28, 2008

Aglet56 posted:

living through the 1920s famine and then the nazi invasion would be a bummer but at least your politics would be based

That's why I said guaranteed to live. If we're considering time travel magic anyway

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:06

Pink Mist: Sep 28, 2021

mycomancy posted:

I was 16 in 1998, and I feel like if I was 10 years older then I would've been golden for the rest of my life. Someone upthread said that it was rough being in your 20s in the Aughts, and they were correct except for being in your 20s now lmao poor bastards

I�m in my 20s now and it sucks, but it�ll be worse in the 2030s

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:07

George H.W. Cunt: Oct 6, 2010

2002 is the ideal year because you get to laugh at 9/11 and also jam to Nellyville

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:17

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

im 40. wouldnt recommend

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:23

RC Cola: Aug 1, 2011; Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

I'd pick 0 and watch jesus to see that he too is a time traveler abusing his future powers

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:25

Casey Finnigan: Apr 30, 2009; Dumb ✔
So goddamn crazy ✔

I'd go back in time and pump up honi the circle maker so he became the founder of a new religion instead of Jesus

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:27

no lube so what: Apr 11, 2021

sign me up for pre European San Diego area, just chilling and poo poo

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:42

19 o'clock: Sep 9, 2004; Excelsior!!!

whenever Dune happens that�s where I wanna be

# ? Apr 12, 2024 22:50

Skaffen-Amtiskaw: Jun 24, 2023

quote:

95 f�ces

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:05

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

uninterrupted posted:

I think most folks would go back to ~2015ish.

Pre trump
Food and drinks were affordable
Rent was low, houses were affordable
More or less identical modern convenience wise
Tinder was still good
Reddit was kinda funny

Trump: lol, we were still post Reagan and Bush

Food: Was relatively affordable so you can have this one.

Rent/Housing: Lmao no it wasn�t. Housing has been skyrocketing since at ~least~ the 80s and I remember people begging for a crash well before 07. Even right after the crash when prices were at all time lows I was priced out and couldn�t afford rent.

Conveniences: Honestly, having lived before computers/the internet it�s not THAT big of a deal to not have next-day shipping and such. The value of the tech advancements over the past few decades (at least in how much they make human lives better) is way overrated. I�d burn it all for a reasonably priced house. So yeah, don�t let this stop you from time traveling I guess.

Other stuff: Sure, whatever

America has (economically) sucked to live in for a long, long time. 2015 only seems good because in hindsight because the rot has spread so much since then.

readingatwork has issued a correction as of 23:19 on Apr 12, 2024

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:16

readingatwork: Jan 8, 2009; Hello Fatty!; Fun Shoe

The correct answer is probably �now but not in America�.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:23

Mustached Demon: Nov 12, 2016

We'll think the same thing about 2024 in 2033 as Jim Jordan's second term begins

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:25

Skaffen-Amtiskaw: Jun 24, 2023

readingatwork posted:

The correct answer is probably �now but not in America�.

Come to the UK and experience BREXIT DIVIDEND.

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:31

DJJIB-DJDCT: Feb 1, 2024

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1778421278992683172?t=B7cSjwE6Rpd3BdN0cSHViA&s=19

I know that modern amenities are nice but idk if "last week" is where I'd land on compared to any other time in the last decade

Obviously some time in the late 300's - 600. Back when men were men, and women were men.

�There is increasing evidence that the place of women in early and middle-Byzantine R�mania was freer and more equal than any western society in modern times; and in unusual circumstances might even have strayed into challenging male areas. Theofan�s tells of a female espionage agent and Bishop Evstathios writes with a hint of approval of the active participation of women in the defence of Thessaloniki.�

and fashion was a man's world

The drip, incredible

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:43

Shipon: Nov 7, 2005

i think the ideal time and age would have been being 25 in 1996

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:46

atelier morgan: Mar 11, 2003; super-scientific, ultra-gay; Lipstick Apathy

Now's not bad if you're Chinese

# ? Apr 12, 2024 23:49

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud: Apr 7, 2003

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-removes-millions-children-medicaid-1889546

quote:

Texas dropped 1.3 million children from Medicaid, according to recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).

The numbers from this month reveal at least 19.6 million Medicaid enrollees had been taken off their plans across the country. That's roughly 30 percent of enrollees since Medicaid began its cutting process. The change permits states to remove Americans who are no longer eligible for the health care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, recipients were automatically reenrolled for the next year.

However, not all states were equally as aggressive during the process. While Texas kicked off the highest number of Medicaid enrollees, other states saw moderate decreases.

Southern states like Texas and South Carolina have been vocal in targeting people in the process that are no longer believed to be eligible or did not respond to renewal requests during the pandemic.

Texas kicked off 2.1 million Medicaid enrollees and kept on 1.9 million. That was highly concentrated among children, who made up 65 percent of the unenrolled.

gently caress Texas and gently caress America

# ? Apr 13, 2024 00:09

DJJIB-DJDCT: Feb 1, 2024

Otherwise, 1885-1914.

# ? Apr 13, 2024 00:10

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud: Apr 7, 2003

That nationwide Medicaid disenrollment number is nearly 6% of the entire population

# ? Apr 13, 2024 00:10

Skaffen-Amtiskaw: Jun 24, 2023

FF is the guy in every time travel movie that wants to stay behind at the end when the plot has concluded. Be it mopping up Romans at Syracuse then dying of gangrene, mopping up English knights in 14th century France and dying of gangrene, or mopping up Biff Tannen in 1885 and dying of high velocity lead poisoning. And gangrene.

# ? Apr 13, 2024 00:21

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:

That nationwide Medicaid disenrollment number is nearly 6% of the entire population

Turns out when you remove the gatekeeping & means-testing for free healthcare, people enroll in it.

Sucks to be them now, though--especially since a lot of the disenrollments were due to bureaucratic bullshit like notices being mailed to addresses on file that were no longer correct.

# ? Apr 13, 2024 00:25

DJJIB-DJDCT: Feb 1, 2024

Skaffen-Amtiskaw posted:

FF is the guy in every time travel movie that wants to stay behind at the end when the plot has concluded. Be it mopping up Romans at Syracuse then dying of gangrene, mopping up English knights in 14th century France and dying of gangrene, or mopping up Biff Tannen in 1885 and dying of high velocity lead poisoning. And gangrene.

Gangrene ⚖️ 1990 Mary Steenburgen

# ? Apr 13, 2024 00:27