Ask Lemmy

Having a bad/infected tooth and no modern dentistry tech is already a dealbreaker for me. Then there’s all the wars, disease, and lack of sanitation. So no thanks, I’d rather live as a normal person in the modern era.

Definitely now considering I wouldn't have even made it to 10 years old before dying if it wasn't for modern surgery. Would have probably died for unknown reasons to them and I probably would have been marked as having been possessed by some sort of evil spirit or demon if for whatever reason they cut me open and found the weird growth attached to my heart.

No Toilets and ac is a deal breaker

As a woman, I'll stay right here, thanks.

If there's one thing I've learned from history, it's that the monarchs who didn't constantly plot and scheme were at risk to being overthrown by their noble subjects. I hate politics; I hate incessant meetings, and being a monarch always sounds like just constant meetings, all day, every day. Everyone wants to talk to you, get something from you, scheme with you; and it they aren't scheming with you, you really have to worry, because they're off scheming against you.

It sounds tedious and horrible.

Can I take my chances and live like a peasant 500 years in the future?

I figure either the world won't exist and I dodge all the existential crap that is fretting death, or I get to fly in spaceships like one flies coach today and maybe conditions will have improved for the bottom 10%.

For context in 1525:

King of England: Henry VIII (with all the wives)

King of France: Francis I (with all the fighting the Holy Roman Empire and Pope)

King of Spain: Charles V (with all the being Holy Roman Emperor and inbreeding)

Emperor of China: Jiajing (with all the torturing and murdering dissenters)

Edit: I chose these 4 because between them they were monarchs of the 4 most powerful countries in the world at the time, especially Charles of Spain and Jiajing of China but France and England were soon poised to eclipse the others.

100% now, I'm an average person and so many average people I know live a far better life than most kings 500 years ago.

they can travel around the globe at whim, enjoy different cultures, learn just about any subject without restriction and don't have any responsibilities they don't choose to carry.

I'd like to believe that I have it in me to be a benevolent monarch, but I know myself well enough to tell that I am entirely too human for that.

I'd rather not see how rotten I could get with power unbound, and my current conscience wouldn't let me impose that on whoever I'd be ruling over, so modern-day-meh life it is.

Live average today for sure. If I was a monarch I'd probably be responsible for the deaths of lots of people both intentionally and unintentionally. There's a big chance I'd have to go to war too and that's like not really my vibe.

Current era. No question.

Before antibiotics, the most common cause of death was infectious disease.

Modern era. Living 5 centuries in the past would suck. No germ theory of disease so everyone is ignorant regarding the importance of washing hands and basic cleanliness. Anything wrong with you? Better get the leeches to balance your humors. Uh oh, stubbed my toe. Guess I'll just die.

The only caveat is if you get to know what you do now and can transform society because of it. As King I'd either bring about the Renaissance within a decade instead of centuries unless I was branded a heretic by the Church and beheaded for flapping my mouth.

Average person now, hands down. I like being able to live my life knowing I'm not surrounded by people who want to kill me.

Can we live as neither and poof from existence?

Well I'm already doing the former, so I might as well try out the latter.

Live now. Because 500 years ago I would have died as a child from pneumonia that was easily treated these days

I‘d actally choose the monarch 500yrs ago.

Not because it is a better life. Probably I‘d de better off as the average person I am now. But it is absolutely exiting to get to explore and get to know the world. Everything is in a flow, the world is both changing and stable at the same time.

And i wouldn‘t see our world and climate die, i would see it blossom, awaken.

Can I try the King thing for a week or so, and come back when I get bored?

Now for sure. I want as much life as I can get so modern medicine is a must. I'm taking 2 different medications without which I would die sooner rather than later, so that's just a non-starter. I at least have a chance of being born in a country with good healthcare today, but that's just not an option 500 years ago.

I’d rather live today. Why? Toilet paper and antibiotics. That’s why.

https://www.history.com/articles/royal-palace-life-hygiene-henry-viii

The Western European belief that baths were unhealthy did not help matters, either. Although neat freak Henry VIII bathed often and changed his undershirts daily, he was a royal rarity. Louis XIV is rumored to have bathed twice in his life, as did Queen Isabella of Castile, Herman says. Marie-Antoinette bathed once a month. The 17th century British King James I was said to never bathe, causing the rooms he frequented to be filled with lice.

It was the Sun King himself, Louis XIV, whose choice to no longer travel from court to court would lead to a particularly putrid living situation. In 1682, in an effort to seal his authority and subjugate his nobles, Louis XIV moved his court permanently to the gilded mega-palace of Versailles. At times over 10,000 royals, aristocrats, government officials, servants and military officers lived in Versailles and its surrounding lodgings.

Despite its reputation for magnificence, life at Versailles, for both royals and servants, was no cleaner than the slum-like conditions in many European cities at the time. Women pulled up their skirts up to pee where they stood, while some men urinated off the balustrade in the middle of the royal chapel. According to historian Tony Spawforth, author of Versailles: A Biography of a Palace, Marie-Antoinette was once hit by human waste being thrown out the window as she walked through an interior courtyard.

The heavily trafficked latrines often leaked into the bedrooms below them, while blockages and corrosion in the palace’s iron and lead pipes were known to occasionally “poison everything” in Marie-Antoinette’s kitchen. “Not even the rooms of the royal children were safe,” writes Spawforth. An occasional court exodus could have reduced the wear and tear on Versailles, perhaps leading to fewer unpleasant structural failures.

This unsanitary way of living no doubt led to countless deaths throughout royal European households. It was not until the 19th century that standards of cleanliness and technological developments improved life for many people, including members of royal courts. Today, many European royals still move from residence to residence—but for pleasure, not to try and outrun squalor.

I'll pick the today option. My reasons have already been stated by many: political instability as a monarch, medicine, modern day commodities, etc.

But also, think about entertainment. Today we have a nearly infinite stream of entertainment at our disposal. Movies, songs, videogames, books. 500 years ago none of that existed. So there's yet another reason.

Now. Especially if I’d upgrade to a life of an average person! I have adhd and recurring clinical depression that cause all sorts of problems, and have done so for all my life. I assume the average would be not to have those, at least not together, I hope. (Edit: but on the other hand the average person would have significantly worse situation, forgot to check my privilege in that regard, so thought I’d explicitly state my acknowledgement here)

But even if I continued as myself, I would 100% choose what I have over a circa 1500 monarch. That’s not even tough a choice to make.

The only reason I can see anyone would choose the monarch life is if they enjoyed (undeserved and unwarranted) authority and power over others. I loathe the concept to begin with, so it’s really not even a choice.

Would I be dead rather than a monarch at that time? Now that one is tougher. I’d probably rather check out the world at that point of time, maybe attempt some sort of progressive rule, but I’d be dead before I can get anything meaningful done, I bet. If not by rivals desiring the crown, then just the lack of antibiotics and whatnot. And if I retain my adhd and depression, yeah, I’m fairly likely to just off myself before soon…

Edit: Continuing from the initial edit above; While I’d probably be mentally more stable and healthy, I’d probably have a lot of other problems that I would rather not deal with. So all in all, I would hope there would be an option for things to stay as they are. I am privileged, living in a privileged situation, healthy other than mentally, so I believe I have it better than any average at any point of history, and furthermore, better than even the richest monarchs back in the time. It is sad that this is the reality, but then again, I did not choose this life, and I suppose the appropriate response to being forced to it, is acknowledge the privileges and try and make the world just a little bit better with what little resources I have as an individual and a member of several social circles and hierarchies.

The parasitic hell everyone lived through back then I'll gladly take today.

yes—I live a crummy individualized american lifestyle and can’t afford to rent an apartment by myself, but at least I got neat toys and don’t have to manage an entire country based on vague hand waving and hoping my generals / confidants / consultants / children don’t have plans to kill me before I sell any daughters to a rival power in hopes of assuaging that looming threat.

That being said, it would be nice if a certain orange man baby met with some renaissance justice just to drive home the point.

My answer is current era regardless, but do we keep our memories and go back, or is it as if we were born in that era? If you went back 500 years with the knowledge that the Super Nintendo and the Internet exist (the two inventions we have that they didn't have in the 1500s), that would be unpleasant. But if you didn't know that and were accustomed to getting your entertainment from court jesters and public hangings, I guess that would be slightly less awful.

Like everybody else has said, there's a lot of things we have now (by which I mean two) that are better than anything there was 500 years ago, even for monarchs. Regardless of whether I knew about those things in monarch form, the version of me that's making the decision knows, so ... nah.