I got it pretty bad being born in 1989 because of my ancestry, and I cannot imagine going through what my Dads generation went through. The only people I see taking this deal likely exist in a position of great privilege and excess because they are the only ones who may improve their conditions by going backwards.
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Yeah as someone with that privilege it would be cool to go back for nothing else to help with movements like civil rights or hell go back to reconstruction and do it right this time. Don't let the losers stay in power this time.
While this idea has good intentions, the "privileged savior" is a toxic one. It assumes that your help would be accepted, appreciated, and necessary to "do things right". It also assumes that you wouldn't fall in line with the majority for your own safety, which I am willing to bet is more likely than not given the measures taken against those who supported those movements.
So, should they NOT be an ally for the marginalized?
Sure, there will always be toxic people virtue signaling for attention, but it's not any less toxic to shame someone when they are legitimately trying to help.
So, should they NOT be an ally for the marginalized?
Show me where I said this.
Sure, there will always be toxic people virtue signaling for attention, but it’s not any less toxic to shame someone when they are legitimately trying to help.
This is about a very specific example, i.e. going back in time to "do it right this time", and I can assert with a high degree of certainty that any random "privileged" person leaving our current time would not be up to the task of helping those causes.
Realistically, yes, I don't think one more person would make a huge difference and change the world any sooner. But calling someone toxic for wanting to try does not feel helpful for anyone.
But calling someone toxic for wanting to try does not feel helpful for anyone.
Show me where I called someone toxic.
While this idea has good intentions, the "privileged savior" is a toxic one.
And I'm done with this. Have a great day.
Notice how I said "idea" and not "person".
No need to act offended over your misunderstanding. Check your emotions before engaging people in the future.
Take care.
This is very true the idea would not be the savor but just a pair of hands to help. Also in this scenario remember I know the future so i could have a greater impact but just having that information. You also have to remember there were some white people that were icons in the civil rights movement. It was not about one race clawing it's way up against another race. It was people of both races coming together against inequality and bigotry. If an ally is turned away just because they are white then it's just a race war and the ownership class win.
This is very true the idea would not be the savor but just a pair of hands to help. Also in this scenario remember I know the future so i could have a greater impact but just having that information.
What can you do that would benefit a movement in the 1960's?
What information do you have that could change any of the outcomes, how would that information change the outcome specifically, and why do you believe changing history wouldn't negatively impact the progress of those movements?
Saving 4 innocent girls from a church fire would be a start. The rest I will take my cues from quantum leap and just try my best to do right with once went wrong.
If you don’t retain your knowledge are you even you?
Philosophy of self is weird.
This is such an interesting point I've never heard come up before, wow
You should watch The Good Place. It comes up there once and I've thought about it randomly ever since.
In 1979, a LOT of people would not have the rights they have today, and others would lose medicine that keeps them alive.
I counter that we all weren't born late enough.
Some folks would have easier access to their drugs though. Pre war on drugs might have some benefits
I don't have high hopes for our future to want to have been born much later... climate change, economic crisis and who knows what else are already at the door.
It'll get better eventually.
if i was cis and stayed white i'd vibe in 1950s or something. but as a trans person hell nah, i like having some healthcare, not much but some
Stayed white? What do you mean by that?
Presumably that OP is white and in the hypothetical they would remain white
That makes more sense than what I was imagining by a mile, you're probably right.
Oh hell yeah. I'll take 1949, please. 18 years old during the summer of love? Sign me up and drop me off at Haight and Ashbury.
I can't have been born earlier, I'd be dead! I was in the nicu for like several weeks.
I feel the inverse. I kinda want to see what it would be like to be born, like, one million years into the future, or something like that.
Born to whom? The species will be long extinct by then.
Im fairly doubtful of that tbh.
I'd be shocked if we last another millennium. But a million years? Wow that's very generous of you. I mean we haven't been around that long even.
Frankly, I would not be terribly surprised if some descendant of our species, almost certainly incredibly, unimaginably divergent from what we are now but still someone, literally dies with the universe, however that ends up ending.
I'd say 1975 was a damned sweet spot for me. Medicine had advanced literally just enough that the life saving surgery I had at birth was a success. I had access to but was forced into the tech and comms revolution. Was right in time for the second wave of skating boarding, and got to be in on the very ground floor of snowboarding.
I honestly can't think of a better time to have been born.