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If You Could Choose Your Birth Year

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I would choose the year 1900. It's a nice round number, and I wish that I had been alive to witness some of the great events of the 20th century. People who lived in that century witnessed 2 wars in which the fate of the entire world was at stake, the atomic bomb, the Civil Rights movement, the moon landing, Viet Nam, and the fall of the Berlin wall, if they were lucky enough to live that long. They also lived alongside some of the most recognizable names in recent history, such as Hitler, Stalin, FDR, Churchill, and Einstein. I know that quite a few of these are not exactly what we would call "happy days" but, even so, it would be interesting to have lived through so much history. I was born in 1982 and, as such, the only 2 really important world-changing events of my lifetime are the fall of the Berlin wall (which I barely even remember) and 9/11.

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I would choose the year 2200.  By then the society should be mostly Objectivist leaning and there'll be many more freedoms, opportunities, wealth, and capacity for happiness.

"Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today."

I'm going to go with 1979, the year I was born. Why? Because I think attempts to come up with a "best year" to be born are highly suspect. A truly moral person does not desire the impossible.

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I would choose the year 2200.  By then the society should be mostly Objectivist leaning and there'll be many more freedoms, opportunities, wealth, and capacity for happiness.

I choose my birthdate 1977 and I choose to help create an Objectivist society in my lifetime.

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You can wish something impossible would happen, as long as you know that it won't.

The correct statement is “one can wish for anything, as long as it is possible.” Wishing for heaven or wishing without a commitment to action is self-delusion – wishing for heaven on earth is the essense of being human.

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I would choose the year 1900.  It's a nice round number, and I wish that I had been alive to witness some of the great events of the 20th century.  People who lived in that century witnessed 2 wars in which the fate of the entire world was at stake, the atomic bomb, the Civil Rights movement, the moon landing, Viet Nam, and the fall of the Berlin wall, if they were lucky enough to live that long.  They also lived alongside some of the most recognizable names in recent history, such as Hitler, Stalin, FDR, Churchill, and Einstein.  I know that quite a few of these are not exactly what we would call "happy days" but, even so, it would be interesting to have lived through so much history.  I was born in 1982 and, as such, the only 2 really important world-changing events of my lifetime are the fall of the Berlin wall (which I barely even remember) and 9/11.

You would also probably be drafted into WWI...

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You can wish something impossible would happen, as long as you know that it won't.  By your standard, it's wrong to desire an immediate return to unbridled Capitalism, just because you know it isn't going to happen.

This is, in fact, precisely my standard. I would like to have a return to laissez-faire capitalism as soon as possible. One cannot detach ends from means. Wishing for the impossible is the same as desiring the unearned.

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I thought about the question. At first, I thought the last thing I’d want is to be born in 1900- because given my personal family history, I would probably have died at some nazi death camp, or be stuck at Stalin’s Russia. But then I thought that that’s the wrong way to approach this: I need to think at what time, in the western world (because I don’t know about the "other worlds" enough), would I have the best chance to be an individualist; just to live my life according to my opinions and my choice.

And I came to the sort-of-weird conclusion that now is the time. Despite all the collectivism in the world and growth of welfare state, and wars etc. - for some reason society is getting less and less controlling on individual life. In this sense, this is a better time than the 19th century: despite the sort-of laissez faire perception that dominated a lot of Europe and the US back then, society still made many restrictions on the individual that do not exist today. If I imagined that I was a businessman, I would possibly want to live then, but as an individual who is born only with himself and his reason? I think now is the time.

Edit: changed a word

Edited by A.A
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To all those saying that it's wrong to wish for something outside your power:

"If I could be granted a wish outside my power, it would be to meet and talk to someone like her again; unfortunately, I do not expect this wish to come true."

-Leonard Peikoff, My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand

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