Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Here's your deal, you are offered $10,000,000 dollars if you were willing to live in the 50s. Say from January 1st 1950-January 1st 1955. You don't have to pay taxes on it and all your other bills would be fully paid so house/vehicles/luxury items such as a boat, everything. And you also get a very nice retirement where you'd never have to worry about retiring, you could retire wherever you want very comfortably. Also, once you got back you'd never have to pay taxes on anything for the rest of your life.
So for all of that would you be willing to spend 5 years in the 50s?
Unless there's an intended catch here that you're saving to spring on us at the last minute...uhm, I'll do you one better; I'll spend 1949 through 1969 and not ask for anything more than what you've already offered.
I would then invent nanotubes using sticky tape and number 2 pencils, which is how it was actually invented. I would then make millions of dollars and leave strict instructions to invest in Commodore until 1984, Microsoft until 1999, BlackBerry until 2007 and then just take the money out and provide me my funds as I retire.
I then would get to see what wonderful things they were making with nanotubes by now.
Here's your deal, you are offered $10,000,000 dollars if you were willing to live in the 50s. Say from January 1st 1950-January 1st 1955. You don't have to pay taxes on it and all your other bills would be fully paid so house/vehicles/luxury items such as a boat, everything. And you also get a very nice retirement where you'd never have to worry about retiring, you could retire wherever you want very comfortably. Also, once you got back you'd never have to pay taxes on anything for the rest of your life.
So for all of that would you be willing to spend 5 years in the 50s?
I would do it for NOTHING, as long as my husband can come with me!
Assuming you don't get the money until you do the 5 years, and you can go back early if you forfeit the money, I wonder if we flip this around and offer a white man from the 1950's the equivalent of 10 million in 50's money (500K) to come live in the years 2010-2015, would he be able to hack it? I think he might have a more difficult time than the woman sent back from our time to the 50's and would probably opt to return within a very short time. I think many 50's people, not just white males, would find the culture, social conditions and technology to be so sickening/overwhelming they would also bale out and pass on the money. I would even bet a large percentage of black people from the 50's might not like it here either and choose to go back early. Assuming in all these situations the people would have to start from scratch in their new environment, no starter bucks.
No. I already lived 10 years in the 50s, and that was enough. I wouldn't like having to wear girdles and stockings when I went to work or putting my hair up in pin curls every night. I would feel confined by having to wear dresses except at home or on weekends. Easy-care fabrics were not common, and most everyday clothing required ironing. And if you needed birth control, good luck. What options existed were unreliable, and if you were unmarried, almost impossible to obtain.
I would miss the easy availability of good wines and gourmet food that we take for granted now. Takeout food options were limited. There were no fast food chains as we know them today. The coffee in the 1950s was awful, too. It was usually percolated, and it was not very good compared to what I'm used to. The only decaf available was Sanka, which was bland and tasteless. Ethnic food choices were pretty much limited to pizza, spaghetti, chili, tacos or chow mein.
I also would get bored quickly with a steady diet of 50s TV shows, not to mention the small screens and inferior picture and sound quality. Some of the TV shows were excellent, but a lot of them were silly, mediocre or just plain awful. The radio would be better, though. Those were the days of local DJ's, and radio was a lot more fun to listen to.
Most of all, I would miss being able to go online. In those days if you needed to look something up, you had to go through card catalogs in the library and search through microfilmed newspapers. If you needed to communicate with someone out of town, it was a slow process. You had to write letters (first class rates were 4 cents/oz.) or postcards.
If it was urgent, you could either send a telegram or pay very steep rates for long-distance telephone calls. Average people didn't usually call long-distance except in emergencies. If you were using the telephone you were tethered by a cord that went into the wall. Wireless phones didn't exist yet. A lot of people still had party lines, which meant that you had to share one phone line with several neighbors.
If you wanted to buy something, there was no eBay or Amazon. You were limited to whatever was for sale at stores in your local area or else you could mail order from the Sears catalog or Montgomery Ward. There were some door-to-door sellers such as Jewel or Fuller Brush, but again their offerings were limited.
The one thing that would be pretty cool is that the cars of the 50s had style, and gas was cheap. It would be a luxury to have a uniformed attendant filling my tank, checking my oil and water and cleaning the windshield, and all for 25 to 30 cents a gallon. But I'd feel uncomfortable riding in those 50s cars without seat belts and air bags, and I would miss power steering, power windows and power brakes. Very few cars had air conditioning in those days, either, and most had only an AM radio.
Oh, and don't forget that a majority of adults smoked cigarettes in those days. There were very few restrictions, so you would be around smokers at restaurants, bars, in the movies, on airplanes, in long-distance buses and trains and just about everywhere else.
On the whole I'd say no, thanks.
Last edited by Bayarea4; 07-25-2015 at 11:00 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
