Best Career for the Times

If my prime was between these other dates, I'd have been:

• 1974-2000, Desktop Software Engineer: Because there was no web, but we did have computers, so, duh.


• 1946-1973, Journalist: I always wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid and I think this would've been a good time for it. Newspapers were still going strong, and news was really for the first time being propagated worldwide in virtual real-time. There was also a lot of interesting news to cover between McCarthyism, The Cold War, The Cultural Revolutions of the 60's, Vietnam, and finally: Nixon.


• 1910-1945, Pilot: Flying seems like fun, but nowadays being a Pilot is probably like being a computer administrator. This would've been the time to fly a plane, when it was a prop-engine you and your mechanic buddy built and flew over the local farmland. Crashing was something you could reasonably survive, and not crashing was an act of true skill.


• 1860-1909, Biologist: This was the golden age for biology. Darwin figured out evolution, and Mendel figured out genetics. The world of biology was ripe for innovative thinking and new discoveries once mankind figured out the explanation for life in general.


• 1760-1860, Politician: The time of Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine. When slavery was being disputed, and strong democratic nations were emerging. The French Revolution gave us such things as the metric system, and was easily as interesting as our own.


• 1600 - 1760, Astronomer: Newton had just invented the Telescope, so unless you were extremely good at like reverse-engineering trigonometry (ahem Copernicus) this was your first opportunity to really discover new things about the cosmos. Everything from binary star systems to other galaxies to about a bajillion new stars were discovered during this time period.


• 1350 - 1600, Mathematician: Back before the really brilliant bastards made math impossible to advance. This was the period when logarithms and trigonometry were invented. It would've been a fun time to explore the edges of mathematical understanding. Trying to advance math beyond Newton is just too hard.


• 100 - 1350, Inventor of mechanical novelties for my village/town: Well there probably wasn't much else to do, and the inventor-person was probably revered and fairly indispensable so maybe I'd have gotten a nice house or first pick of slave when we conquered new villages and such.


• 400 BC - 100, Philosopher: Ahh the greeks and romans. Science would've been fun too but they were more into Philosophy and I like to be a man of the times. Also there's huge fame potential for this period. I really don't think Aristotle/Plato/Socrates deserve the amount of fame they've achieved for their silly philosophical crap.


• Hominid - 400BC, Simple tool maker for my tribe/family: Again, not much else to do. I'd have been bored, and so might as well try to make some tools. Depending on how far back we go, I might have been interested in trying to figure out how to make fire or wheeled carriages.