When would you choose to be reborn?

A few days ago, Dina Pomeranz published a quick poll on Twitter:

And in an auto-reply, Pomeranz added: "Anyone voting other than 2010, would love to know why. E.g. in 1950 most likely you'd be born into colonization." Other comments under the tweet were  also quite explicit, ranging from "what a silly trivial poll" to "why not mention 2100?". Some other comments ask for more details on the thought experiment: should it include gender or race?

The result of the poll should not be surprising for any economist, since the standard of living has been continuously growing for centuries and the probable Pomeranz's followers are mostly economists. Some of them founds the poll to be a nice example of a "Rawlsian Twitter survey featuring the veil of ignorance."

I have doubts about both the poll and the thought experiment. As written above, there is a huge selection bias in the sample (the respondents are probably mostly economists, at least academics or educated people); there is also a "recency bias" as suggested by a commentator on Twitter (we better know recent than past events). Above all, the poll is not a real experiment of the veil of ignorance. The crude version of the veil of ignorance refers to how to process to collective choices in a society/economy, the idea being that in choosing the best allocation "no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like". Here the poll proposes a pseudo veil of ignorance experiment since you do not have to choose your preferred collective allocation but your personal position in a real, partially known, environment which is quite different. And you cannot abstract (as an economist, or at least as an educated person) from this information.

Quite obviously, to each contradictor, it is easy to reply: "hey you, do you really want to be reborn in a world where you have a 50% chances to survive your 5th birthday?" But who are we to decide that the life of a child, even short, is not worth to leave? Who are we to consider that the condition of a black female slave in the 1900s is less valuable than the position of, say, a distinguished male economic professor in the US today? It happens that I have been reading Afrotopia, an excellent essay (in French) written by a former colleague (and student) of mine in Orléans, Fellwine Sarr. It stresses the injonction for development that the economists of developed countries have been imposing on the African countries for decades and sheds some invigorating light on how the African economies can find their own path to well being, which includes non-market solutions and institutions relying on traditional networks.

For sure, if I have to be reborn I would not choose to be an economist. Any time.