If I snapped you back in time 650 years right this very second, how would you use your current knowledge to succeed?

Submitted ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Kookie215@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

Its the 12th century and you’ve had no time to prepare, after you’re done reading this post you are snapped. What do you do?

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frozen@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Die a slow death from hyperglycemia once my pump runs out of insulin.

Infect the indigenous population with some god awful pathogen they have no defense against.

Die to a pathogen I have no defense against.

Die to the indigenous population due to being a white dude in pre-contact North America.

It uh… wouldn’t be pretty.

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seeigel@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
First I would seek the attention of the local ruler by cooking interesting dishes with modern knowledge.

Then I would ask him to create an akademy. I don’t know the details but I know what can be known. Intelligent people will reinvent the knowledge.

Some side businesses should make enough money that the akademy and thus further development doesn’t entirely rely on the king.

Build cities with public transport and no cars, because there is no car.

Success.

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- whitelobster69@lemmynsfw.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Great idea with the food. Probably won’t get called a witch while building trust. Although I have no confidence in my ability to recognize any vegetable or spice, but hopefully a brine would be enough.
  
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- PurpleSkull@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Let me cook you something AMAZING!
  
  First I need some curry…uh…okay, do you have salt? WHAT?
  
  Alright, where is the oven? Time to prepare you some amazing lasagna! Where do you keep your noodles? No noodles? I guess I can hack it with potatoes.
  
  …PO-TA-TOES! YOU…WHAT???
  
  Okay nevermind, let me show you why you need to stop spending all your money on survival in warfare and instead fund my school! I can teach you to…uh…tell you about things we have in the future. No, I don’t know how to create any of that. But trust me bro, just give me money. No need to tie me to your trebuchet like that, I’m sure I can remember how to build an airplane somehowAHHHHHHHHHH
  
  You tried.
  
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  - seeigel@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    All your points are opportunities. Some should just not be taken immediately. When in Europe, it’s not good to start with traveling earth, think Gallileo. When in America, it’s better to build weapons first before contacting Europe.
    
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sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nobody would be able to understand me because English has diverged so far from 12th century English that it’s a different language. Also I’d be in north America where nobody had even seen a white person. Additionally, I’m 20 ft above the ground right now in a building that didn’t exist back then. Finally, I’d be rightfully blamed for bringing plague to the native tribes of the area and likely killed.

Assuming those hurdles were all cleared: I’m a mechanical engineer. So, I’d tell the natives where iron ore, coal, and oil was buried and how to extract and refine it. Tell them how to make gunpowder. Speed run making steam engines and lathes. Get north american natives armed, industrialized, and organized against the external European threat.

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- PurpleSkull@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Tell them how to make gunpowder.
  
  That right here is all you need. If you can actually forge a gun and show them how to make gunpowder, you don’t need anything else. Although even then you would probably be executed shortly after for being a threat to the nobility.
  
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phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’d probably be dead in no time for a long list of reasons

First of all, nobisy would be able to understand me, as even current English would be barely recognizable by them

Then there is the issue that I’m probably at least a foot taller than most people and let’s just say that “being even remotely different” back then was a good reason to be killed

Then there is the food issue. Food was scarce (hence most people being quite a bit shorter than me) so it’d be hard to keep myself fed. Clean water? Hah, good luck with that.

Then there is the issue of diseases. I probably carry shit that their bodies won’t be able to handle, si being around me will likely make people sick, which in turn will get me labeled as a witch which would get me tortured and burned. Similarly but conversely, loads of diseases that were rampant back then are now gone, and likely my body is less equipped to handle that, I’d die from some disease

Ignoring all of that…

I’d probably start spreading the knowledge of democracy, and the harms of religion, and how important it is to immediately kill kings or king wannabes. I’d make a library with a vast wealth of knowledge and give access to the first country that successfully transforms itself to a representative atheist democracy with laws in place to ensure that no king, fascist, or wannabe will ever be able to rise up again.

That country would become the dominant world power within decades, spreading democracy and science over the world.

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Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Uhh anyone know where to get estrogen injections in the 14th century?

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- Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I bet there is a crunchy mom that can tell you what plant to eat, but there’s like a 70/30 chance its gonna kill you instead.
  
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  - Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Better odds than having my body change back, sooooo …
    
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Gustephan@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I could probably discover electricity, depending on where I landed. Jewelers of the time could make wire, copper was common, and magnets (lodestones) had been discovered. Realistically though I’d be a dumb giant (ie, speak no known languages of the time and statistically I’d have like a foot on the “tall” people of the era). I’d probably try to find some party trick that looked like magic to people of the era then hope that people would welcome and try to integrate me rather than burning me as a witch. Then I’d probably die in a week or two anyway to some disease lol

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- Damage@feddit.it ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Coating wires to make windings may prove tricky tho
  
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- Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The party trick thing reminded me of a book series called Magic 2.0 that I read a while back . This guy figures out that the universe is a simulation and basically hacks the code; now he can jump through time as he pleases. He goes back to the Middle Ages and brings plastic wrap with him and calls it clear paper, which convinces everyone that he’s a wizard. It was a fun read but got dumb around the 3rd-ish book.
  
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TheDoozer@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Well, I’m in America, so…

I guess I’d prep the natives to help put up a proper fight. Find a way to teach them that white people (like myself) carry diseases and to stay away and keep them away. If they land on your shores, drive them back. Never let them get a foothold. I’d try to convince them that I was a demon that got away from the other demons to warn of our coming.

I’d do my best to make it so nobody remembered the name Christopher Columbus except as the idiot that died because he thought the world was much smaller than it is and never returned from his voyage.

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- JcbAzPx@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Most likely, you’d just start their mass depopulation pandemic a bit earlier.
  
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- phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  white people (like myself) carry diseases
  
  Congratulations, you already killed them all
  
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mriormro@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’d kill your ancestors.

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- Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Don’t threaten me with a good time.
  
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Milk@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’d be dead in the vacuum of space. You never mentioned that I’d just go back in time, you forgot the coordinates. Now I’m floating, dead. Thanks man.

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- zenforyen@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This. Once you understand enough about the universe how all coordinates are relative and everything is moving relative to everything else… Like, how the fuck is time travel supposed to work it it was anywhere like this naive movie idea of it? Time travel Hollywood style is literally not a continuous operation and as such absolutely unphysical.
  
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  - PoppyChulo@lemmy.wtf ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well since all cordninates are realative, and your relative position to earth is unchanging, wouldn’t that mean that everything else moves around you while you and the earth stand still and go back in time?
    
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DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Start a cult.

Everything I’ve seen for the last decade indicates it’s pretty easy and highly profitable.

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- Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  and you have all the knowledge of what cults already took off like wildfire. Mormonism for example, that shit is gold.
  
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  - turmacar@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You don’t even have to show the gold. Just say you saw it and it’s now in that tent over there. No you can’t go in. This is what was written on it though. Oh it’s in a language only I can read. Don’t worry, I’ll translate. Give me your wife.
    
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BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
find the nearest sword and belly flop on its pointy side

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djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t think I know a single language from the time, so I’m probably getting murdered because I’m a strange foreigner who can’t defend themselves with words.

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humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t know how to refine oil, but knowing that its refinable into diesel/gasoline is a pretty good start to looking for it. A head start on murdering some sperm whales for lighting industry seems easy enough to figure out. Partnering with metal smiths who might have a clue on making gun barrels, and pipe’s in general that could be used for advanced weaponry, would be an easy path to get governments to give me a ton of money for weapons research by just showing them some drawings. Doesn’t really matter if I ever figure out how to do it, just the vision of what is possible would make me richer than Musk. Richer if I can help enslave all of humanity to one empire.

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- humanspiral@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Electricity is a pretty easy concept. Steam power driving magnets and copper. That rare earths make better magnets should be easy enough to search for them. Copper wires to deliver the electricity easy AF. Can help jump start progress to late 21st century for some things.
  
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RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
That’s 1375.

Not good, not bad. Depends on where you ended up on the globe. There absolutely is civilization, but it’s all kings and Tsars and the like. The English and French Hundred Years War is winding down but the plague really did a number on Europe. Lots of war in India. It wasn’t a great time in the Middle East what with the Crusades and all. The Egyptians are conquering Armenia. The Songhai Emprire is growing in Eastern Africa. Southeast Asia had a lot of conquest and a large kingdom growing, might not have been so bad as long as you landed on the winning side. The Ming Dynasty just started in China.

So it’s not like you ended up in pre-civilization or among dinosaurs or something. There are plenty of people around, but it’s still an age of war and conquest. Your best bet to have a great life would be to ally yourself with a strong leader and give them advancements to help that leader “win”. Of course, if he were defeated, you’d be slowly tortured and killed by the opposing side.

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The_Caretaker@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I would use the superstitions of the people of the area to scare them away from me and my space. I would build a Catalan forge and a smelter that is powered by falling water. I would make gunpowder but not share the recipe. I would also distill alcohol for sale and for hygiene. I would use Leedskalnins PMH to create permanent magnets and use them to make electricity. Electric fences also help keep the superstitious barbarians away. I would also be a beekeeper.

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- Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Wow you know how to do all that stuff right now off the top of your head without books or instructions? I am impressed. I feel like the best I would be able to do alcohol wise is distilled prison hooch. Like I know the basic priceable but not the recipe.
  
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  - The_Caretaker@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    People were mining, smelting, and forging many metals 650 years ago. The forge isn’t a complicated device. A coal fire with forced air to raise the temperature. Pressurized air can be taken from falling water. There are always bubbles. Leeskalnin’s PMH is really simple. If you have copper, silver or aluminum wire and Iron, you can make a permanent magnet. Moving copper, aluminum or silver through a magnetic field gives you electricity. Bees are not too hard to keep. Make a wood house with a small entrance for them and bait the inside with some beeswax and honeycomb and you can get them to move in. I worked at a fireworks factory a long time ago. Gunpowder is not hard to make. Finding potassium nitrate would be the hard part.
    
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Bieren@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nothing. I’d sit under an tree and enjoy the peace and quiet. No trump. No DC. No MAGA. No reporters. No non stop ads. No social media. No Google. No Elon. No bezos. The list goes on. Sure I’d probably die of some random disease or bandits. But I’d be okay with it at that point.

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- Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  you might well also die from being called to arms to fight for your king… sadly we won’t be rid of tyrants until we collectively oust them and ensure they are never allowed to rise to power again.
  
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- jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Well you can do that today. Find a tree out in the middle of nowhere and sit under it without any electronic devices. Then you are oblivious to all that stuff. You may be bothered by the fact that the things are still happening, but there are also plenty of horrific things happening in that time period you went to, you just won’t be keeping track of them.
  
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  - agent_nycto@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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  - Zink@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Well you can do that today. Find a tree out in the middle of nowhere and sit under it without any electronic devices. Then you are oblivious to all that stuff.
    
    There is much wisdom buried in what seems like a simple comment here.
    
    Even if you aren’t in the middle of nowhere, you can find or create your oasis.
    
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dotson@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
probably die

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- Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The chances of that do seem to be high.
  
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redwattlebird@lemmings.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Well, I’m in Australia so I would try and communicate with the indigenous population and teach them how to defend themselves against the upcoming colonist invasion and take advantage of what they have to offer, starting with forcing a signed treaty.

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- Soggy@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  American here: governments have never cared about signed treaties with natives. But your heart’s in the right place.
  
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  - redwattlebird@lemmings.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thanks. I think they do ok in New Zealand though with the Maori.
    
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Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’d be dead since the Earth wasn’t in the same position 650 years ago. Even taking that out of the equation, I’d die since I can’t communicate with anyone and don’t have the survival skills.

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- Probius@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Actually, position and velocity are relative, so that’s a nonsensical statement without defining a reference object for the Earth’s position. If we’re not assuming you end up safely on dry land, you could just as easily end up light-years away as wherever you were relative to the sun.
  
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  - isyasad@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Actually 🤓 if we use the sun as our reference, they could not be light years away and would in fact be relatively close to the Earth, the distance being at most the diameter of Earth’s orbit, which even at most is less than 20 light minutes.
    
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- dotson@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  ah, someone who understands that celestial bodies change spatial positions with time… nice
  
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WhatSay@slrpnk.net ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’d go live in a cabin in the forest, again.

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Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Well, first I’d have to learn Old English, I think. Hell, even Middle English isn’t understandable.

Hopefully I could get up to speed before they locked me up, or worse.

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- Soggy@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Middle English is understandable. It’s tricky and there are lots of unexpected differences but you’d get used to it. This is right at the edge of Early Modern English and the Great Vowel Shift.
  
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  - Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I dunno, I’ve listened to some Middle English on a History of English podcast, and could follow along only slightly. I’m sure I could come up to speed quickly, since it at least has the French influence already (if I remember right).
    
    I’m not familiar with the great vowel shift, is that a result of the Norman invasion in 1066, adding French into Old English? (That’s the sequence, right? It’s been a while since I read about it).
    
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kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I would basically become a Jewish witch and either build a small community of people or die of some ancient plague, either way I wouldn’t be thriving but I might just survive.

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Apeman42@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Try to find the nearest shaman, apothecary or herbalist and trade my future clothes/pocket contents for some hallucinogens and painless poison. I ain’t living through a time before electricity.

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xylogx@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You would die. There are many, many examples of explorers from “advanced” civilizations getting shipwrecked or stranded in an area where primitive hunter-gatherers live. Unless they are saved by the hunter gatherers, they are doomed, despite their knowledge of science and technology. Joseph Henrich talks extensively about these examples in his book, “The Secret of Our Success”

Check out this video to get an idea -> m.youtube.com/watch?v=jaoQh6BoH3c

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- Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  ah yes the famous hunter-gatherers of the 14th century…
  
  considering the modern population distribution, the vast majority of people would end up in places that were large urban areas even back then.
  
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- RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, but what about you?
  
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  - xylogx@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Of course I want to think I would do better. Maybe I would manage to integrate with the local indigenous people, but the reality is I would likely die. Either way my knowledge of science and “advanced” civilization will benefit me not at all.
    
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untakenusername@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I reread the Bitcoin paper yesterday, so with my newly refreshed knowledge id find the nearest mathimation, explain it to them, implement the protocol with paper records, handwritten hashes, and messages on horseback or something. After a few years when every major economic power realizes how valuable a deflationary currency that Mansa Musa doesn’t control (14th century african gold-salt bazzilionare, ~400 bill USD today), the price of my currency would increase vastly, making me super rich.

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- Evotech@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  So dead
  
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  - untakenusername@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    other people would probably have a higher chance of dying than me from the immunity I’ve got and all the diseases I carry
    
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GreenKnight23@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
establish a new culture in the Americas that will unify and kill European settlers on sight.

teach the native Americans about the future they’re preventing

teach them European science, politics, history, economics, etc

give them a technological advantage that will set them ahead of Europe by 650 years by teaching them manufacturing skills.

basically, I want to destroy white colonialism. we have a toxic culture that honestly doesn’t deserve to exist on a planet it wants to destroy.

I’m also curious to see how North America would turn out after 650 years have passed after I have achieved my goals.
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altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m building a boat to go find the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria to sink them real good. Then nuke China and Ruzzia at their palaces. Same to every “kingdom”. That’s what they all deserve. Complete erasure from history. Instead people would just know that there used to be an asshole who wanted everyone to work and give him all the money.

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thermal_shock@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Well I be naked, so would need to make/steal clothing very quickly

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ChillPenguin@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I would make an IT startup.

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AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Probably not the answer you thought, but succeed by knowing there are wild animals that could easily kill me. It’s either I die by that, or wait until the lack of my blood thinners kills me, sl I’d definitely take the quicker death than the slower one.

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