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

Comments

• softcat@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  die almost immediately

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  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, this. I have medications I need. When the pair of contacts in my eyes fall out eventually, I’m functionally blind. All that aside, I’d probably starve quickly since I don’t know how to make weapons and other humans haven’t made it to where I live yet in 1375.

    I’d probably look around for a couple days and then when I got super hungry just find a cliff to jump off.

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  • adarza@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    and if you manage to evade physical harm, sickness will surely catch up with you. the black death was not a ‘one and done’ pandemic. it lingered and persisted here-and-there for centuries after the widespread pandemic (known today simply as ‘the plague’) that claimed 50m+ lives, including half of europe’s population at the time

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• Iheartcheese@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’d use my knowledge of the future to do two chicks at same time

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  • kmartburrito@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Fucking A

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    • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      … and B too

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    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      “I figure a guy that can time travel 650 years into the past can set something like that up”

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  • MissJinx@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    well I’m a woman so anything I do will be witchcreaft. I would probably try to get to north america in some way and warn them “the fuckers are coming”.

    that would mess up the future lol

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  • Geetnerd@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “You don’t need that knowledge to do two chicks at the same time, man.”

    “If you want two chicks to double up on a dude like me, you do.”

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    • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      “Hey ladies… Ever been with a guy who can read?”

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• rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ll probably die of dysentery. Just because I know modern hygiene rules doesn’t mean I’ll survive interacting with all the other people who don’t but are used to local bacteria and viruses.

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  • andrewta@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is probably the most realistic answer. Either you die quickly or you’d wind up, spreading some major contagious disease that nobody has a defense against and wipe out a huge section of the population.

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    • gibmiser@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      spreading some major contagious disease that nobody has a defense against and wipe out a huge section of the population.

      Image

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    • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      How do you think the boobonic plague got started?

      Yeah, it was a time traveller

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• captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’m on the Gregorian calendar, 650 years ago is the year 1375. I’m in North Carolina, so if I were to snap back in time at my present location I would be a blue eyed white guy in pre-contact North America. And while I think I’m an above average candidate for the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court scenario I’m not realistically able to start “from scratch.” I’d probably make it the summer on forage and my own body fat. I don’t picture encountering the natives going particularly well, for me or them. I’m not sick and I’m vaccinated against a lot of shit but watch I’ll give them 6 centuries worth of influenza updates.

  I don’t think it would help that much being plunked down in 14th century England; we’re talking Geoffrey Chaucer’s lifetime here, to them I’d sound insane. Modern English is a few hundred years off. If they didn’t trepan me to let the demons out of my skull and I didn’t die of smallpox, I’d try to invent the electric motor 500 years early and be burned for heresy or some shit.

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  • lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The only non-delusional answer lol

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  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, I’m here thinking my ass in America pre Columbian exchange is not doing well. Maybe if I make it clear somehow I do not want to do anything but help I could…idk, be part of a native tribe and maybe give them a slight help to the upcoming horrors for them?

    It’s not going well for anyone.

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• ultranaut@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Assuming I am physically in the same place, I will fall to my death. If I somehow survive the fall I would be severely injured and alone in the wilderness. Within a few days I would probably die of either my injuries, dehydration, or hypothermia.

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  • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Scientifically speaking, the earth is constantly moving in an upward spiral. Your exact physical location would put you in some random outerspace area without oxygen or any protection. Just floating in space until you die.

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    • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Scientifically speaking, there is no absolute reference frame. So you can be wherever you like depending on what reference you choose.

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    • pebbles@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      How do you define upwards in space? North? Or maybe normal to the orbit and vaguely north?

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• LordWiggle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I would kill everyone I meet with the plagues I carry which I’m immune to.

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  • ChairmanMeow@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You might have a bad time with all the plagues that have gone extinct since then.

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• null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Double entry accounting system.

  I’m an accountant by trade. The double entry system wasn’t invented until the 15th century.

  I could account for any lords various assets, goods, and livestock in an efficient, reliable and accurate manner

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  • jagged_circle@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Being too early to market something also leads to failure

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    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s never too early to efficiently count your sheep!

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• southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well, I would give you the answer, but since I snapped back as soon as I read the post, I’m now responding what has been 650 years later for me, and I’m too fucking old for this shit a second time. I bypassed getting snapped back this time by just not reading the post and coming straight in to comment.

  Now, what will happen if I read the

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• PahdyGnome@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  As an Australian I would struggle significantly unless you were to also transport me geographically.

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  • ptu@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I would imagine the east coast / tasmania could be interesting. There used to be hundreds of different peoples that are now extinct and we know nothing about. I struggle nevertheless.

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  • Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Fuck I think I could just vibe with the Noongars, hunting, fishing and sleeping til I died of old age.

    Maybe use basic science and chemistry to improve sanitation and quality of life. Not too much, just enough to be regarded as a clever fella, not a warra wirrin bad spirit.

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• biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Wash my hands

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  • feddup@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The definition of succeeding just becomes not dying.

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    • biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Given the rate at which people would become mentally or physically disabled because of diseases, you could argue it would have a network effect (probably a better term exists): I would have more chances to meet people and influence them, to learn something useful, to accumulate and use wealth for the above, so yeah…

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    • nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Everyone dies. You just get to try to make the leaderboards, if that’s your thing. There isn’t a killscreen that we know of.

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  • Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Now you’re a witch

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    • biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That would be a warlock I guess.

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  • jol@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Where do you wash your hands? Hope you brought a big bottle of disinfectant.

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    • biofaust@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Running water would allow for 30% reduction in bacteria, according to some sources.

      Also, in that time period soap was known in Spain, France and Italy, and I personally made it in the summer using either olive oil or pork fat.

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    • Soggy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Crude soap is easy to make. Wood ash + water + fat. From there you just fiddle with ratios and timing while trying not to burn your skin off with strong alkalinity.

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    • Thavron@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Any body of sufficiently rapidly running water should suffice.

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• MisanthropiCynic@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Die because my medications haven’t been invented yet.

  Or be murdered because I’m not christian

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• Bieren@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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  • jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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    • Zink@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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    • agent_nycto@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      [deleted]

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• BrazenSigilos@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Market myself as a powerful man of religion and/or magician, depending on the local vibe. Then use knowledge of science and tech to build myself a reclusive retreat where I can have regular baths and write books with predictions to mess with the world 650 years after I would die.

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  • andrewta@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I like your style. If you really wanna have some fun, don’t name the United States as the United States, but name the year and then say something to the effect of the most powerful nation in the world will come under rule of an authoritarian individual who has dreams of becoming a dictator.

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    • BrazenSigilos@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I love it! Predict that a large empire of equals will fall after 250 years.

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• xylogx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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  • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes, but what about you?

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    • xylogx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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• blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If I time traveled to the same geographical region, considering I'm in South Brazil, if I don't get immediately killed by some jungle animal or tropical disease, I'd probably end up starting a pandemic among the natives.

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• Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I know thousands of songs. Also, musical instruments like the saxaphone haven’t been invented yet.

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  • Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Oh I think you’re the first person to suggest music! That is a really good idea, provided you don’t die of dysentery of course.

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    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Here are some good time travel stories.

      bookshop.org/p/books/…/7282193?ean=9780553575385&…

      To Say Nothing Of The Dog. In the future, time travel is organized like the Army. The problem is that the actual travel causes a serious case of ‘jet lag.’ All the agents act like they are half-drunk and sleep deprived.

      bookshop.org/p/books/…/693820?ean=9781606644874&n…

      The Big Time. Two alien races are fighting a time war that spans all planets in the universe. Earth is a minor backwater, but the fighting is just as deadly as anywhere else. A few soldiers and entertainers are catching a few moments respite in a R + R center when the War crashes in on them.

      youtu.be/-FcK_UiVV40

      Predestination. A man is offered a chance to find and kill the guy who ruined his life. All he has to do is trust the stranger who is making the offer.

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• VinesNFluff@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  612 years in the past
  In Brazil

  Well

  As a person from modern times – From AFTER the Americas came into contact with Europe, if I went near a person here in the Land of Palms (that’s what the natives called Brazil!) from those times we’d both get horribly infected and die a lot due to how antibodies work. Viruses did a lot of the legwork in genociding the natives.

  The place I currently live in is slowly turning into a desert, but was a deep jungle back then.

  … I think I’d just die? Become food for a jaguar or sth.

  Would love to indulge in the fantasy of giving the Guarani people guns and a warning to shoot white people on sight just to see how history would change, but that ain’t happening.

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• FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I would pretend to be super-religious. Throughout the whole of human history, pretending to be super-religious has always been a viable path to survival and personal advancement.

  Apart from that, I’d probably just die.

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  • Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Oh! You could start Mormonism! Its super new as far as regions go and it was mad easy to convince the masses it was real, all you do is say you have special tablets of text that only you have been given the ability to read by God, and BAM new religion just launched and you’re the leader.

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    • meyotch@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The best way to find hidden treasure is to hide the treasure yourself!

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• wewbull@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  1375…

  We can work with metals, so we can probably make boilers.

  I invent steam power 400 years early.

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  • superkret@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You’d need metallurgy which was only invented in the process of building bigger naval guns, much later.
    The issue was pressurizing the steam, which want possible in the middle ages. You had no rubber for seals, no steal that would hold, and no tools to drill holes precisely enough.
    That’s why the Romans already used stream for simple parlor tricks but it couldn’t be made to do actual work until the modern era

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    • gibmiser@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Real science and innovation comes in increments

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    • litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      no rubber for seals

      Modern synthetic rubber would indeed be unavailable, but I vaguely recall reading something to the effect that early steam engines used leather seals or something like that.

      But yeah, there’s a lot of missing prerequisites for machinery. Even simple rotary power – like from a windmill or waterwheel – would suffer from being incapable of long distance transmission

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  • Geetnerd@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Die of bubonic plague, get killed for being a witch/warlock, die of appendicitis…

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  • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Re-invent. Your still far too late to be first.

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• Apeman42@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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• untakenusername@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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 ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    So dead

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    • untakenusername@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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• Supervisor194@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Wait 612 years and buy Microsoft.

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• schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  What place do I get teleported to? If I’m teleported to the same place on Earth, then I just fell down several meters into a swamp and am probably going to die here.

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  • Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You teleported to somewhere safe and private, you won’t fall to your death and nobody will see you lol.

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• yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I would warn the Native Americans about the Europeans

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  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Europeans would show up and my Native American homies would be armed with cartridge rifles, six shooters and a crank rotary machine gun.

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  • MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Congratulations, you just brought diseases to the new world.

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    • ikilledlaurapalmer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      LAB LEAK

      /s

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  • xylogx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If you could somehow inoculate them against smallpox you might have a fighting chance.

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  • macaw_dean_settle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Not native, just 1st to migrate. 1st Americans or Amerindians.

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    • Soggy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      If your argument is that humans can only be “native” to southeast Africa… that’s dumb. It might be defensible in an ecological sense but sociologically the word is used differently.

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• Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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 ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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 ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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• pan0wski@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’d die pretty quickly.

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• P00ptart@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I would teach London children the most obnoxious brain rot slang from today as a laugh.

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• dotson@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  probably die

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• sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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• Milk@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ 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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