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

Comments

• spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Basic geography could go a long ways, if people believe you. At this point people were exploring the world trying to find the spice Islands, but didn’t know WTF they were doing. Magellan navigating the strait that would be named after him was impressive at its time, but now we know the best way from Europe to Asia (and spices and stuff) by sea without any modern canale is by going around Africa. Like, it still sucks and it’s a long trip but it’s doable compared to going to damn near Antarctica.

  This assumes I don’t die, can communicate, and am not in the then-unpopulated (and quite landlocked) current location of Denver, Colorado.

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• Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Clearly I am OVERprepared for this with my VAST knowledge of Doctor Who. And nothing else.

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• athairmor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Do my best to warn the locals of the coming invasion. Learn their language and teach them English and tell them not to trust any group of strangers who speak it.

  Help improve their technology as best I can. I’m not sure how much I’d be able to improve it. At least, teach them to wear masks and wash their hands when around sick people.

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  • Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I don’t think our English is anywhere close to Olde English though, we might be hardly able to understand them ourselves, and I don’t think they would understand us at all.

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  • superkret@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You’re a stranger speaking English trying to convince the locals not to trust any stranger speaking English?

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    • athairmor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yes. I’d have to learn their language first, anyway. I already know bits of modern versions but not much. Then, introduce the warning of invasions and teach them English with the caution that people speaking groups of people speaking will bring death and destruction.

      It’s not like they’ll already have a fear of English or any concept of the language before I teach it to them.

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• Iheartcheese@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • MissJinx@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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  • kmartburrito@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Fucking A

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    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      … and B too

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• zlatiah@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Try to use some type of boiling water technique to invent drinkable sanitary drinking water that doesn’t get me drunk (might not be necessary in some parts of Asia)

  Most parts of the world that is not North America: try to convince some wealthy persons and bar owners to sponsor me to getting a bunch of bread molds and rats/mice, possibly even pigs, to conduct antibiotics and vaccine research, otherwise I might die from random sources…

  Not sure if I could reasonably do those given my limited biology knowledge, but I guess they are worth trying. Besides that I’d just try to be less blunt/offensive so I don’t get sent to jail and try to live my best life I guess

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  • ohulancutash@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You’d have to work pretty hard to get drunk on small beer.

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• arotrios@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Prophecy some major upcoming events, subsequently market myself as a saint, grab a comfy church position, sell indulgences, profit. Works in pretty much any era.

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  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You can name some upcoming events between 1375-1376 that would get you enough fame to make a living, off the top of your head?

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  • FelixCress@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Prophecy some major upcoming events, subsequently market myself as a saint, grab a comfy church position

    Or be burned on a stake.

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• wewbull@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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    • litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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    • gibmiser@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Real science and innovation comes in increments

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  • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      the real trick is to find some appliation for the technology that is easy enough to build that you don’t need later advancements to pull it off, yet useful enough that anyone is actually going to bother doing it.

      or like, be really good at marketing

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• Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Slowly and with plenty of witnesses invent the toilet. But like out of wood pieces like a barrel or ship. Rain barrel on the roof for water. Start suggesting more contained sewage.

  Should be just enough to not get dead for heresy or something but live comfortably and help a shitty situation.

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  • Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They had sewage and toilets since Roman times. It wasn’t affordable to many (and you couldn’t make it affordable) but they definitely knew how to make it.

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• BrazenSigilos@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    keep in mind that historically all the successful scientist have been really quite rich, so make sure to find a noble you can impress and get to sponsor you at first

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  • andrewta@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

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

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• rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    i mean i don’t think it would even be that difficult to just always carry a bar of soap with you and make sure to boil your water and only eat well-cooked food, and wear gloves as often as possible.

    sure people would think you’re silly and annoying but that’s a pretty cheap price to pay for not catching terrible diseases.

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    • rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It would help to at least try doing that, but in practice this would probably be very difficult - it’s likely not possible to always drink boiled water and well-cooked food, and given the possibility of contaminating food and drink after boiling, you might effectively have prepare all your drink and food yourself, which is logistically difficult given the length of the work days. Diseases also spread in other ways, like smear infections (e.g. on toilets, doorhandles, tools) and airborne infections.

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  • andrewta@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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    • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      How do you think the boobonic plague got started?

      Yeah, it was a time traveller

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    • gibmiser@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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• smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Start making siege weapons.

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• superkret@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I become a scribe or accountant, since I can write cursive, do math, and know some Latin.
  There was a monastery within walking distance of my home at that time, so that’s where I’d head first.

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• softcat@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  die almost immediately

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  • adarza@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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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