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.
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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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.
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.
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.
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. Steam power easier to figure out. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
probably die
The chances of that do seem to be high.
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.
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.
ah, someone who understands that celestial bodies change spatial positions with time... nice
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.
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.
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 -> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jaoQh6BoH3c
Yes, but what about you?
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.
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.
So dead
other people would probably have a higher chance of dying than me from the immunity I've got and all the diseases I carry
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.
I'd go live in a cabin in the forest, again.
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.
I would kill everyone I meet with the plagues I carry which I'm immune to.
You might have a bad time with all the plagues that have gone extinct since then.
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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Well I be naked, so would need to make/steal clothing very quickly
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.
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.
You teleported to somewhere safe and private, you won't fall to your death and nobody will see you lol.
I would teach London children the most obnoxious brain rot slang from today as a laugh.
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Die because my medications haven’t been invented yet.
Or be murdered because I’m not christian
I would make an IT startup.
Use all the science i know from school to helpfully quicken scientific progress and spread trans propaganda
I would warn the Native Americans about the Europeans
If you could somehow inoculate them against smallpox you might have a fighting chance.
Europeans would show up and my Native American homies would be armed with cartridge rifles, six shooters and a crank rotary machine gun.
I would try for better, but I think there just wouldn't be the time for fine tooling more advanced fire arms would require. Even getting all that going before I croak is going to take a lot of ambition.
Also assuming they don't think I am some evil spirit that they quickly kill when I demand industrial metal facilities be constructed.
Oh, they would probably also have penicillin before the white man, so that would be a major advantage.
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Wouldn't I be in like empty space?
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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I know thousands of songs. Also, musical instruments like the saxaphone haven't been invented yet.
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