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Do you have any useful knowledge or skills you could bring back in time?

SafeSurfer

If you were suddenly transported back in time to say, the Middle Ages. Would you have any skill or knowledge that would convince people that you were from the future or could improve their lives?

I could describe electricity, flight etc but I don’t think there is any practical skill I have that would be useful. Similarly predicting future events would be unconvincing unless you had a lot of knowledge about the Middle Ages.

Doctors, scientists, engineers may have useful knowledge but if the average Joe Soap was transported back in time they would be pretty useless in my opinion.

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Graces7

CelticRambler wrote: »

In fact, for anyone "returning" to the Middle Ages from our current times, this would probably be the best first step. The mediaeval monasteries accepted all kinds of fools and visionaries, gave them food and shelter, and provided them with a relatively safe environment in which to live and work. Most of our modern skills (especially reading, writing, basic first-aid and medicine, learning/speaking foreign langauges, knowledge of far-away places) would be welcomed in such a community. The auld monks weren't afraid to get involved in business ventures either.

I've changed my mind: I think I'd try to find a lively monastic community and apply for a job there as chief librarian.

You do not apply for jobs in a monastic community. You do as you are told ie Holy Obedience, and of course there is celibacy. Humility is essential also. If you do not have it you soon will...

CelticRambler

Graces7 wrote: »

You do not apply for jobs in a monastic community. You do as you are told ie Holy Obedience, and of course there is celibacy. Humility is essential also. If you do not have it you soon will...

I think you are thinking in terms of the modern Orders. Monastic communities in the Middle Ages were (in most respects) very different places, and welcomed very large numbers of lay workers. I live in the catchment area of a long-since-departed Benedictine community. My adopted forefathers chose to pay their taxes to the local abbot rather than the local Seigneur because they figured they got much better value for money, and weren't roped into wars they didn't care about.

stoneill

The Tetrarch wrote: »

The square on the hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. 3 squared + 4 squared = 5 squared, and we have all the right angles we want. No more leaning towers.
That would blow their minds.

They knew that stuff already, it's new stuff you need to bring back like WD40 and duct tape.

D3V!L

I'm an IT manager, put me back 100 years and I'd be f*cked.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

I could show people how to immediately contract cholera, three separate eye infections, and probably an allergic reaction to something, and then die while complaining very loudly about the fact in some weird dialect and talking about "hospitals and penicillin".

Ooh penicillin, I could tell them about that. "Listen lads if any plagues come along, there's this really simple, abundant substance that will almost certainly help or cure it. And it is....it's like something to do with mould, I think?"

CelticRambler

Here's a question: you're standing at the portal and you can turn the clock either 500 years back or 500 forwards. You can't stay in the present, you have to pick one. Which is it? A leap into the future where you can be damn sure you'll be out of place but will have a chance to experience things we haven't even dreamt of yet; or take your "future" knowledge into the past where most of it risks being unusable for one reason or another.

I'm a scientist and love trying "new stuff" just to see what happens, so going forwards would seem like the logical choice ... but I think it'd be more fulfilling to go back and do the "new stuff" in time/place where it'd actually make more of a difference to the people there.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

CelticRambler wrote: »

Here's a question: you're standing at the portal and you can turn the clock either 500 years back or 500 forwards. You can't stay in the present, you have to pick one. Which is it? A leap into the future where you can be damn sure you'll be out of place but will have a chance to experience things we haven't even dreamt of yet; or take your "future" knowledge into the past where most of it risks being unusable for one reason or another.

I'm a scientist and love trying "new stuff" just to see what happens, so going forwards would seem like the logical choice ... but I think it'd be more fulfilling to go back and do the "new stuff" in time/place where it'd actually make more of a difference to the people there.

Ooh someone's optimistic.

I reckon it's just going to be a load of super sentient bacteria excavating nuclear war heads with "MAGA, MOTHERFCUKERS" sharpied on them, ancient murals of Greta Thunberg with a stroppy head on her, and a Nokia 3310 which the battery hasn't died on yet.

[Deleted User]

Basics of agriculture I suppose.

Not sure how I could apply it but double entry book keeping was just taking off 500 years ago in Renaissance Italy and the basics haven't changed much since.

Literacy and numeracy combined with Leaving Cert accounting would put you at the cutting edge of the business world.

Apiarist

The thing I have learned from studying history is that people in the past were as smart as us and did as best as they could given the circumstances. And each discovery was made in a certain time because the society was ready for it. Going 2000 years back and explaining electricity and mobile phones to even the most educated Roman could earn you a living as an entertainer, but in practical terms this knowledge will not be very useful. You could show some tricks with electricity though.

Capt'n Midnight

Jazmin Mealy Gauze wrote: »

Pythagoras figured that out long before the Middle Ages.

Though gig though.

You could be killed for eating beans or discovering that the square root of two was irrational like poor old Hippasus of Metapontum.

[Deleted User]

I love the gender divide here.

Women: I could do X, Y and Z, but I'll almost certainly be burned as a witch.

Men: I'll be making engines and generally blowing minds!

bnt

I could probably have a go at making iron and steel things: I could find some iron ore in a bog, build a primitive blast furnace to smelt it, then do the old "heat, beat & repeat" until we get basic steel. I used to work in a steel factory, where I got the basic knowledge for the steel-making, plus I've watched enough episodes of Forged In Fire to figure out the forging part.

Neyite

I don't think I could introduce a new skill but I'd probably get a job as aged tavern wench or maybe seamstress to the local lady of the manor.

topper75

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

... or discovering that the square root of two was irrational like poor old Hippasus of Metapontum.

Yeah I can imagine the rage slowly creeping over their faces as he progresses through his talk. How ****ing dare he.

Capt'n Midnight

stoneill wrote: »

Paper airplanes.

But first you have to acquire paper.

[Deleted User]

victor8600 wrote: »

The thing I have learned from studying history is that people in the past were as smart as us and did as best as they could given the circumstances. And each discovery was made in a certain time because the society was ready for it. Going 2000 years back and explaining electricity and mobile phones to even the most educated Roman could earn you a living as an entertainer, but in practical terms this knowledge will not be very useful. You could show some tricks with electricity though.

Lots of obvious developments depend on so many other interacting developments.

I read recently about standardised interchangeable parts in guns being developed and demonstrated by a French gunsmith, but he couldn't make the pieces reliably by hand so it wasn't much use until machine tooling was developed elsewhere and the two were put together.

bnt

I could also make some basic musical instruments, though in the absence of steel strings, I may find myself harvesting cats for their guts. :eek:

(Nah - catgut isn't made from cats' guts. Sheep or goat guts, actually.)

Paddy Cow

CelticRambler wrote: »

Here's a question: you're standing at the portal and you can turn the clock either 500 years back or 500 forwards. You can't stay in the present, you have to pick one. Which is it? A leap into the future where you can be damn sure you'll be out of place but will have a chance to experience things we haven't even dreamt of yet; or take your "future" knowledge into the past where most of it risks being unusable for one reason or another.

I'm a scientist and love trying "new stuff" just to see what happens, so going forwards would seem like the logical choice ... but I think it'd be more fulfilling to go back and do the "new stuff" in time/place where it'd actually make more of a difference to the people there.

That's actually a really interesting question. I wouldn't want to live 500 years ago because of disease and the low standard of living but would I want to jump 500 years into the unknown? God knows where we'll be or if we'll even still be.

Apiarist

Deleted User wrote: »

Lots of obvious developments depend on so many other interacting developments.

I read recently about standardised interchangeable parts in guns being developed and demonstrated by a French gunsmith, but he couldn't make the pieces reliably by hand so it wasn't much use until machine tooling was developed elsewhere and the two were put together.

Exactly. So I know how to make a generator and an electric motor. Useful, right? But it would require a few hundred meters of thin insulated copper wire. This alone would probably push the cost of this innovation so much that it becomes impractical.

[Deleted User]

I could publish some manuscript on calf skin. In Latin. I'd be immortalized and today, people would be going to see it in specially air conditioned buildings.

Capt'n Midnight

Jazmin Mealy Gauze wrote: »

Of course, you could introduce printing at an earlier stage, but that would throw off the entire course of history, since printing was key to the Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, and scientific revolution.

Without the invention of glasses and the availability of cheap rags to make paper from printing wouldn't have taken hold.

Glasses meant that learning to read and write became a life long skill instead of a waste of time as your eyesight would be likely to fail.

The supply of rags depended on people being richer than ever because of a whole stream of other improvements, like the plough and crop rotation. The black death changed the whole supply and demand dynamic for labour so the bottom strata of society got a lot richer relatively speaking.

[Deleted User]

Candie wrote: »

I love the gender divide here.

Women: I could do X, Y and Z, but I'll almost certainly be burned as a witch.

Men: I'll be making engines and generally blowing minds!

yeah. either burned as a witch or nobody would listen to me anyway
i'd have to marry someone with a shop and then kill them off and run the shop

i don't know. wouldn't remember many details about penicillin or the ol smallpox i'd say

CelticRambler

Paddy Cow wrote: »

I wouldn't want to live 500 years ago because of disease and the low standard of living but would I want to jump 500 years into the unknown?

That depends on how you define "low" doesn't it? Rather like Woke Hogan's survivalist trips to the mountains, I regularly indulge in periods or exercises of what would be considered a "low" standard of living, and it's not really that bad. In fact, I find it quite difficult to tolerate more than a few weeks of my family's "high" standard of living in Ireland when I go back there! A case in point: at the social events I go to in France, it is normal for everyone to wear the same clothes that they wore to the previous event, and dead easy to spot people you know in photos and videos. Compare that with Ireland where I have been criticised for wearing the same jacket to two different family gatherings ... (the one I probably didn't wear at all in between those two occasions :rolleyes: )

Neames

Very handy with Excel.

inthepocket

I have to say there is a shocking ignorance of history in this thread! Half the posters are going back to tell people what they already know!

I'm surprised no one has offered to tell them the world is round...

Makes you wonder if the Big Leech industry is behind the move to remove compulsory history from the Junior cert syllabus to protect their interests in the middle ages.

Woke Hogan

CelticRambler wrote: »

That depends on how you define "low" doesn't it? Rather like Woke Hogan's survivalist trips to the mountains, I regularly indulge in periods or exercises of what would be considered a "low" standard of living, and it's not really that bad. In fact, I find it quite difficult to tolerate more than a few weeks of my family's "high" standard of living in Ireland when I go back there! A case in point: at the social events I go to in France, it is normal for everyone to wear the same clothes that they wore to the previous event, and dead easy to spot people you know in photos and videos. Compare that with Ireland where I have been criticised for wearing the same jacket to two different family gatherings ... (the one I probably didn't wear at all in between those two occasions :rolleyes: )

I might take it a little bit more seriously than most. I have a packed backpack full of rations, first aid kids, pots and pans, splints, tarp etc for escaping into the woods or mountains with. Ready to go in case of society collapsing or a nuclear attack.

CelticRambler

Woke Hogan wrote: »

I might take it a little bit more seriously than most. I have a packed backpack full of rations, first aid kids, pots and pans, splints, tarp etc for escaping into the woods or mountains with. Ready to go in case of society collapsing or a nuclear attack.

Hmm. If you ask my children, they'd say that our moving to middle-of-nowhere France was done in much the same spirit! :pac:

I spent three weeks in Africa with SonNo.1 this year and our ability to cope with anything and everything was considerably greater than the Dublin relatives with whom we shared part of experience (eventually we left them in the safety of their 5* villa while we took off into the wilds for two weeks).

As it happens, the region where we settled (in France) was for a long time in the Middle Ages a bit of a no-mans land between two feudal territories. All kinds of black and grey marketeering went on in the area ... and still does, to a certain extent ... Society can break down all it wants: I've got good thick stone walls and a decent crop of spuds. :cool:

Woke Hogan

CelticRambler wrote: »

Hmm. If you ask my children, they'd say that our moving to middle-of-nowhere France was done in much the same spirit! :pac:

I spent three weeks in Africa with SonNo.1 this year and our ability to cope with anything and everything was considerably greater than the Dublin relatives with whom we shared part of experience (eventually we left them in the safety of their 5* villa while we took off into the wilds for two weeks).

As it happens, the region where we settled (in France) was for a long time in the Middle Ages a bit of a no-mans land between two feudal territories. All kinds of black and grey marketeering went on in the area ... and still does, to a certain extent ... Society can break down all it wants: I've got good thick stone walls and a decent crop of spuds. :cool:

Good man. If the “Hard R Revolution” doesn’t come you may as well ride out the end of days on your own terms.

SafeSurfer

CelticRambler wrote: »

Here's a question: you're standing at the portal and you can turn the clock either 500 years back or 500 forwards. You can't stay in the present, you have to pick one. Which is it? A leap into the future where you can be damn sure you'll be out of place but will have a chance to experience things we haven't even dreamt of yet; or take your "future" knowledge into the past where most of it risks being unusable for one reason or another.

I'm a scientist and love trying "new stuff" just to see what happens, so going forwards would seem like the logical choice ... but I think it'd be more fulfilling to go back and do the "new stuff" in time/place where it'd actually make more of a difference to the people there.

I suppose by going backwards we know what to expect or at least to expect something. Going forward 500 years would be a leap into the unknown with no guarantee that there is still a civilization left or if there is what type of dystopian society exists.
On the other hand the orgasmatron may have been invented.

Ten of Swords

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