Its the 14th century and you’ve had no time to prepare, after you’re done reading this post you are snapped. What do you do?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Coating wires to make windings may prove tricky tho
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.
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.
Most likely, you’d just start their mass depopulation pandemic a bit earlier.
white people (like myself) carry diseases
Congratulations, you already killed them all
I’d kill your ancestors.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
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.
Start a cult.
Everything I’ve seen for the last decade indicates it’s pretty easy and highly profitable.
and you have all the knowledge of what cults already took off like wildfire. Mormonism for example, that shit is gold.
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.
find the nearest sword and belly flop on its pointy side
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.
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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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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People were mining, smelting, and forging many metals 650 years ago.
yep, 3000bc+ going back to copper and bronze.
but there’s a tremendous jump from being able to smelt metal in small quantities - obtaining enough ores for each, for example, is probably more than one person work to produce anything usable. smelting, gathering wood or other fuel, building ovens and water wheels etc… and no one to call on for expertise…
hard couple of decades to produce some wire :D
primitive technology youtube channel has him trying to make iron for a few years with everything handmade. watch it to see what you’d be up against.
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650 years ago steel was pretty common.
common but still cottage industry forged. a fiefdom would break up tasks to smaller smiths to forge chain for mail, or steel billets for creating axe heads.
Copper, silver and gold were used for coins and jewelry.
in small quantities and with considerable value, yes. you’re not going to wander up to some trader and say "gimme 300 furlongs of your shiny copper wire’ lol. and how would you buy it if you could? you have no specie, no tender beyond half knowing a bunch of kinda true science factoids.
for example, the baghdad battery is rather contested as to it’s actual purpose. Konig hypothesizes that it was a battery due to finding thin layers of gold he assumed were electroplated. Read the wikipedia article, these ideas aren’t really supported by a lot of the other evidence.
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.
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I mean, it will still be happening even if you’re in the past.
My comment was meant for a totally different post my bad
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.
probably die
The chances of that do seem to be high.
