this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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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?

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[–] Apeman42@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day 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.

[–] xylogx@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] xylogx@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day 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.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 20 hours ago

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.

[–] mriormro@lemm.ee 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Kookie215@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

Don't threaten me with a good time.

[–] untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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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[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 40 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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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[–] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 27 points 1 day ago

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

[–] MisanthropiCynic@lemm.ee 30 points 2 days ago

Die because my medications haven’t been invented yet.

Or be murdered because I’m not christian

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 42 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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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[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Kookie215@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

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

[–] softcat@lemmy.ca 145 points 2 days ago (2 children)
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[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

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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.

[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 34 points 2 days ago (12 children)
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[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

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

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[–] yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I would warn the Native Americans about the Europeans

[–] xylogx@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

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

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

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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[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 82 points 2 days ago (8 children)

If I snapped you back in time 650 years

2025 - 650 =1375

Its the 12th century

1375 is the 14th century. Which do you mean?

Answering the actual question, nothing good would come of it if my location on earth didn't change. Being the only white person in rural northern Japan well before Europeans came in the 1500s would probably not be a good situation for me. The language, at least the written one, was very different. Being the Nanboku-chō era, things would probably be not great since it was in the midst of 60ish years of war with two different people claiming to be in charge. I can't find, at least before my coffee kicks in, exactly what kinda state Mutsu Province, as it was then called, was in at the time.

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[–] PahdyGnome@lemmy.world 36 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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

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[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

Wouldn't I be in like empty space?

[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 71 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (10 children)

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

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[–] WhatSay@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

I'd go live in a cabin in the forest, again.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

Middle English is understandable. It's tricky and there are lots of unexpected differences but you'd get used to it. This is right at the edge of Early Modern English and the Great Vowel Shift.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 42 points 2 days 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

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 59 points 2 days ago (4 children)

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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[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago

Use all the science i know from school to helpfully quicken scientific progress and spread trans propaganda

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