loquitur

I was reading this blog post and thought it might be fun to see what people here would say about it:What do you think? How well would any of us do in a world with no technology and a society centered on the local church? Some of the comments to the post are very interesting, BTW.

Tully Mars

Personally I think we'd all be fucked. Might do alright until contact with people is made. Once that happens I'm guessing we'd all be burned at the stake as witches. Just a guess though.

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smoore

Be a mute.

Strip naked.

Keep your knife.

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smoore

Tully Mars

A naked witch! Burn (her/him)!!!

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Willravel

I'd like to be in the UK, that way I at least have a shot at understanding people. Then I'd commit the most incredible acts of plagiarism and copyright infringement ever. I'd invent everything and become a multimillionaire, then I'd ruin history.

Tully Mars

Yeah could always go the other way for you.

From Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Who's that then?

I dunno, must be a king.

Why?

He hasn't got shit all over him

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

snowy

I've read the SAS Survival Handbook by Lofty Wiseman, and am working on learning to identify plants for foraging purposes. Personally, I think that knowledge would come in handy were I transported 1000 years into the past. I've also read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, and so I have an inkling of what it would be like to transported to an entirely different time.

One thing I would think would shock me would be the hygiene.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

RetroGunslinger

I'm with Will. I'd totally have to just invent everything and then sit back and let the smelly, hairy babes grace me... hell, maybe I'd even invent my own religion just for shits and giggles.

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It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay.

M.B. Keene

Baraka_Guru

You do realize that you'd be burnt at the stake with Will, right? Spouting all those crazy ideas? Seriously.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

RetroGunslinger

I'm sure I could figure something out... I mean come on, there's a chance I'd be worshipped as a god... a little bit of chance... really...

__________________
It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay.

M.B. Keene

Baraka_Guru

Um, no. I'm pretty sure the dumbest thing you could do is start talking about or inventing little things that were far beyond the imagination of the culture. They'd think you were either possessed or a messenger of God.

You could roll the dice, but I don't think that would be good from a survival perspective. Have you heard of the term "Instrument of the Devil"?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

RetroGunslinger

Oh fine, spoil my fun...

I think if this ever happened, I would try to blend in and simply use my superior to knowledge to try and duck out of bad situations. There, that's my boring answer, as opposed to my fun one.

__________________
It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay.

M.B. Keene

loquitur

heh. You'd need to feed yourself, clothe yourself, communicate with other people and find a place to stay. How easily do you think you could do that before you had a chance to invent and write? and in a largely illiterate non-technological society, that sort of stuff would be useless to you without a patron, which means you'd need to get in to see the local lord somehow, and convince him to take you under his wing.

Bottom line: I don't think any of us would do too well.

Baraka_Guru

Yeah, especially considering that even as late as the Middle Ages, peasants between local districts couldn't understand one another for local dialects.

Just one of the many ways lord held onto their power.

How would a modern English-speaker fare? Um, you'd be mistaken for a foreigner. The English might think you were French and vice versa. Depending on the year you land on, this could be either bad or catastrophic.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Tully Mars

Lets assume you arrive, unlike the "Terminator," with your clothes. At best you're going to stand out. At worst it's going to be seen as evil and the results likely not good. Even if you got a pass on your clothes, language would be nearly impossible. Within a day you'd need clean water and within a few days food would be an issue. I think your days would be filled with feeding yourself and keeping yourself hydrated.

But for the fun of it what would be your first "invention?"

Myself, if I were in a village of some sort, I think I'd be working on some sort of "sanitation system." A septic tank is a really simply concept.

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Willravel

Nopers. I'm a psychologist that comes from a family of fundamentalists. If anything, I could probably be pope.

Step 1: Become a doctor
Step 2: Cure basically everything by adopting the use of basic medicine
Step 3: Use riches to buy baron status
Step 4: Use modern economics and agriculture, develop the most wealthy surfs
Step 5: Become a member of the king's court
Step 6: Design policy
Step 7: Marry the king's daughter
Step 8: Teach the king's daughter about bathing (actually, reverse those)
Step 9: Become king
Step 10: Kick it

RetroGunslinger

And the language barrier?

__________________
It's a rare pleasure in this world to get your mind fucked. Usually it's just foreplay.

M.B. Keene

smoore

Not to stereotype, but Occam's razor really doesn't get much play here on TFP, does it? People here try to find the most complex solutions to the simplest problems.

I'm standing by my original reply. Oh yeah, keep your modern knife hidden from the locals.

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smoore

Tully Mars

I gotta ask...

Since you're going to be nakid... where planing on hiding the knife?

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Martian

Really Tully, do you have to ask? That's information I could do without, myself.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

smoore

That was my big problem too.

Hang onto your clothing until you find other people and stash everything together or if you're surrounded by natives then strip quick and hide the knife in the piles of filth around the town. Get native garb and return to your trusty blade.

A pair of Redwing boots would go far in 1008 if you had to flee on foot.

edit: of course, at 6'0", 190lbs I'd stick out like a sore thumb no matter what.

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smoore

levite

Learning a classical language before you went time-travelling would probably help. I have, because I am endlessly geeky, often fantasized about what would happen should I somehow end up 1000 years ago. It made me feel better once I mastered Hebrew and learned Latin, Middle English, Saxon, and picked up a little Greek and a little Old French. If I ended up back there, I could always pass myself off as a scholar. I also learned how to fight with a broadsword-- it's not the commonest hobby, I know, but it is fun-- and that might help, too. Plus, I can shoot (archery), though I'm not the greatest.

Will's ideas are actually not bad at all. People back then actually did not go around constantly burning everyone who spouted weird stuff, if for no other reason than they generally were too busy trying to survive. Mastering some basic herbology, pharmacology, and field medicine before one went jaunting back in time would probably be the best course of action: successful healers wrote their own tickets back then, and lords were willing to pay well for their services. Whether one could end up getting rich enough to marry royalty...that might be a different matter. But one could end up getting rich enough to live fairly well. Maybe even purchasing a title and lands. Also, if one were perhaps slightly more flexible in one's ethics, a little basic knowledge of chemistry, physics, and weapons design could earn one an excellent living as a provider of military technology to a lord or king.

Without pre-existing language skills, and some helpful knowledge with which to make a living, if you got tossed back 1000 years, it would be mighty difficult to survive long enough to learn the languages and figure out a trade.

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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

highthief

I'd be hoping I remember my high school Latin and the formulas for making penicillin and gunpowder. Otherwise, I think I might be in trouble. Neither modern English or French would be a lot of help 1000 years ago, English didn't really sound like English until almost Shakespeare's time.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

Tully Mars

I think that whole "get native garb" might not be that simple. Once you strip, even if you start whistling "It's raining men", it's going to be a problem.

I'm a big fan of Occam's razor but I think once you're nude the logic of Occam switches to the the locals. Simplest solution for them is to do away with you and go back to their lives.


I give you the most likely to succeed award. Knowledge of the lingo will take you far, I'm learning this the hard way right now. Might want to bone up on history as well. Wouldn't want to show in 1080 and start speaking Old French or French-Norman while in Britannia. The Normans weren't real popular there for a few hundred years starting around that time.

I think you'd do better if you were dropped in a large city such as London. Easier to blend in, esp if you were able to communicate.

Also might want to bone up on historical medical condition and illnesses. You're likely going to be carrying germs they can't fight off and they're going to be doing the same.

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Baraka_Guru

Good luck going from the four humours to the human genome. Your steps 3 through 10, however, are feasible enough with your intelligence. But you have these first two stumbling blocks.

I hope you enjoy swallowing astrology among other things while becoming a medieval physician. Even if you get that far, I doubt you could bring medicine "up to speed" within your lifetime. I think your attempts would have you tortured and executed. Why not also tell them that the earth isn't the centre of the universe and how it's physically possible to touch the stars?

Will, have you not studied medieval history in any capacity? I'm sorry if I sound pessimistic; I'm just concerned about your safety.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Martian

Me too! Will, you do realize that should you be transported 1000 years into the past you may be facing charges of heresy? They could draw and quarter you, it's a real concern!

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

loquitur

Also, Will, bear in mind that you'll be lacking the basic infrastructure you'll need to pursue modern medicine. I assume you'll be able to make some bread mold pretty easily, but then you'll have to extract the penicillin (bread mold by itself will make people sick) - how are you going to do that? You'll need sterile equipment for many applications. You'll need - at the very least - metallurgy, plastics (go find petroleum to make plastic from), distillation, chemical processing facilities........... is it any wonder doctors were using leeches before the advent of mass production? For the first vaccination - smallpox, in (I think) the 1790s - Edward Jenner actually put liquid out of smallpox pustules into healthy patients to innoculate them. That's a high risk vaccination, right?

Until you do figure these things out, you'll need to feed and clothe yourself. I suppose you could go to the nearest abbey and request the protection and help of the bishop, but how long could you do that?

Willravel

I'd find my way to the Britain or Ireland. English comes from a combination of German and Celtic languages. I speak enough German to get by (and a tiny bit of Irish (don't call it Gaelic, trust me)), and I have an ear for languages. At worst, I'd need to take time to learn. At best I could pick up on the essentials quickly.

"Where did you attend medical school?"
"The far East."
Credentials likely were not an issue back in 1008 AD.
I beg your pardon, but I have to put up with a 6000 year old earth from a lot of people now. I can't imagine a heliocentric universe is going to be that difficult to ignore.
My safety? This is an exercise in the absurd (and a fun one, at that). Still, the idea that making one's way would be somehow impossible in the past doesn't make much sense. I'm framing this as me accidentally being transported into the past, but if I had some sort of control, I'd probably take about 6 or 7 years to master ancient Greek language and history and then go back and become an early philosopher. I'd give myself a big, ridiculously Greek name like Hypogrporphyrylichuscero. And my philosophy would, of course, be called Hypogrporphyrylichusceroism.

I'd have access to high proof alcohol and soap (which I can make myself from lye). That alone would put me hundreds of years ahead of all other doctors as I could use them to prevent infections. I'd also know what probably doesn't work. Bleeding out for a head cold? Probably not a good prescription. I also happen to have a keen understanding of diet. Imagine Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins' research being applied 1000 years before it came into being. Proper diet could have elevated the health of the entire region.

As for the burned at the stake thing? The end of the Dark Ages are probably not the ideal time to be alive, yeah. The church is still running rampant, and it'd still be a few years before the Renaissance (where new ideas would be more welcome).

I wasn't thinking about something as complicated as penicillin. I was thinking more basic things. The kinds of things a survivalist might know, applied to general medicine.
I can do manual labor while I learn the language and culture. I did landscaping back in high school, I'm sure I can use some of that in the cultivation of crops. Ditch digging is a fine profession, anyway.

Baraka_Guru

Depending on where you'd land and when, you'd need to have more knowledge of French and Latin, most likely. There was a time in Britain when the legal and court systems were completely French (um, Old French, actually), and times when trade was done in Latin.

They'd be more interested in you as a spice trader, not a dealer of black magic. Be careful on how you play the Far East card.

You know, it would be like you today trying to postulate the 6,000-year-old earth. Actually, it would be worse than that, since no one in the Middle Ages would have anywhere near your knowledge of the universe. You'd be a devil, I'm telling you.

Yes, funny, at least, good Hypogrporphyrylichuscero.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

I wouldn't be an attorney. I thought the hypothetical was we're suddenly transported back in time? Learning Latin and French would negate that part of the hypothetical.
I suppose I could travel East and establish a sea trade route. That'd be an interesting way to become rich.
I pretended to be Christian from age 14 to maybe 22. I can't imagine that it'd be difficult to avoid saying "No, stupid, the center of the universe is probably empty because the big bang spread stellar material outward. The Earth isn't the center." I know the Bible well enough to pretend.

I suppose, after I've gained wealth and such, I could leave the US and start a colony in the US or Canada (or what would eventually be the US or Canada). I could even end up saving the Native Americans (though I'd have to be careful not to bring European illnesses with me).
The first stand up philosopher, perhaps?

Martian

Good luck with that. There are reasons the Americas weren't colonized until the 16th century.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Baraka_Guru

By court system, I mean the royal court. Physicians were typically only available to the nobility or perhaps the wealthy. Again, depending on when and where you land, you're likely going to need French and/or Latin.

This is your best idea yet.

The Bible will be your most important "survival guide."

"I just sailed out from the University of Paris, and, boy, is my homunculus tired! Wocka, wocka, wocka! Try the laumprouns in galyntyne, it's to die for! And remember to tip your waiter. I'll be here all week!"

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

snowy

The University of Paris hadn't been established yet 1000 years ago.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

abaya

Why don't y'all become anthropologists and head down to those newly-"discovered" people groups in the Amazon... did anyone hear about those in the news last week or two? Anthropologists (or missionaries) who used to go into those kinds of villages stood a good chance of being shot with an arrow at first sight. (They were photographed aiming arrows up at the plane, during the flyover... poor people, must have freaked them out badly.) That will put you back 1,000 years.

There's a reason I do urban fieldwork.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Willravel

It's actually fortuitous that I was in elementary school during the Clinton Administration. My school was very liberal and insisted on teaching two things: native american history and the history of slavery. I know where I'd need to launch from in Africa to be carried by the (South-East) trade winds to the US and I know most of the major East Coast tribes. The Gulf of Guinea would bring me to Cuba, the West Indies, or the Keys, and from there I simply head North.
Then I guess I'd have to learn French and Latin.
HAHAHA

snowy

Yeah, my roommate told us about that--anthropology is his hobby. We wondered if they'd never seen an airplane flying overhead before, or a contrail--and if they had, how did they explain it? It reminded me a bit of The Gods Must Be Crazy.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Baraka_Guru

It was founded c. 1170. I was discussing this as the Middle Ages in a general sense. The OP article said 1,000 A.D., give or take 200 years. I gave 170 in this case.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

snowy

Gotcha.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

loquitur

actually, if you claim to be an alchemist, you might be able to get a fair amount of stuff done. Of course you'd need a book of secrets, and you'd have to fast and act all pious for a while, but after a couple of transmutations you'd be famous and very much in demand.

Willravel

I wouldn't stand against their superstitions and such, but I wouldn't feed them either. That goes against my own personal code. I'd probably just use deflection.
"How did you heal that guy?"
"He wasn't all that sick. Wanna go get a hoagie?"
"Hoagie?! WITCH!"