If you traveled ~2000 years in the past ...

[tzor]

what practical knowledge would you have that humanity hadn't yet gained?
What could you teach them?

Uhg, that's a hard question. 2000 years ago, so much was already invented; it just wasn't distributed yet. Rome had some of the best engineering; sure they could use the notion of the flying butress, but they are doing some impressive things (things that were forgotten for thousands of years ... did you know the colseum had a partial dome cover over it) without the need for paper thin stone walls. Giving Rome both pasta and gunpowder pramaturely might still not make up for the fact that the leadership was falling apart by this time.

The Maya is an up and comming civilization, Rome tech and China gunpowder might be massively significant at this point in their culture. Just the arch would make a lot of difference.

The only thing that they haven't yet gained is the realization that the old art of steam isn't just for toys and temples.

[Baron Von PWN]

Practical knowledge you say?

thegreekdog checks legal documents

Okay, nothing for me.

Maybe if a government leader paid me enough, I could come up with new and fascinating taxes and tax collection techniques.

you could introduce the concept of codified laws. That could potentially be very significant. Of course you'd probably just be sold into slavery....

[nietzsche]

what practical knowledge would you have that humanity hadn't yet gained?
What could you teach them?

Uhg, that's a hard question. 2000 years ago, so much was already invented; it just wasn't distributed yet. Rome had some of the best engineering; sure they could use the notion of the flying butress, but they are doing some impressive things (things that were forgotten for thousands of years ... did you know the colseum had a partial dome cover over it) without the need for paper thin stone walls. Giving Rome both pasta and gunpowder pramaturely might still not make up for the fact that the leadership was falling apart by this time.

The Maya is an up and comming civilization, Rome tech and China gunpowder might be massively significant at this point in their culture. Just the arch would make a lot of difference.

The only thing that they haven't yet gained is the realization that the old art of steam isn't just for toys and temples.

No way. There's too much stuff that would change a lot the way people lived 2000 years ago. For one the concept of power and energy and its transmition would come to change a lot the world, it has picked up a really fast pace ever since we as civilization started consuming energy.

And that's only an example.

[Lootifer]

Electricity...

[Army of GOD]

I love how the tense of tzor's final sentence is completely vague and indiscernible.

[heavycola]

Hi. How are things? Your avatar changed.

You live !

Welcome back.


P.S. does anyone find it sliiiightly suspicious that what? like 5 old members have returned in the span of a week?
I think they might be decoys planted by the admins.

*puts tinfoil hat on*

Good to be back. I missed off topics.

Long story short - Health issues with child (he's 100% okay now) + promoted = too busy for CC.

Very glad to hear that dude, and yeah looks like you made private 1st class too! congrats

[thegreekdog]

Practical knowledge you say?

thegreekdog checks legal documents

Okay, nothing for me.

Maybe if a government leader paid me enough, I could come up with new and fascinating taxes and tax collection techniques.

you could introduce the concept of codified laws. That could potentially be very significant. Of course you'd probably just be sold into slavery....

I thought the Romans were okay with the Greeks.

Very glad to hear that dude, and yeah looks like you made private 1st class too! congrats

That was exciting. I haven't been a PFC 1st class in years!

[tzor]

I love how the tense of tzor's final sentence is completely vague and indiscernible.

Well if you don't know the highlights of Greek technology ... that's not my problem.

Here is your exercise for the day: Google "greek steam powered temple"

The biggest problem with steam power was that no one realized how powerful it was. It was only until someone who was into drilling the insides of cannons (which causes heat which in turn is cooled by doing the process under water) that they realized how much energy was actually in steam. Once you know that, the rest falls naturally.

The biggest problem of the era was a lack of real science. the Greeks were into abstract science but thought that actually doing experments were beneath them. As a result their ideas were often hit or miss. The Romans, on the other hand, were engineers, not scientists and everything had to have an immediate and practical application.

[Crazyirishman]

There's a few different routes I would take depending on how productive I wanted to be.

Option 1: Dick move
Run around and give all the indigenous peoples guns and tell them "Yo when you see some white people show up on ships: shoot the f*ck out of them or they will kill all your people and take all your land.

Option 2: Be a fuckin boss
Go back to ancient Greece just a lil while before and dominate the shit out of the olympics with my monstrous 6' 200 pound frame. Then I'll get free meals for the rest of my life, though it'll take a while getting used to competing naked.

Option 3: Be productive
After I'm sold into slavery, learn the language and then bestow my wisdom upon all. Be all 'check this gravity shit out' and show them duct tape and it's magical properties. Oh and this is before equality was allowed and just do a tiny bit of exploitation.

[crispybits]

Do we get warning we're going back or do we jus get thrown back in a hot tub time machine style accident?

Assuming I had knowledge I was going:

1) Learn the language
2) Learn how to survive as a hunter-gatherer (essential until I get the rest of my plan going)
3) Memorise the locations of 5-6 treasure troves, be they gold mines or forgotten tombs that have been found since or whatever.
4) Quietly go about turning those treasure troves into real contemporary material wealth.
5) Use that wealth to bring fresh applications to existing technology (a la steam power already mentioned for one)
6) Use the wealth and the continued wealth provided by the technology that only I know how it works to fund a few wives and a healthy sized concubine, and live a life of supreme debauchery until death.

[zimmah]

Where on earth are we landing ~2000 years ago? It makes a difference in what knowledge can be shared

thats a good point. I guess if you have the ability to choose "when" you can probably choose "where" so i think its up to you.

in that case i'd go to the americas and prepare the natives to defend against an invasion in the far future. that would be pretty hilarious and mess up the whole history of the world too.

[BigBallinStalin]

Where on earth are we landing ~2000 years ago? It makes a difference in what knowledge can be shared

thats a good point. I guess if you have the ability to choose "when" you can probably choose "where" so i think its up to you.

in that case i'd go to the americas and prepare the natives to defend against an invasion in the far future. that would be pretty hilarious and mess up the whole history of the world too.

If only you could (a) teleport tons of vaccinations, and then (b) convince them get an injection, and (c) survive after a few of them die from the vaccinations.


If not, then the White Man's Disease will destroy them.

[crispybits]

Naah just teach them a few basic boatbuilding techniques and how to make effective marine weaponry, and tell them that the death of their culture will come in boats from the east and they should continue to make boatbuilding / marine weaponry advances and patrol the shoreline and sink anyone that tries to sail in too close.

[zimmah]

There's a few different routes I would take depending on how productive I wanted to be.

Option 1: Dick move
Run around and give all the indigenous peoples guns and tell them "Yo when you see some white people show up on ships: shoot the f*ck out of them or they will kill all your people and take all your land.

Option 2: Be a fuckin boss
Go back to ancient Greece just a lil while before and dominate the shit out of the olympics with my monstrous 6' 200 pound frame. Then I'll get free meals for the rest of my life, though it'll take a while getting used to competing naked.

Option 3: Be productive
After I'm sold into slavery, learn the language and then bestow my wisdom upon all. Be all 'check this gravity shit out' and show them duct tape and it's magical properties. Oh and this is before equality was allowed and just do a tiny bit of exploitation.

this would be easy as they didn't have drug tests back then. just take some drugs and you'll win most of the games that don't require too much technique. for the games that do require technique, you could probably outsmart them with the technique you can see by the athletes on tv.

[jgordon1111]

Where on earth are we landing ~2000 years ago? It makes a difference in what knowledge can be shared

thats a good point. I guess if you have the ability to choose "when" you can probably choose "where" so i think its up to you.

in that case i'd go to the americas and prepare the natives to defend against an invasion in the far future. that would be pretty hilarious and mess up the whole history of the world too.

If only you could (a) teleport tons of vaccinations, and then (b) convince them get an injection, and (c) survive after a few of them die from the vaccinations.


If not, then the White Man's Disease will destroy them.

Hmmm I seem to have alot of my family left,and most of the diseases were spread intentionally,but like everyone before immunities built up.

Its very easy all of us are carriers,where ever we went,be prepared for people to start dropping dead,because we carry the new updated version of everything. Only the strong and lucky survive.

Crazy idea any of you ever look at those ancient paintings and sculptures and go oh space suits? Maybe not space suits, maybe they are suits to protect natives from getting diseases. Some descriptions of the ancient Gods were they had shiny silver skin or glowed like the sun, etc.

Your idea crispy bits would eventually lead to a coalition of different countries most likely to kill them.

Better Idea,make them the invaders,teach them a step up of technology from what is current world wide,give them the upper hand. Iron clad steamships,repeating rifles. Most important you would have to teach them and get them to understand something that would go against their whole way of thinking.

You would have to get them to understand that having honor is a bad thing and will lead to their downfall,only be truthful as long as it benefits you.
Deals are meant to be broken,when the time is right.

White people have always known this,ingrained maybe,the savages had to learn the hard way. teach them this and they would succeed.

[jonesthecurl]

I'd probably want to be a lot like the Yankee in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, foolin' people with eclipses and dynamite.

Dude you don't need to travel in time, there's bits of the west country where anyone with glow in the dark stuff is still worshipped as a god

...and they still eat the missionaries.

[betiko]

it is scientifically proven that it's impossible to travel back in time; you can only theoretically travel into the future.

Have you ever seen a guy from the future? me neither. I haven't seen a guy from the past either because we haven't created a space shuttle for it yet.

and regarding the world 2000 years ago: do you not know how mathematically and astronomically advanced they were already back then??

I think this question would be much more interesting with cavemen. you could be quite a mighty god to them. well actually, why even ask ourselves this question, this is possible to do today... there are some tribes in papua new guinea, amazon ect that don't even know what rice is.

[AndyDufresne]

Practical knowledge you say?

thegreekdog checks legal documents

Okay, nothing for me.

Maybe if a government leader paid me enough, I could come up with new and fascinating taxes and tax collection techniques.

"What is this 'Breathing Royal Air Tax' you speak of?"

I think this question would be much more interesting with cavemen. you could be quite a mighty god to them. well actually, why even ask ourselves this question, this is possible to do today... there are some tribes in papua new guinea, amazon ect that don't even know what rice is.

Also, this made me laugh. Somehow equating rice to godliness makes me chuckle.

"Let me show you this...behold, I call this Rice!"




--Andy

[Army of GOD]

1) Learn the language

Forgot about this.

Yea, no one will last long if they traveled back 2000 years. Imagine how long it'll take to learn just a local language.

[jonesthecurl]

Depends where you are.

[Army of GOD]

Depends where you are.

I don't think so really.

I mean yea I bet some people know Latin, Greek, Mandarin, Hindi, Hebrew, etc. but I bet the languages were a lot different then than they are now (sort of like how there's old English, middle English and modern English). And like I know French, but there's no way I'll be able to explain how a battery works if I was teleported to France right now.

Also, it's not like modern society where a lot of people know two languages where you can communicate sort of bilingually. You're pretty much stuck in a society that knows one language and has very slow, probably inefficient means at teaching languages.

[jgordon1111]

Practical knowledge you say?

thegreekdog checks legal documents

Okay, nothing for me.

Maybe if a government leader paid me enough, I could come up with new and fascinating taxes and tax collection techniques.

"What is this 'Breathing Royal Air Tax' you speak of?"

I think this question would be much more interesting with cavemen. you could be quite a mighty god to them. well actually, why even ask ourselves this question, this is possible to do today... there are some tribes in papua new guinea, amazon ect that don't even know what rice is.

Also, this made me laugh. Somehow equating rice to godliness makes me chuckle.

"Let me show you this...behold, I call this Rice!"




--Andy

Now thats good humor,lead on oh God of CC,is this thing called rice just a beginning?

[crispybits]

And also because of much less mobility between different regions with lingual areas, local dialects would be a LOT more commn, and not knowing the local "slang" would immediately mark you as a real outsider.

[Symmetry]

Practical knowledge you say?

thegreekdog checks legal documents

Okay, nothing for me.

Maybe if a government leader paid me enough, I could come up with new and fascinating taxes and tax collection techniques.

"What is this 'Breathing Royal Air Tax' you speak of?"

I think this question would be much more interesting with cavemen. you could be quite a mighty god to them. well actually, why even ask ourselves this question, this is possible to do today... there are some tribes in papua new guinea, amazon ect that don't even know what rice is.

Also, this made me laugh. Somehow equating rice to godliness makes me chuckle.

"Let me show you this...behold, I call this Rice!"




--Andy

Now thats good humor,lead on oh God of CC,is this thing called rice just a beginning?

We must always be on guard against ricial supremacists.

[BigBallinStalin]

Naah just teach them a few basic boatbuilding techniques and how to make effective marine weaponry, and tell them that the death of their culture will come in boats from the east and they should continue to make boatbuilding / marine weaponry advances and patrol the shoreline and sink anyone that tries to sail in too close.

Sounds easy.

Um, how does one build a frigate/man-of-war? And won't we need the relevant industries? Then there's military doctrine to be learned, transmitted, then practiced...

And then we'd have to somehow change the way they value life (or production and consumption/investment). Not an easy feat.