If you could travel back in time ...

[ourkind]

If you could travel back in time say 2/3000 years could you build a Telescope or a Computer or a phone or make some penicillin, perhaps generate electricity :question:

I often think what do I know and what's something useful that I could teach someone from the past? Honestly there's not much :lol:

So to get the ball rolling ...

I would teach them about hygene.

[Larryp]

With what we know and our modern technology, Carlos, we would seem like gods to these people

[jenchris]

How do yo think Jesus got such a good rap?
I think I would invent something serious like CPR

[Baddad]

You'd be deemed an evil wizard or a witch and burned at the stake.
People of that time were very supersticous.

Cheers

[bartman]

I had to re-read your post a few times before I got it!
With the knowledge we have now, but not the technology......exactly,....what could you teach them...?:question::confused2:
As you suggested, Hygiene would be a great start, but me thinks that that would only make it worse as the population would now be xTimes larger, which would lead to hunger.......

If I had the skills, I would try and teach people how to turn a desert into farmland...

Bartman

[AstralTraveller]

Quite likely, though I thought that the real fixation with witches was mostly in the 14th century. One story I heard (it may or may not be right) was that as the climate cooled into the Little Ice Age there was a series of natural disasters which were blamed on witches. (I suppose we will soon start to burn climatologists :P)

The other possibility is that you would be exposed to a whole lot of bugs you'd never seen before and die a horrible death. Living like a god or king sounds great but dying in pain on the mud floor of a straw hut is less appealing.

The person who first decided that hygiene was important (eg washing hands before delivering a baby) was very unpopular because he implied that there was something 'wrong' with the doctors. This was in the 19th century and he was in charge of a hospital and so he wasn't burnt but in earlier times .....:eyepop: I think the safest thing to teach is something they would really appreciate, like better ways to kill their neighbours. :lol:

[Baddad]

Hi David,

I suppose we will soon start to burn climatologists :P)

:lol::lol:

I would be inclined to introduce birth control methods. After all much of the problem we now have is the huge population. All requiring energy and food, resulting in pollution.

Cheers

[Miaplacidus]

The seed of some primary school mathematics would probably give them a good kick start.

[ourkind]

Nice one :thumbsup:

:rofl: That would be very popular!

Another good one :thumbsup:

[ourkind]

Sorry about that I think clearer than I type :P

That's cool but what about with the skills you currenly have? That's what I mean I would like to show them heaps of things but only really know a limited amount about each "jack of all trades, master of none". I wouldn't even be able to lead them into the Iron age let alone the Bronze age :)

[GrampianStars]

weed out the Ranga's then there would never be a J Gillard PM :thumbsup:

[Waxing_Gibbous]

If you think about it, there is very little in the way of technology you could actually transfer. Medicines, power tools, cars, baby buggies, food processors etc. etc. all require a high level of preceding technology such as metal smelting and casting, milling machines, drilling rigs for oil, refineries to make plastics and organic chemicals - you get the idea.

Knowledge of how to build all that stuff would certainly transfer easily enough if you could find someone of sufficient intelligence - but you'd need to speak the local lingo and you'd still be left with the problem of how to get the raw materials in sufficient quantity to get the balls rolling.

You probably wouldn't have to worry about ancient diseases.
If it didn't kill your ancestors, it won't kill you.

If I could impart any bit of wisdom it would be: "Don't listen to that Plato guy. He'll have you gazing at your navels while you should be out learning to build dune buggies"!

[Exfso]

I think I would like to go back far enough to ensure I never met my 1st missus again. Whew would I save some money then...:eyepop:

[von Tom]

Star Wars :)

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Come to think of it - it's the downtimers that would be in danger from 'your' bugs!
They'd have no immunity to modern viruses or bacteria.
Heck - just sneezing could wipe us all out before we started. :scared:

[Waxing_Gibbous]

:rofl:+1

[lacad01]

If I could go back in time that far back and still be in Australia, at least everywhere would be a dark sky site :)

[AstralTraveller]

But they did kill my ancestors, sometimes in massive numbers. Just because some people survived the black death doesn't mean I'm immune.




Very true. You have to crawl before walking and running. And even if you took technology back how much use would it be? Your cordless drill will go flat and your iPhone isn't much use by itself. Some things could still be used of course. A wind-up watch would be good for years and binos would last basically forever.

What about some glass tube and mercury? You could make barometers and get into weather forecasting. :shrug:

[Larryp]

+2:rofl:

[jjjnettie]

At the risk of crossing the boundaries of the TOS, I would prevent the rise of a certain institution that was to blame for the Dark Ages and the Witch Burning and the holding back of technology. Imagine how far ahead we would be now if people weren't living under terror of inquisition and accusations of blasphemy.

[Larryp]

Totally agree!

[Barrykgerdes]

How about this scenario

The modern technological age developed almost exclusively in the last 350 years.

If the same thing had happened 4000 years ago. In ancient egypt where they had already done great engineering feats.

Maybe none of us would be here now because they would most likely have already destroyed the planet.

Barry

[blink138]

it is still happening in a large part nettie!
pat

[MrB]

I'd put a few signs or plaques in many languages on a large remote uninhabited tropical island proclaiming it to belong to a person with my name, my birth date, an unmistakable image of me and also stating that the named person will be inhabiting said island at a certain date in the future.
Then I would come back to 'now' and enjoy the peace and dark skies.

I know it's full of holes, but we are allowed to dream ;)

[Matt Wastell]

I guess you could teach principles rather than actually doing anything from a technical standpoint - let the idea take hold - but I suspect you would be chased out of town! We may actually learn something from them!

[Barrykgerdes]

I like this idea (because I am greedy)
Go back 24hrs when the last ball falls in the lotto and complete my entry. It should then automatically be in the system when the entries are checked. Thus avoiding changing the future!

Barry:thumbsup:

[Zhou]

And then we could have an absolute champion and all round nice guy like the gentleman who wants her job for PM :thumbsup:

[ZeroID]

Far enough back to tell Galileo he was right .. and a few other geniuses of their times as well.

[AstralTraveller]

Murphy?? Possibly the most profound law of them all.

[pixelsaurus]

I think the ancients were missing a good egg burger.

[sjastro]

For those I don't like I'd put the Grandfather paradox to the test.:lol:

Steven

PS One doesn't haven't resort to murder.

[Baddad]

Yes Barry k,:)

I like this idea (because I am greedy)
Go back 24hrs when the last ball falls in the lotto:)

So what would you do with the toys... er money? Maybe I needn't ask?:lol:

Cheers

[allan gould]

+1 Try to instill the idea of questioning a statement ie the rudiments of science and get rid of all superstitious belief systems.

[AstralTraveller]

You don't need time travel to undertake that sisyphean task.

[Varangian]

I would teach stone age people the written language so we could have a history of these times other than what we now know from archaeology.

[joe_smith]

get rid of the root of all evil the money system more people have been killed by war, famine, greed and and power hungry corrupted rulers in the quest of it than any religion. Most of the horrors done in the "name" of religion were for person gains for earthy reasons, what about the good religion has done in shaping our world through history, to say it hasent is to be ignorant of history and just plain old cherry picking.

if I could go back in time I would kill the few remaining human ancestors and let evolution have another go, or teach the Neanderthals trench warfare.

if the hole Earth history is put into 24 hours we have been here for about 2 minutes and look what we have done to it. look at what we have become, say some thing about big brother, face book, apple, android and look at the atmosphere it creates. Mention if there could be something more to life and bang instant hate and anger, this is our religion now, we have new "gods" we worship now, but the same old crap. For us to evolve to the next level as a species on this lovely planet we have to ALL change our ways, what will our family's be saying about us in 200 years into our future, go back in time and kill us because of the world we left them?
has anyone thought why shows like big brother and fake reality shows are so popular, I think its because its better than the sad fact that there is something really wrong with the way we are heading and most people would rather live with there head in the sand or dreaming of winning our new religious pastime see who dies with the most toys, even at the cost of the horrors, our life style causes to the exploited people of the world and outside of our own limited view. Look and see the full story of what is happing in the world, why do you think the real reason why the middle east hate the west so much. Human nature may be the root of all evil after all???

[Barrykgerdes]

Its no good surmising. It has already been done. Our evolution was ruined when the Golgafrinchams crashed their space ship on earth 2 million years ago and ruined a perfectly good computer program that ended when the Vogons destroyed earth to make the hyperspace bypass.

Barry

[Baddad]

Hi jjj,

Many have tried to change the world in the past.
They would burn you at the stake for practicing sorcery. Women were not recognised to be knowledgable. To question the religous beliefs of the day was absolutely a no,no.

If you went back further in time, there were still some kind of ancient religions. Man has believed in some kind of higher being ever since spoken communication was developing.

It satisfies a psychological need. The need for an explanation of "Why is it so". People in the past had very little knowledge. The explanation of a volcano erupting was simply, "The fire (higher being) is angry."

Simple beliefs explained a lot. Now we have science which is providing quite plausable explanations. But to try to change people in the past would be near impossible.

Going back to Medieval Times, people are too stubborn to change.
Go back further, then they are not capable of any scientific concepts.

I can see good intentions by most, but I am convinced that it would be extremely difficult. Maybe an odd person in a crowd. Like Newton or Galileo. People like them had the mindset to question things and a thirst for knowledge.

However it definitely would be a truly interesting excercise and I'd like to be proven wrong.

Cheers

[blink138]

by god though the vogons had good poetry!
pat

[Varangian]

Any statement that ends with three question marks must be viewed with suspicion in my honest opinion :lol:

[MrB]

123806

[Larryp]

Very clever!:lol:

[Varangian]

Robust empirical science right there :thumbsup: