Well, aside from the basic stuff, like reading and writing, maths etc. I could teach drystone walling, although that would probably be being used. Basic medicine? Swimming wasn't too common an ability then, either.
What knowledge could YOU bring to the dark ages
- Thread starter Splyth
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I am gonna go with "the earth revolves around the sun". Granted I would like to go earlier (Aristotle's time), but 100-300 years before Kepler would still be good. Also, I could teach Newtonian physics.
That would screw us over in the long run. That is unless you teach them not to abuse it.Splyth said:
You can't just say that, especially in the middle ages. You need people to come to that conclusion on their own.Gardenia said:
Too bad everything we have today was be considered "magic" in the middle ages.A Weakgeek said:
I basically perfected A-level physics, albeit 3 years ago now, and am also good at biology and maths, but I'm a masters chemistry student, so I can teach them how to bore each other to tears/sleep/death...
Also, geography! tell them where America is, why they should forget about the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn, and that the building of the Panama canal will also cause massive trouble due to malaria...
And that identical irish singing twins should never start a pop group named by using a portmanteau of their fornames
Also, geography! tell them where America is, why they should forget about the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn, and that the building of the Panama canal will also cause massive trouble due to malaria...
And that identical irish singing twins should never start a pop group named by using a portmanteau of their fornames
Sorry to burst your bubble there, old boy, but in the dark ages many European cultures already knew patterning techniques, so that one's a bit iffy...Splyth said:
OT: Basic float-glass production techniques probably... *shrug*
Don't know too much sciency stuff, but, I'd write down enough about their futures to make Nostradamus look like a chump by comparison.
I'd probably take back knowledge of making paper and bookmaking, and spread the idea of writing down stuff. The dark ages weren't really 'dark' (in fact, 'the dark ages' isn't really used anymore, at least in terms of UK history), it's just that no one wrote very much.
I love you, and Australia will likely name you their king for giving them that gift.SinorKirby said:
I sort of remember enough to recreate at least a crude form of movable type. I'm sure the monks would thank me...at least until I told them they'd still have to do the illumination by hand.
Absolutely nothing. My "Millenium Man" knowledge would be a surefire way to get me burned on a stake. Or... I guess I could find some people that I could trust, and ease them into the idea that I am from the future, and start some kind of underground society... Uh... I think I have a novel to draft.
I would tell them how to prevent the spread of disease. Maybe bring some penicillan if I could. That may save a couple million deaths from the plague. If I could get the blueprints for the printing press, that could help spread a lot of information too.
The knowledge that one day Nintendo will break your heart. Don't trust it.
That and batmans real identity
That and batmans real identity
Well, if it is during the dark ages 500 AD to 1100 AD
First thing first. MOVE TO THE MIDDLE EAST! Get OUT of Europe. During these times specifically, To speak Heresey in Europe is immediate death. In Bahgadad you could say there is no God to your Hearts content and be safe. (As long as it i before 1100 AD)
To to the Technology ad Information:
The "Age of Sail" would come up 600 years early. Time to get to the Americas before 1000 AD
Screws
Basic knowledge of anatomy would make you one of the greatest "Doctors" of the time.
Pennicilan
Wheelbarrows (didnt come to Europe till the 1100's)
Irrigation
Firearms
Cannons
Knowledge of the solar system
Bluntmans Theory of Relativity and Gravity
Algebra and Calculas
The Earth is Round
Longbows
Lighters
Food preservation, cooking, and prepartion
Hygene (this encompasses a lot, gotta stop the Plague somehow)
Knowledge of weather patterns
Concrete (Unless i can find the recipe for Roman Concrete, which is vastly superior to what we use today)
Honestly, there is a lot that could be done with what we consider common knowledge, in the past. The simplest of things, would make you a VERY intelligent man. And the simplest of technologies would advance human society a thousand years.
I always like to wonder what our world would be like if Christianity hadnt stifled the growth of Europe during what we call the "Dark Ages". And it is an apt description as well. We could quite possibly be 100's of years more advanced technologically. We could have landed men on the moon 300 years ago instead of 50. But the "Christian Age", i mean "Dark Age", really isnt a time i would like to travel back into time to.
now, Get me around 60 BC, and in Rome, and i will change the world. But most likely in the Dark Ages, you would be put to death few hours after arriving. (Depending on where you were sent)
First thing first. MOVE TO THE MIDDLE EAST! Get OUT of Europe. During these times specifically, To speak Heresey in Europe is immediate death. In Bahgadad you could say there is no God to your Hearts content and be safe. (As long as it i before 1100 AD)
To to the Technology ad Information:
The "Age of Sail" would come up 600 years early. Time to get to the Americas before 1000 AD
Screws
Basic knowledge of anatomy would make you one of the greatest "Doctors" of the time.
Pennicilan
Wheelbarrows (didnt come to Europe till the 1100's)
Irrigation
Firearms
Cannons
Knowledge of the solar system
Bluntmans Theory of Relativity and Gravity
Algebra and Calculas
The Earth is Round
Longbows
Lighters
Food preservation, cooking, and prepartion
Hygene (this encompasses a lot, gotta stop the Plague somehow)
Knowledge of weather patterns
Concrete (Unless i can find the recipe for Roman Concrete, which is vastly superior to what we use today)
Honestly, there is a lot that could be done with what we consider common knowledge, in the past. The simplest of things, would make you a VERY intelligent man. And the simplest of technologies would advance human society a thousand years.
I always like to wonder what our world would be like if Christianity hadnt stifled the growth of Europe during what we call the "Dark Ages". And it is an apt description as well. We could quite possibly be 100's of years more advanced technologically. We could have landed men on the moon 300 years ago instead of 50. But the "Christian Age", i mean "Dark Age", really isnt a time i would like to travel back into time to.
now, Get me around 60 BC, and in Rome, and i will change the world. But most likely in the Dark Ages, you would be put to death few hours after arriving. (Depending on where you were sent)
I'm working off the assumption that if I start talking god and religion and yada yada I'll immediately be set on fire for heresy. Thus, I'll have to walk on eggshells until I can gain the good faith of most of the people.
Sanitation alone is going to improve a LOT of lives. I don't know a lot about medicine, but I do at least know that drilling holes in the skull to let demons out is a bad thing, so maybe I can at least get people to stop doing that. And somewhere in the middle of it all, I'll do what I can to influence the arts, particularly music and theater.
Sanitation alone is going to improve a LOT of lives. I don't know a lot about medicine, but I do at least know that drilling holes in the skull to let demons out is a bad thing, so maybe I can at least get people to stop doing that. And somewhere in the middle of it all, I'll do what I can to influence the arts, particularly music and theater.
Heh..kind of off topic since i havent got a clue what i would share with the world but...
My sister and i were watching tv a while back and we got to talking about what we would do if we could go back in time. she came up with a plan to make her life complete during the course of the discussion.
1) Go back in time
2) Kidnap lancelot, have tea in the tardis.
3)life complete.
My sister and i were watching tv a while back and we got to talking about what we would do if we could go back in time. she came up with a plan to make her life complete during the course of the discussion.
1) Go back in time
2) Kidnap lancelot, have tea in the tardis.
3)life complete.
Me: Hello people of the past, I am here to bring knowledge of the future to make your lives better, healthier, and longer! 
People of the past:...
Me: First off, the Earth is round, and we can find north by putting a magnet in water to see which way it points!
People of the Past: WITCH! WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!
Me: D:
People of the past:...
Me: First off, the Earth is round, and we can find north by putting a magnet in water to see which way it points!
People of the Past: WITCH! WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!
Me: D:
Your trip will end quite abruptly. On top of that you will lose any chance you had to do any good.Gardenia said:
I, on the other hand shall claim that the good lord did send to me a holy vision of how to fight the illnesses which plague the land and that he sent me to spread this knowledge for the good and glory of the just mother church. Saints be praised. Amen.
You may be amazed to know that they already had the flameproof suit. While they may not have known how bad asbestos fibers were for you, it was already being made and used. They called it "stone wool".DazBurger said:
For that matter, religion was not really a technological sink. Islam unified an entire sub continent bringing about a scientific explosion and Christian monks did much to preserve and advance the sciences (you can thank them for genetics and music). Your real technological sink was the invading barbarians that leveled thriving civilizations on a regular basis. You would do more to advance progress by defending the Arab Caliphate from the mongols than by trying to get them to abandon Allah. In my opinion anyhow. It seems to me at any rate, as a moderate and pragmatic man, that even if you're such a gung-ho atheist that you can't see a way to co-exist with religion that you could acheive your aims more effectively by bringing people prosperity and separating them from superstition in the working of the natural world than you could by attacking it directly and then allow them to form their own conclusions and opinions over time without ever making yourself a target.
Well for starters, perhaps it's wasting my breath to say this but it wasn't Christianity that brought the fall of Rome, it was ineffectual governance and mismanagement. It would have fallen and created the post apocalyptic existence and savagery of the feudal era anyhow. An era not known for intellectualism, what with the highest form of humor being "a hop, a whistle and a fart". After the fall, people did a fine job inventing their own superstitions to persecute others. The existence of witches for instance was propagated by villagers and was actively denounced by the church until the corrupt reign of Medici pope Leo X who only recognized them to sell protection from them. For that matter, technological and scientific oppression existed well before the church. Nerva as roman emperor, when presented with the steam engine by Hero was told it could "allow one man to do the work of 100 slaves.", Nerva, before he forbade it's use responded "Then what would we do with the slaves?" Furthermore, the "dark ages" had a few bright spots as well. Christianity emphasized the sanctity of human life, a concept all together absent in Rome and Pagan lands and the Magna Carta did much to advance the causes of the rule of law as well as human rights and established precedents for the limits of power granted to rulers. I would say to you, good luck getting any ruler of the time to accept that one.Bluntman1138 said:
"BEHOLD! THE 'CONDOM'!" I would yell, waving its latex glory at the bemused peasants shortly before they either eat me or burn me at the stake. Besides that, I would play Black Sabbath for them, and die because of it.
On my time traveling trip, I will arrive in a haz-mat suit with my own packet lunches to avoid getting, you know, The Plague.
On my time traveling trip, I will arrive in a haz-mat suit with my own packet lunches to avoid getting, you know, The Plague.