If you found yourself among primitive people, how much advanced technology could you teach them?
The origin of this (purely useless) thread started with a couple of novels involving time travel that I read. Suddenly, a modern person finds himself in an ancient civilization. Could you bring them up to speed? How do you start?
Well that led to some other thoughts about "standing on the shoulders of giants". In other words, I know lots of stuff about high technology, but if I can't get electricity from a wall socket, I'm practically useless. Well, thinking about it led to this thought experiment.
You have stumbled on the secret to time travel and thrown together a time machine. Unfortunately, you were drunk one night, stumbled into it, and the controls were set to someplace you didn't actually want to go. The time machine will send you back, but none of your belongings. Also, it's more of a "time teleporter". The machine doesn't go with you, so it's a one way trip.
You find yourself just outside of Cahokia, Illinois, in the year 1000 of the common era. At this point, Cahokia is a major city, somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 people, where they build mounds and worship something or another. They are illiterate. Copper tools have been found there, but no evidence of copper mining, so they were probably acquired through trade. You have no possessions, not even clothing. You have whatever color skin you happen to have, which almost certainly doesn't match theirs. You don't speak the language. Let's make you 25 years old, knowing whatever you knew at that time (plus time travel, but that's pretty useless without the machine.) If you aren't yet 25, speculate. In other words, you have completed most if not all of your formal education, and have at least some ability to get along in the 21st century.
Let's assume that they don't just kill you on the spot for being an obvious foreigner. Your first problem is to convince them that you know something worth knowing. Is there something you could do that would impress them to the point where they might not shove you into a pit? Or better yet, impress them so much that they would make an effort to learn to communicate with you? In the original "Planet of the Apes", one of the astronauts makes a paper airplane, but these people don't have paper. What could you do rapidly?
Then, if you manage to succeed, let's imagine that you want to live a good, comfortable life, as best you can, for the rest of your days, which, for the sake of argument, let's say are not cut short by infectious diseases or malnutrition. You intend to live to be seventy. How far can you get? Could you ever manage to live in a world with a flush toilet, for example?
For my part, I can't think of what I would do that would demonstrate my advanced technology rapidly. If I could get them to take me seriously I could teach them writing, algebra, and basic calculus and convince them to use it. I could probably even teach them the printing press, maybe, but that would take a long time. I'm a software/computer engineer, but I can't remember Maxwell's equations. I understand some basics about electricity and magnetism, but even if I could come up with wire, I don't know if I could recreate the original experiments involving generating an electric current and moving magnetized needles. I could explain how a rifle works, but I don't know if I could make gunpowder.
If I was stuck in the middle ages in Europe, instead of North America, I might be able to do a little bit better, except that I would probably be burned as a witch, but starting from absolutely nothing but my college education and the 20th century version of "common sense", I'm not sure what I could accomplish.
So, thoughts? How would you first get their attention, and then how far do you think you could get them? In the remainder of your life, could you come up with a telegraph? Flush toilet? Antibiotics? Rifles? Paper? Pens or pencils?
The origin of this (purely useless) thread started with a couple of novels involving time travel that I read. Suddenly, a modern person finds himself in an ancient civilization. Could you bring them up to speed? How do you start?
Well that led to some other thoughts about "standing on the shoulders of giants". In other words, I know lots of stuff about high technology, but if I can't get electricity from a wall socket, I'm practically useless. Well, thinking about it led to this thought experiment.
You have stumbled on the secret to time travel and thrown together a time machine. Unfortunately, you were drunk one night, stumbled into it, and the controls were set to someplace you didn't actually want to go. The time machine will send you back, but none of your belongings. Also, it's more of a "time teleporter". The machine doesn't go with you, so it's a one way trip.
You find yourself just outside of Cahokia, Illinois, in the year 1000 of the common era. At this point, Cahokia is a major city, somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 people, where they build mounds and worship something or another. They are illiterate. Copper tools have been found there, but no evidence of copper mining, so they were probably acquired through trade. You have no possessions, not even clothing. You have whatever color skin you happen to have, which almost certainly doesn't match theirs. You don't speak the language. Let's make you 25 years old, knowing whatever you knew at that time (plus time travel, but that's pretty useless without the machine.) If you aren't yet 25, speculate. In other words, you have completed most if not all of your formal education, and have at least some ability to get along in the 21st century.
Let's assume that they don't just kill you on the spot for being an obvious foreigner. Your first problem is to convince them that you know something worth knowing. Is there something you could do that would impress them to the point where they might not shove you into a pit? Or better yet, impress them so much that they would make an effort to learn to communicate with you? In the original "Planet of the Apes", one of the astronauts makes a paper airplane, but these people don't have paper. What could you do rapidly?
Then, if you manage to succeed, let's imagine that you want to live a good, comfortable life, as best you can, for the rest of your days, which, for the sake of argument, let's say are not cut short by infectious diseases or malnutrition. You intend to live to be seventy. How far can you get? Could you ever manage to live in a world with a flush toilet, for example?
For my part, I can't think of what I would do that would demonstrate my advanced technology rapidly. If I could get them to take me seriously I could teach them writing, algebra, and basic calculus and convince them to use it. I could probably even teach them the printing press, maybe, but that would take a long time. I'm a software/computer engineer, but I can't remember Maxwell's equations. I understand some basics about electricity and magnetism, but even if I could come up with wire, I don't know if I could recreate the original experiments involving generating an electric current and moving magnetized needles. I could explain how a rifle works, but I don't know if I could make gunpowder.
If I was stuck in the middle ages in Europe, instead of North America, I might be able to do a little bit better, except that I would probably be burned as a witch, but starting from absolutely nothing but my college education and the 20th century version of "common sense", I'm not sure what I could accomplish.
So, thoughts? How would you first get their attention, and then how far do you think you could get them? In the remainder of your life, could you come up with a telegraph? Flush toilet? Antibiotics? Rifles? Paper? Pens or pencils?
via International Skeptics Forum http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=286899&goto=newpost
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