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Kassad posted:Give Hannibal a nuke. Better yet, Brennus
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Dec 12, 2017 15:36
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Give everyone a nuke.
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Dec 12, 2017 15:47
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If we gave Australopithicus a nuke we could avert this entire conversation
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Dec 12, 2017 16:27
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I'd bring back HIV.
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Dec 12, 2017 16:55
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Sea silk would probably make an excellent mosquito net, except the moths would eat it. A brief BBC video of the last known weaver of the silk from the infamous "water sheep": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyr_7P6l_2o
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Dec 12, 2017 17:20
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Put precisely one nuke on the planet and say it's a gift from your closest Mars analog. Run a book on how long until, and where, it goes off.
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Dec 12, 2017 17:26
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I'd start kidnapping historical figures for use in my extra credit end of year history presentation.
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Dec 12, 2017 18:15
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I'd get immediately captured and sold into slavery as I don't speak the language
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Dec 12, 2017 19:23
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Spoken ecclesiastical Latin is super different from classical Latin, right? Is the written language still similar? Maybe if you were a Catholic priest you could go back and just pretend to be a weird rear end provincial.
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Dec 12, 2017 19:44
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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It'd be funnier if it made you sound like a sci-fi alien instead, maybe somebody would get a kick out of that.
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Dec 12, 2017 19:48
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PittTheElder posted:Spoken ecclesiastical Latin is super different from classical Latin, right? Is the written language still similar? Maybe if you were a Catholic priest you could go back and just pretend to be a weird rear end provincial. No, not really. Your pronunciation would sound very odd since it’s so influenced by Italian, and it’s not clear to me that any old Numerius Nigidius on the street would be able to understand you completely, but in writing you could certainly make yourself understood to an educated Roman.
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Dec 12, 2017 19:56
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skasion posted:No, not really. Your pronunciation would sound very odd since it’s so influenced by Italian, and it’s not clear to me that any old Numerius Nigidius on the street would be able to understand you completely, but in writing you could certainly make yourself understood to an educated Roman. If you know the basics of the grammar and language already pronunciation is also something you can learn a LOT quicker. It would be as simple as grabbing some literate person off the street and having them read what your copy of De Bello Gallico should sound like out loud.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:01
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That really gets to the question of what is good for society? If you were able to bring something back to the past to effect good... what is good?
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Dec 12, 2017 20:02
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sebzilla posted:I'd get immediately captured and sold into slavery as I don't speak the language same except I'd probably end up dying right after from being completely unused to hard physical labor
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Dec 12, 2017 20:02
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Arglebargle III posted:That really gets to the question of what is good for society? If you were able to bring something back to the past to effect good... what is good? Probably minimizing human suffering is the only metric you're going to be able to go by that isn't innately tied to personal beliefs. I mean, there are some dudes out there who 100% believe the correct answer is taking a pistol back and shooting Muhammad so Islam never happens. Whether or not that is a net gain for humanity comes down to personal beliefs (for the record, NO I do not believe this). edit: with that in mind I'm doubling down on basic cultivation of antibiotics and a quick primer on germ theory. I mean, they were already kind of getting there with miasma theory, just the vector wasn't quite right.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:04
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No one will option my screenplay for Dark Enlightenment Time Machine.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:07
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Cyrano4747 posted:Probably minimizing human suffering is the only metric you're going to be able to go by that isn't innately tied to personal beliefs. The time traveler immediately runs into two problems: contingency, which has been treated exhaustively elsewhere; and the export of human suffering into the past or future.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:13
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Before the past century or so saving lives from plagues will just mean more people die in famines probably, and vice versa. It's fun to talk about but I don't think there exists anything you can bring back that lets you leapfrog human development except maybe scientific thinking and even then you'd have to go about convincing people the hard way while competing with a bunch of other schools of thought
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Dec 12, 2017 20:24
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Which is why you bring both a textbook and an automatic pistol. QED.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:26
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Condoms and pension plans.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:27
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Butt stuff and weed Fake edit: this isn't the sex questions megathread!
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Dec 12, 2017 20:29
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Yea, until the late industrial revolution crop yield is the big factor in stability and wellbeing. Gotta eat to live. Until we get industrial fertilisers and mechanised labour, crop yields will still plummet in down years: Potatoes are probably the best choice for that reason, even if expanding the food supply just means population grows bigger before they all die next famine.
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Dec 12, 2017 20:53
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Discuss: when did the agricultural revolution pay off in a superior lifestyle for the median citizen in a culture that transitioned from pastoralism to agriculture?
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Dec 12, 2017 20:54
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Cyrano4747 posted:Probably minimizing human suffering is the only metric you're going to be able to go by that isn't innately tied to personal beliefs. "minimising human suffering" is innately tied to personal beliefs!
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Dec 12, 2017 21:01
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Arglebargle III posted:Discuss: when did the agricultural revolution pay off in a superior lifestyle for the median citizen in a culture that transitioned from pastoralism to agriculture? The question doesn't add up because pastoralism didn't precede the neolithic revolution (if that's what you mean). If you meant hunter-gathering, well, depends on your metrics and idea of the median citizen
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Dec 12, 2017 21:02
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Arglebargle III posted:Discuss: when did the agricultural revolution pay off in a superior lifestyle for the median citizen in a culture that transitioned from pastoralism to agriculture? From what I've read, either the past hundred years or so or never depending on how much you think life sucks for the median human right now Apparently hunting-gathering is much more chill than farming, it just doesn't support a very high population density or allow elites to tax you
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Dec 12, 2017 21:04
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Hunter-gatherers don’t labor as much in terms of time as people in agricultural societies, and their labor is structured differently, but it’s not like they loaf around all day waiting for food to come to them either. Hunting and gathering is work, and in most environments it’s really hard work. Most of the time it also requires nomadic lifestyle so you don’t hunt and gather yourself right out of food. There’s also hella child mortality like in any premodern society. No matter how much you hate your job, you probably would not have a good time living in a hunter-gatherer culture.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:15
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nothing to seehere posted:Yea, until the late industrial revolution crop yield is the big factor in stability and wellbeing. Gotta eat to live. Until we get industrial fertilisers and mechanised labour, crop yields will still plummet in down years: Potatoes are probably the best choice for that reason, even if expanding the food supply just means population grows bigger before they all die next famine. I love the irony that Thomas Robert Malthus published his theory just after industrial agriculture started to invalidate it.
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Dec 12, 2017 21:54
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Cyrano4747 posted:Probably minimizing human suffering is the only metric you're going to be able to go by that isn't innately tied to personal beliefs. Didn't go back far enough. Take your pistol, head back, and shoot the would-be parents of the first human. Human suffering has been totally eliminated
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Dec 12, 2017 22:12
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Fortunately you can't do that, since time is a flat circle.
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Dec 12, 2017 22:22
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Steal their bread recipe. https://twitter.com/ehauserwrites/status/940263622751682565
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Dec 12, 2017 22:50
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Not everybody has an active volcano in their backyard, loving hipsters and their artisan breads!HEY GUNS posted:the renaissance beat you to it Why are all the pictures of baby Jesus??
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Dec 12, 2017 23:24
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cheetah7071 posted:I don't think there exists anything you can bring back that lets you leapfrog human development that plus improved sanitation is why the human population starts climbing around 1750 after digging itself out of the 30-yw-ditch and then, unlike at every previous time this happened in history, kept climbing
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Dec 12, 2017 23:40
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Why are all the pictures of baby Jesus?? there are also pictures of a crucified christ with the painter alluding to his dong in it, don't worry
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Dec 12, 2017 23:41
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Also lots of pictures of babby Jesus looking a lot like a middle aged banker, for Reasons.
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Dec 13, 2017 00:00
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Not everybody has an active volcano in their backyard, loving hipsters and their artisan breads! Carbonized bread is a bit of a wonder-material; it's an excellent electrical and thermal insulator and it's incredibly cheap compared to other low density heat resistant materials. It is however quite fragile.
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Dec 13, 2017 00:11
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What do you think the Romans would do if you showed them how to build basic electrical generators in general and left it up to them how they'd get the power to rotate the coils? Make it a human slave task? Stick to hooking it up to existing water mills?
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Dec 13, 2017 00:23
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I would imagine given what Romans do if you put a natural water source and height differential within fifty miles of them, they'd probably put them on water wheels.
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Dec 13, 2017 01:16
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Por que no los dos?
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Dec 13, 2017 01:18
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On that note has anyone read this novel that came out recently Kingdom of the Wicked, about Jesus getting tried in industrially revolutionized Rome? I usually stay away from alt-hist stuff but my dad recommended it to me, so it might be decent, I guess. e: not the Anthony Burgess book. Though if anyone has any opinions on that they’re welcome too.
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Dec 13, 2017 01:52
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