If you had the diamond mines, who would work them? Would the mining tools (that is, those required for diamonds) be available? How would you cut them? How would you get the diamonds back to Europe? How can you be sure that Europeans of the time would even want them?
If we're already assuming I have a boat to get to Africa, getting back is the same way I got there. I wouldn't need people to work them full-on. I could work them myself and just get a few sacks worth. With enough practice, I could cut them and polish them myself. I doubt I would ruin a few sacks of diamonds practicing. Setting them in jewelry is also very doable, especially in nice soft gold. The wealthy would always want shiny things. I just give a big fancy jewel to a queen or princess as a gift. Then all the other nobles would be envious, and I would get made moneys from them.
Knowing where to pump is not that difficult. I imagine it would be hard to not strike oil digging in the Iraq/Kuwait area, or the Saudi Arabia area. Yes, I know that's a big area, but it's not like the oil under the ground has a single entry point. We're talking about giant lakes of oil. Not easy to miss, especially when none of it has been taken yet. You do have a good point about the refining, though. I'm going to go study up on that as it would be useful knowledge in a much more likely zombie or apocalypse situation.
I think your underestimating what points of sterile technique these people are ignorant too.. Simply teaching how to distill water and properly clean medical equipment (bone saws and the like)... I mean I don't think you realize how ignorant people were about sterile technique, I'm not talking plastic gloves and vaccum hoods here...
I think you are underestimating the weird ideas they had. I'm saying that they might not have been persuaded to clean their instruments because they would not have understood any connections between sterile conditions and disease. They thought that astral influences, sin, and the balance of the four humors had more to do with disease than sterility.
Also, if you don't have running water, boiling water can be prohibitive. How long do you think it takes to boil a cauldron of water? How expensive is the wood? Do you have that long to wait for the water to boil while your patient is bleeding out?
If none of those things happen I can play the "I was sent by God." card and fix some things.
They would totally call you a witch and kill you. Women in that time in Europe were pretty much boned if they weren't born into a high position on moneyed family. You couldn't even earn a decent living without getting married.
This thread is moot if you were born with a vagina.
Oh yeah, anyone who takes medication regularly, wears contact lenses, or has some other modern need, you're fucked no matter what skills you have. I have perfect vision, and require no medications, so I'm all set.
This realization gives me a good idea. I'm going to now go and research how to tell a penicillin mold from a poison mold. In the year 1000 penicillin probably worked fucking wonders.
Diamonds? Who is going to want to buy them from you? How will you keep the crown from simply taking them? Where is this boat going to come from? How will you deal with the natives who live near the diamond mines when you get there? Where will you get the tools to work the diamonds?
Teaming up with the local blacksmith to create better (more ergonomic) pitchforks may be a good start but getting the tools to create lenses may be beyond your ability to acquire without teaming up with some local power block. This is the time in history when people thought flies were born of rotting meat and not fly eggs.
One area you could do well in would be masonry and carpentry.
Oh yeah, anyone who takes medication regularly, wears contact lenses, or has some other modern need, you're fucked no matter what skills you have. I have perfect vision, and require no medications, so I'm all set.
This realization gives me a good idea. I'm going to now go and research how to tell a penicillin mold from a poison mold. In the year 1000 penicillin probably worked fucking wonders.
Yes but you have no built-up immunity to the diseases of that time, nor any resources to procure what rudimentary medical help was available at the time.
Oh yeah, anyone who takes medication regularly, wears contact lenses, or has some other modern need, you're fucked no matter what skills you have. I have perfect vision, and require no medications, so I'm all set.
This realization gives me a good idea. I'm going to now go and research how to tell a penicillin mold from a poison mold. In the year 1000 penicillin probably worked fucking wonders.
Yes but you have no built-up immunity to the diseases of that time, nor any resources to procure what rudimentary medical help was available at the time.
Hence, the penicillin mold research. Being the only person on earth who knows that mold to eat is a tremendous advantage. A virus might get me, but getting vaccinations in the present before going back to the past can help with that. I almost definitely won't live long enough to make it to the times of the black plague, but I would have a much better chance of surviving it than others, as I would know not to drink from the bad water and such.
Oh yeah, anyone who takes medication regularly, wears contact lenses, or has some other modern need, you're fucked no matter what skills you have. I have perfect vision, and require no medications, so I'm all set.
This realization gives me a good idea. I'm going to now go and research how to tell a penicillin mold from a poison mold. In the year 1000 penicillin probably worked fucking wonders.
Yes but you have no built-up immunity to the diseases of that time, nor any resources to procure what rudimentary medical help was available at the time.
Hence, the penicillin mold research. Being the only person on earth who knows that mold to eat is a tremendous advantage. A virus might get me, but getting vaccinations in the present before going back to the past can help with that. I almost definitely won't live long enough to make it to the times of the black plague, but I would have a much better chance of surviving it than others, as I would know not to drink from the bad water and such.
I doubt that the vaccines of today would have much effect on the varied viruses of the time. I wonder what The WhaleShark has to say on the subject.
I guess, the best I could do would be to run as far and as fast as I could away from any form of civilization before I am raped and or killed and then just live as a hermit where I bathe regularly and don't use my water source as a latrine. I guess I'll just eat weeds and die of food poisoning.
Genetically speaking, we are the descendants of people who survived, so our chances are not actually all that horribly bad when it comes to disease.
It depends on your ancestry and where they came from. Also, and I am possibly wrong, but wouldn't our immune systems still be ill equipped to deal with the viruses of the past, even if our genetic ancestors survived that same virus?
Since I am a woman, I would attempt to hide in the forest, while running around as a bandit trying to steal stuff from lonely cottages. Because of the language barrier, I would lose all motivation for trying to fit into society.
If I knew the language, however, I would make up some wild story like "omgs I am a lonely peasant girl from a far away country and my family has died, bla bla bla" and try to get a job as a servant or something. I might consider making myself ugly through the wonders of modern makeup skillz (I would have to create my own makeup out of scratch I guess) so no ugly old men would try to marry me. Then eventually I would proceed to make a fabulous modern-ish clothing line that the nobles would go crazy over. I would then move on to interior design. But I wouldn't get my hopes up about all of this, because I am a woman, and would be expecting to die or something at any time.
Since I am a woman, I would attempt to hide in the forest, while running around as a bandit trying to steal stuff from lonely cottages. Because of the language barrier, I would lose all motivation for trying to fit into society.
Real piracy and/or banditry is a course of action deserving of much consideration.
It depends on your ancestry and where they came from.
True.
Also, and I am possibly wrong, but wouldn't our immune systems still be ill equipped to deal with the viruses of the past, even if our genetic ancestors survived that same virus?
Yeah, the immune system is mostly a product of experience rather than genetics. On the whole, I would say that the greater the damage the virus caused in its time, the more likely we would be to have an advantage. Why? Because the more damaging a virus was, the more likely it is to have been significantly different from everything in its time, and hence the less the developed immunities of the people of the day are likely to be of use against it. On the other hand, the more damage was caused, the more likely it is the survivors had genetic material that provided benefits against it.
Still, this is 1000AD, and there are no notable pandemics around that time. If it was the 1300's, I would (pure conjecture) guess you'd be more likely to be resistant to the Black Plague than the people of the day. As I said, pure conjecture, but it would be rather interesting to see.
I'll get quena, learn how to play it and then wonder around the world with some books that I got from this century. I would pretty much travel all over the place.
If I don't get sick(I have immunizations, but there's no health care and it was pretty unsanitary back then), lynched(I'd be taller/larger than the average person, dressed in strange clothing, and probably would not be able to communicate well with most people), or starve to death, I would try to get to Spain or Finland(I'm half Mexican and half Finnish, with a rudimentary grasp of Spanish and Finnish). My advanced (for the time) skills in math, science, reading and writing would make me valuable. If in Spain, I would go south, get into contact with Moorish scholars/doctors/scientists(who were actually somewhat accepting of new ideas), learn some of the language, and travel to the Middle East. If in Finland, I would probably become a farmer or some kind of mercenary or pirate(Viking). I'm not sure that my limited grasp of modern languages would be useful in either of these areas though.
You do not have the required muscle mass.
Really? I'd be about 3-4 inches taller than the average person of the period and have a much better diet. A peasant might do hard labor all day, but a better diet combined with daily exercise and martial arts would probably give me adequate strength. I doubt I'd have less muscle or be much weaker than anyone. Sure, I'd probably lose some mass on a Middle Age diet, but by the time I would be worrying about that, I'd already be working or dead.
@myself - If you made those predictions, you would have had to wait about 800 years for them to come true. We're talking about 1000 AD here. Steam power didn't come into common use until the late 1700s.
True, I'd have to wait, but they'd be correct, no? Now what if I made sure my predictions survived those many years? By writing them down multiple times and giving each of my children one or two copies? And told them to guard them with their lives and pass them on for "The world must be prepared!".
Now imagine that the last point in said predictions was "In the year 2010, the world will be destroyed due to the simultaneous eruption of 814 volcanoes." The world will go insane!
I doubt that the vaccines of today would have much effect on the varied viruses of the time. I wonder what The WhaleShark has to say on the subject.
Actually, we probably have a greater variety of viruses TODAY than we did back then. There's a possibility that the dominant infectious strain of any particular virus may have changed over such a period of time, but really, a good vaccine from today's medicine should be adequate to protect against those from antiquity. Of course, it's impossible to say, as we have no subtyping information from back then, and illnesses were pretty much totally undefined compared to modern times. So, even judging what may have caused a particular illness is very difficult.
Generally, though, I would expect a greater prevalence of infectious agents, while also possibly exhibiting a lower diversity of strains. The issue is that, without vaccines or modern medicine, there's really no selection pressure being applied to the infectious agents. Any variety would generally be the result of genetic drift more so than anything else, but the pathogenesis of the organisms would probably be largely identical across all subtypes, as the absence of a direct pressure would generally result in things staying the same. So there's a good likelihood your flu vaccine would protect against the influenza of antiquity.
Additionally, with the increased mortality rates of diseases, most strains wouldn't be in the host long enough to mutate to the point of great diversity. If the patient were being treated with antibiotics, we'd have a different story.
In general, though, the people of that day would probably have hardier immune systems overall, as the various infectious agents serve to weed out those with weaker immune systems. You'd probably still get sick, though, simply because of the sheer amount of disease running around.
Yeah, the immune system is mostly a product of experience rather than genetics.
This isn't exactly correct. It's not totally wrong, but it's not exactly right, either.
The immune system is entirely a product of genetics. Your current immune status is a product of experience.
Quick immunology lesson: Your immune system, by and large, recognizes infectious agents through the interaction between antigens and antigen receptors.
The immune system essentially functions to recognize non-self particles, called "antigens." Antigen technically refers to any particle recognized by the immune system, whether it originates from within the organism or without, but immune cells that recognize "self" particles are (usually) destroyed before they can reach maturation. When this doesn't occur, we get autoimmune diseases like MS, wherein the immune system attacks parts of the host's body.
So, as I said, the normal antigen receptor recognizes a non-self antigen. Antigens are typically peptides (short strings of amino acids, anywhere from 8 - 20 amino acids in length) or polysaccharides. With 20 normal amino acids, and a potential antigen size of 20 amino acids, you're looking at a huge potential variety of recognizable agents. There are several (complex) mechanisms of genetic recombination and mutation that enable the normal immune system to generate the needed diversity of antigen receptors. There are several cell types that may be generated, and each of these cell types (which perform different functions) is each specific to one antigen, determined during division. When it first arises, an immune cell is referred to as "naive;" it is subsequently tested against a battery of self antigens, and if it reacts to any self antigen, the cell undergoes apoptosis (programmed cell death). If it does not react to a self antigen, the cell is said to be "mature" and then floats around doing its thing.
This process of generating immune cells happens, basically, all the time, as cells die off and are replaced. When an immune cell encounters its antigen, it triggers a division response, and that cell will begin multiplying rapidly, mounting a defense against the foreign body. Think of it like sentries raising alarms; immune cells roam around until they find what they're looking for (or die), and if they find it, they call in the cavalry.
That's a really coarse, layman's overview of things. There are a lot of specifics, but you really don't need to know most of them. I'm also not an immunologist by any means, so I'm not an expert in these matters.
I know people who would survive just fine. So I'd really need a team. Have 3 other people of my choosing immediately helps the situation dramatically. Barring that, I would try to get a friend as soon as possible. I like the juggling idea. But really, whatever it would take. With modern clothes, you'd almost be better off naked and then feigning robbery.
I would invent the seed drill and start the agricultural revolution several hundred years early, as a bonus my name would appear on the cover of the album Aqualung!
Generally, though, I would expect a greater prevalence of infectious agents, while also possibly exhibiting a lower diversity of strains
It's a good point you make there. I was thinking along similar lines, but didn't know / think enough to come to that conclusion.
Yeah, the immune system is mostly a product of experience rather than genetics.
This isn't exactly correct. It's not totally wrong, but it's not exactly right, either.
The immune system is entirely a product of genetics. Your current immune status is a product of experience.
True. Immune status is what I meant, I guess.
What do you think of my thought that we'd be more likely to survive a pandemic of the past, if our ancestors also survived it? My reasoning was that a pandemic needs to really work around the typical immune system of the day. Also, with high death rates, any kind of genetic advantage would likely be selected for.
A number of you seem to think that Europe in the 1000's was like a fantasy Rp with villagers, blacksmiths and such. There was no trade of any kind over there at that time, there weren't even villages then. There was a castle, a lord with his smelly lawless knights, and the peasantry, maybe a few trade/craftsmen(baker, carpenter, etc) in between, but that was it. The people who are talking about being hermits, the earth was quite a bit colder back then. I don't think very many of you guys are, if he isn't just posing, Bear Grylls status, and even he would have quite a bit of trouble. All of you who keep talking about creating inventions, even though its a smart idea, it wouldn't work. Just because of how the people weren't focused on thinking in Europe at the time. I would guess that 80 percent of modern people would die in the situation of being transported back to Europe in the 1000's.
If I was transported back then I would want to go see what the deal was with the song of Roland. Charlemagne's epic battle against the Saracens in uninhabited Spain. Then I would go to the middle east where there was science and comparatively modern civilization. It was when Islam connected a large portion of the world but surprisingly there wasn't a lot of religious persecution, just pay your taxes, maybe they wanted conquered people to learn Arabic but that was it.
If I had my way I would be transfered at least 900 years before then if not more to be around during the Pax Romana. Then it'd be possible to throw out those inventions like the seed drill, crop rotation, and others(not exclusive to agriculture). The better technology, commerce, and open mindedness of the time would be a definite plus. I would try to fix some of the few problems that caused the fall of the Roman Empire with some of the mentioned inventions.
A number of you seem to think that Europe in the 1000's was like a fantasy Rp with villagers, blacksmiths and such. There was no trade of any kind over there at that time, there weren't even villages then. There was a castle, a lord with his smelly lawless knights, and the peasantry, maybe a few trade/craftsmen(baker, carpenter, etc) in between, but that was it. The people who are talking about being hermits, the earth was quite a bit colder back then. I don't think very many of you guys are, if he isn't just posing, Bear Grylls status, and even he would have quite a bit of trouble. All of you who keep talking about creating inventions, even though its a smart idea, it wouldn't work. Just because of how the people weren't focused on thinking in Europe at the time. I would guess that 80 percent of modern people would die in the situation of being transported back to Europe in the 1000's.
This is all highly dependant on where you appear in Europe in 1000....
A number of you seem to think that Europe in the 1000's was like a fantasy Rp with villagers, blacksmiths and such. There was no trade of any kind over there at that time, there weren't even villages then. There was a castle, a lord with his smelly lawless knights, and the peasantry, maybe a few trade/craftsmen(baker, carpenter, etc) in between, but that was it.
That is actually pretty accurate. There wasn't a lot of trade in 1000 AD. You couldn't just come up with an innovation and become spectacularly wealthy based on trade.
You could sell some things, sure. You could even sell some things to nobles. If you tried to sell to the wrong noble, however, he would be just as liable to simply steal what you were offering and let you live if you were lucky.
Comments
Knowing where to pump is not that difficult. I imagine it would be hard to not strike oil digging in the Iraq/Kuwait area, or the Saudi Arabia area. Yes, I know that's a big area, but it's not like the oil under the ground has a single entry point. We're talking about giant lakes of oil. Not easy to miss, especially when none of it has been taken yet. You do have a good point about the refining, though. I'm going to go study up on that as it would be useful knowledge in a much more likely zombie or apocalypse situation.
Also, if you don't have running water, boiling water can be prohibitive. How long do you think it takes to boil a cauldron of water? How expensive is the wood? Do you have that long to wait for the water to boil while your patient is bleeding out?
This thread is moot if you were born with a vagina.
This realization gives me a good idea. I'm going to now go and research how to tell a penicillin mold from a poison mold. In the year 1000 penicillin probably worked fucking wonders.
Diamonds? Who is going to want to buy them from you? How will you keep the crown from simply taking them? Where is this boat going to come from? How will you deal with the natives who live near the diamond mines when you get there? Where will you get the tools to work the diamonds?
Teaming up with the local blacksmith to create better (more ergonomic) pitchforks may be a good start but getting the tools to create lenses may be beyond your ability to acquire without teaming up with some local power block. This is the time in history when people thought flies were born of rotting meat and not fly eggs.
One area you could do well in would be masonry and carpentry.
If I knew the language, however, I would make up some wild story like "omgs I am a lonely peasant girl from a far away country and my family has died, bla bla bla" and try to get a job as a servant or something. I might consider making myself ugly through the wonders of modern makeup skillz (I would have to create my own makeup out of scratch I guess) so no ugly old men would try to marry me. Then eventually I would proceed to make a fabulous modern-ish clothing line that the nobles would go crazy over. I would then move on to interior design. But I wouldn't get my hopes up about all of this, because I am a woman, and would be expecting to die or something at any time.
Why? Because the more damaging a virus was, the more likely it is to have been significantly different from everything in its time, and hence the less the developed immunities of the people of the day are likely to be of use against it.
On the other hand, the more damage was caused, the more likely it is the survivors had genetic material that provided benefits against it.
Still, this is 1000AD, and there are no notable pandemics around that time.
If it was the 1300's, I would (pure conjecture) guess you'd be more likely to be resistant to the Black Plague than the people of the day. As I said, pure conjecture, but it would be rather interesting to see.
Me, I'd probably die of dysentery.
Barring that, I'd teach people to pasteurize their milk and advance public health by several centuries.
Now imagine that the last point in said predictions was "In the year 2010, the world will be destroyed due to the simultaneous eruption of 814 volcanoes." The world will go insane!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAA!
Generally, though, I would expect a greater prevalence of infectious agents, while also possibly exhibiting a lower diversity of strains. The issue is that, without vaccines or modern medicine, there's really no selection pressure being applied to the infectious agents. Any variety would generally be the result of genetic drift more so than anything else, but the pathogenesis of the organisms would probably be largely identical across all subtypes, as the absence of a direct pressure would generally result in things staying the same. So there's a good likelihood your flu vaccine would protect against the influenza of antiquity.
Additionally, with the increased mortality rates of diseases, most strains wouldn't be in the host long enough to mutate to the point of great diversity. If the patient were being treated with antibiotics, we'd have a different story.
In general, though, the people of that day would probably have hardier immune systems overall, as the various infectious agents serve to weed out those with weaker immune systems. You'd probably still get sick, though, simply because of the sheer amount of disease running around. This isn't exactly correct. It's not totally wrong, but it's not exactly right, either.
The immune system is entirely a product of genetics. Your current immune status is a product of experience.
Quick immunology lesson: Your immune system, by and large, recognizes infectious agents through the interaction between antigens and antigen receptors.
The immune system essentially functions to recognize non-self particles, called "antigens." Antigen technically refers to any particle recognized by the immune system, whether it originates from within the organism or without, but immune cells that recognize "self" particles are (usually) destroyed before they can reach maturation. When this doesn't occur, we get autoimmune diseases like MS, wherein the immune system attacks parts of the host's body.
So, as I said, the normal antigen receptor recognizes a non-self antigen. Antigens are typically peptides (short strings of amino acids, anywhere from 8 - 20 amino acids in length) or polysaccharides. With 20 normal amino acids, and a potential antigen size of 20 amino acids, you're looking at a huge potential variety of recognizable agents. There are several (complex) mechanisms of genetic recombination and mutation that enable the normal immune system to generate the needed diversity of antigen receptors. There are several cell types that may be generated, and each of these cell types (which perform different functions) is each specific to one antigen, determined during division. When it first arises, an immune cell is referred to as "naive;" it is subsequently tested against a battery of self antigens, and if it reacts to any self antigen, the cell undergoes apoptosis (programmed cell death). If it does not react to a self antigen, the cell is said to be "mature" and then floats around doing its thing.
This process of generating immune cells happens, basically, all the time, as cells die off and are replaced. When an immune cell encounters its antigen, it triggers a division response, and that cell will begin multiplying rapidly, mounting a defense against the foreign body. Think of it like sentries raising alarms; immune cells roam around until they find what they're looking for (or die), and if they find it, they call in the cavalry.
That's a really coarse, layman's overview of things. There are a lot of specifics, but you really don't need to know most of them. I'm also not an immunologist by any means, so I'm not an expert in these matters.
What do you think of my thought that we'd be more likely to survive a pandemic of the past, if our ancestors also survived it?
My reasoning was that a pandemic needs to really work around the typical immune system of the day. Also, with high death rates, any kind of genetic advantage would likely be selected for.
If I was transported back then I would want to go see what the deal was with the song of Roland. Charlemagne's epic battle against the Saracens in uninhabited Spain. Then I would go to the middle east where there was science and comparatively modern civilization. It was when Islam connected a large portion of the world but surprisingly there wasn't a lot of religious persecution, just pay your taxes, maybe they wanted conquered people to learn Arabic but that was it.
If I had my way I would be transfered at least 900 years before then if not more to be around during the Pax Romana. Then it'd be possible to throw out those inventions like the seed drill, crop rotation, and others(not exclusive to agriculture). The better technology, commerce, and open mindedness of the time would be a definite plus. I would try to fix some of the few problems that caused the fall of the Roman Empire with some of the mentioned inventions.
You could sell some things, sure. You could even sell some things to nobles. If you tried to sell to the wrong noble, however, he would be just as liable to simply steal what you were offering and let you live if you were lucky.
Also, I think I know how to survive after arrival. I only need to find HungryJoe. And require many pages from Wikipedia.