this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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Its the 14th century and you've had no time to prepare, after you're done reading this post you are snapped. What do you do?

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Market myself as a powerful man of religion and/or magician, depending on the local vibe. Then use knowledge of science and tech to build myself a reclusive retreat where I can have regular baths and write books with predictions to mess with the world 650 years after I would die.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I would pretend to be super-religious. Throughout the whole of human history, pretending to be super-religious has always been a viable path to survival and personal advancement.

Apart from that, I'd probably just die.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Don't threaten me with a good time.

[–] RandomVideos 6 points 3 days ago

Use all the science i know from school to helpfully quicken scientific progress and spread trans propaganda

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago

If I time traveled to the same geographical region, considering I'm in South Brazil, if I don't get immediately killed by some jungle animal or tropical disease, I'd probably end up starting a pandemic among the natives.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago

I'm in the US and in a place that native Americans didn't have settlements. I'm very familiar with the area and have hunted, hiked, and camped here my entire life. With no preparation or modern equipment I give myself about a week before I get eaten by wolves or a bear, maybe gored by an elk or bitten by a venomous snake. I don't expect that I would see another human during that week. Native hunting parties visited the area so it's not impossible that I would see someone but it's very unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I would basically become a Jewish witch and either build a small community of people or die of some ancient plague, either way I wouldn't be thriving but I might just survive.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Probably not the answer you thought, but succeed by knowing there are wild animals that could easily kill me. It's either I die by that, or wait until the lack of my blood thinners kills me, sl I'd definitely take the quicker death than the slower one.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

Wait 612 years and buy Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

Probably die

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It's 1375 and I'm asphyxiating somewhere in the Milky Way about 600 light years from Earth.

But let's assume that somehow my latitude, longitude and altitude relative to Earth somehow remain the same. Now I'm spawning several feet in the air probably in sight of several villagers. If I'm lucky, they'll think I was sent by God. If not I'm gonna have a real bad time. There's a good chance I'll break a bone in the fall, and that's not going to go well at all.

But let's assume there are trees here. Lots of them. That's actually pretty likely. They hide my sudden appearance and mitigate bone breakages.

Now I'm on the outskirts of a village, battered and bruised and very strangely dressed. I don't speak any language they'll understand despite technically being from that area. Middle English is the language of the day, and I speak something that won't evolve for at least another 200-250 years. Shakespeare is technically modern English and is hard to comprehend sometimes. Here we're talking Chaucer and that's pretty much opaque.

I'm literate, but not in Latin, and that's the language of the Church. I'm numerate, but they haven't got beyond Roman numerals yet.

I'm not even sure where the church is. I know where it is in the modern day, but that building's no more than 200 years old. Maybe it's on the same site. I'd head there for shelter at least.

I know the Lord's Prayer in modern English. Chanting that quietly might spark some recognition in anyone present but then it might count as blasphemy to say it in anything other than Catholic-Church-approved Latin.

Come to think of it, I could probably blow a couple of minds by writing the alphabet they know and then the same with the extra letters that have been added since.

And then I'd be burned as a witch.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

I would fall from a very high place

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (7 children)

I'd make some fucking soap.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Well I be naked, so would need to make/steal clothing very quickly

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago (4 children)

1375....

We can work with metals, so we can probably make boilers.

I invent steam power 400 years early.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

You'd need metallurgy which was only invented in the process of building bigger naval guns, much later.
The issue was pressurizing the steam, which wasn't possible in the middle ages. You had no rubber for seals, no steel that would hold, and no tools to drill holes precisely enough.
That's why the Romans already used steam for simple parlor tricks but it couldn't be made to do actual work until the modern era

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago

Many years ago when I thought about this, I realised I wouldn't be able to put much of my modern knowledge and skills to use. I decided I'd learn to make basic matches by distilling urine into phosphate, which wasn't invented until the 19th century, but I've forgotten the process. Collect lots of urine and boil it? Also, if you make white phosphate it can cause horrific toothache and they have to remove your jaw... So, I'm hoping another commentor will suggest a safer skill I can brush up to be ready for travel.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

Fuck you buddy, I'm barely getting by with modern medicine, you just ended me.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

England is in the midst of the Hundred Years war with France and considering I'm ~193cm and the average height of a man in England in the 14th century is about 171cm... looks like in getting my arse drafted and shipped off to France, to act as some kind of intimidating presence. That is until I have to swing a sword, which my body, that's used to sitting in an office looking over excel spreadsheets, absolutely can't do, so I get bum rushed/hit in the face with an arrow and die.

That's the most likely scenario.

Worst case scenario, considering I don't speak middle English or Latin, I'm treated as an enemy and locked up in a dungeon somewhere.

I don't think there is realistically a best case scenario

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I'd go live in a cabin in the forest, again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well, first I'd have to learn Old English, I think. Hell, even Middle English isn't understandable.

Hopefully I could get up to speed before they locked me up, or worse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Middle English is understandable. It's tricky and there are lots of unexpected differences but you'd get used to it. This is right at the edge of Early Modern English and the Great Vowel Shift.

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