I'd be dead since the Earth wasn't in the same position 650 years ago. Even taking that out of the equation, I'd die since I can't communicate with anyone and don't have the survival skills.
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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Try to find the nearest shaman, apothecary or herbalist and trade my future clothes/pocket contents for some hallucinogens and painless poison. I ain't living through a time before electricity.
I'd go live in a cabin in the forest, again.
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.
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.
You would die. There are many, many examples of explorers from “advanced” civilizations getting shipwrecked or stranded in an area where primitive hunter-gatherers live. Unless they are saved by the hunter gatherers, they are doomed, despite their knowledge of science and technology. Joseph Henrich talks extensively about these examples in his book, “The Secret of Our Success”
Check out this video to get an idea -> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jaoQh6BoH3c
I reread the Bitcoin paper yesterday, so with my newly refreshed knowledge id find the nearest mathimation, explain it to them, implement the protocol with paper records, handwritten hashes, and messages on horseback or something. After a few years when every major economic power realizes how valuable a deflationary currency that Mansa Musa doesn't control (14th century african gold-salt bazzilionare, ~400 bill USD today), the price of my currency would increase vastly, making me super rich.
So dead
Well I be naked, so would need to make/steal clothing very quickly
I would make an IT startup.
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.
I'm building a boat to go find the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria to sink them real good. Then nuke China and Ruzzia at their palaces. Same to every "kingdom". That's what they all deserve. Complete erasure from history. Instead people would just know that there used to be an asshole who wanted everyone to work and give him all the money.
Use all the science i know from school to helpfully quicken scientific progress and spread trans propaganda
I would kill everyone I meet with the plagues I carry which I'm immune to.
You might have a bad time with all the plagues that have gone extinct since then.
What place do I get teleported to? If I'm teleported to the same place on Earth, then I just fell down several meters into a swamp and am probably going to die here.
You teleported to somewhere safe and private, you won't fall to your death and nobody will see you lol.
I would teach London children the most obnoxious brain rot slang from today as a laugh.
The butterfly effect of that would be weird because all of our brain rot slang would change then.
Exactly, that's the fun part. Would it get worse, or swing the other way, having kids talk like uppity old money aristocrats?
Double entry accounting system.
I'm an accountant by trade. The double entry system wasn't invented until the 15th century.
I could account for any lords various assets, goods, and livestock in an efficient, reliable and accurate manner
Being too early to market something also leads to failure
It's never too early to efficiently count your sheep!
Die because my medications haven’t been invented yet.
Or be murdered because I’m not christian
I would warn the Native Americans about the Europeans
Europeans would show up and my Native American homies would be armed with cartridge rifles, six shooters and a crank rotary machine gun.
I would try for better, but I think there just wouldn't be the time for fine tooling more advanced fire arms would require. Even getting all that going before I croak is going to take a lot of ambition.
Also assuming they don't think I am some evil spirit that they quickly kill when I demand industrial metal facilities be constructed.
Oh, they would probably also have penicillin before the white man, so that would be a major advantage.
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Wouldn't I be in like empty space?
- establish a new culture in the Americas that will unify and kill European settlers on sight.
- teach the native Americans about the future they're preventing
- teach them European science, politics, history, economics, etc
- give them a technological advantage that will set them ahead of Europe by 650 years by teaching them manufacturing skills.
basically, I want to destroy white colonialism. we have a toxic culture that honestly doesn't deserve to exist on a planet it wants to destroy.
I'm also curious to see how North America would turn out after 650 years have passed after I have achieved my goals.
I'm on the Gregorian calendar, 650 years ago is the year 1375. I'm in North Carolina, so if I were to snap back in time at my present location I would be a blue eyed white guy in pre-contact North America. And while I think I'm an above average candidate for the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court scenario I'm not realistically able to start "from scratch." I'd probably make it the summer on forage and my own body fat. I don't picture encountering the natives going particularly well, for me or them. I'm not sick and I'm vaccinated against a lot of shit but watch I'll give them 6 centuries worth of influenza updates.
I don't think it would help that much being plunked down in 14th century England; we're talking Geoffrey Chaucer's lifetime here, to them I'd sound insane. Modern English is a few hundred years off. If they didn't trepan me to let the demons out of my skull and I didn't die of smallpox, I'd try to invent the electric motor 500 years early and be burned for heresy or some shit.
The only non-delusional answer lol
Yeah, I'm here thinking my ass in America pre Columbian exchange is not doing well. Maybe if I make it clear somehow I do not want to do anything but help I could...idk, be part of a native tribe and maybe give them a slight help to the upcoming horrors for them?
It's not going well for anyone.
I know thousands of songs. Also, musical instruments like the saxaphone haven't been invented yet.
Oh I think you're the first person to suggest music! That is a really good idea, provided you don't die of dysentery of course.
Here are some good time travel stories.
To Say Nothing Of The Dog. In the future, time travel is organized like the Army. The problem is that the actual travel causes a serious case of 'jet lag.' All the agents act like they are half-drunk and sleep deprived.
The Big Time. Two alien races are fighting a time war that spans all planets in the universe. Earth is a minor backwater, but the fighting is just as deadly as anywhere else. A few soldiers and entertainers are catching a few moments respite in a R + R center when the War crashes in on them.
Predestination. A man is offered a chance to find and kill the guy who ruined his life. All he has to do is trust the stranger who is making the offer.
I have to disagree with To Say Nothing Of The Dog. Time travel is organized by, and exactly like they would, university historians.
half-drunk and sleep deprived.
I don't remember that?
But that one and Blackout/All Clear are a great pair. And having looked her up, I see I've missed quite a few!
The Domesday Book is pretty tight. Our time-traveling student is trying to get back before the black plague hits her village.
She also has one about the Titanic sinking. Great books, wild rides.
She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards than any other writer.
Die as you forgot to teleport me to where the earth was at the time.
Otherwise I guess my main knowledge that could be useful is some basic first aid. Secondary to that, a little bit of electrical stuff.
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This is very A Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Connecticut_Yankee_in_King_Arthur%27s_Court
I hated that book. So pretentious.
1375? Die from malaria, I guess? Be eaten by an alligator? Or oh no, hasten the demise of the Tocobaga with my exotic biology? Either they would kill me or get me sick, or vice versa. Also, fall on my ass when my house disappeared.
I would follow the river to the bay, I guess, and see if I could find anyone, or anything I might be able to eat.
This is something I often wonder about, what could one person even do with all of today's common knowledge? You can't very well just invent the printing press and have the same impact as Gutenberg - you need something what the few people who can read would, and most people can't translate the bible from Latin into renaissance German and/or don't know enough about the catholic church to write scathing remarks on it like Luther.
You can write and read - that's something. Maybe more importantly, you can do math with arabic numerals - boom, easy accounting job. With a bit higher education, you may even just invent calculus once more. You know how long it took for people to figure out you can put pi on the number line? Proving all the formulas in your head is the hard stuff, but you have a head start just by knowing them. We all clown on the wormhole explanation with the paper, but it does prove Euclid wrong 400 years early.
Ah, and you can just become a medical genius by using soap and bandages - "do no harm" is better than most.
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As an Australian I would struggle significantly unless you were to also transport me geographically.
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