Basically the title, you need to use the skills you have now and be a productive member of society.
I don’t mean go back and show the wheel or try invent germ theory etc.
For example I’m a mechanic i think I could go back to the late 1800s and still fix and repair engines and steam engines.
Maybe even take that knowledge further back and work on the first industrial machines in the late 1700s but that’s about it.
I’m a chef, so probably back to when fire started to be a thing people used.
At least as far back as keyboard instruments have been around I could be a musician. Ending up further in time, I’d be a composer; the guy that revolutionised polyphony.
‘Palestrina, that’s really nice. Now check this out’
I can learn new things, so any time in human history.
As a software engineer, I’d struggle with the limitations of ten years ago.
But on the non-work side, I have no problems with maintenance on my house and hand tools haven’t changed much, so at least 80 years
I’m a structural engineer. I might not have all the materials needed, but I could probably still design old masonry structures if needed.
My skills travel pretty far. But with my gender id not be allowed to use them.
I can dig a hole in the earth so I’d say my skills apply all the way back to Ur and Sumeria.
Can you do it without a shovel? Even if hard packed? What if there’s a rock too big for you to lift?
You could go all the way back to dinosaur times when we were burrowing rodents
If you placed me at the beginning of the industrial revolution I could from available materials build a working telegraph and telephone system and do pretty well for myself.
Prior to that I could be a pretty good peasant.
If the people at the time allowed you and gave you the means to, I think most people could definitively revolutionize one or two fields, and accelerate multiple more
Even just knowing what is possible in the future should not be underestimated. I could point people towards the right track in physics, chemistry, astronomy, material science, biology, medicine, electronics, and so on. But especially in computer science and communications/networking, as those are the fields I know the most of. I could probably be a major founder of the field and (re)discover a lot of parts of it
A lot of science is essentially stumbling around in the dark. Yes, we’re doing it methodically and sometimes we get some pointers towards the right track, but we can’t know what we don’t know. If we knew exactly what it is that we should/could know but don’t, that is a massive benefit. Like for example, at some point in time people didn’t know if antibiotics or vaccines were possible, but if you told them “yeah, I don’t know the specifics, but I absolutely know 100% for sure that it’s possible” you can be sure it would spur a massive investigation into it, and you could give pointers from the bits and pieces you knew
Of course, as mentioned, the big issue is them trusting you and actually believing you have some sort of knowledge they don’t have. If you don’t play your cards right you’ll probably just get killed for being a charlatan lol. But if you manage to get some early wins and score yourself a dedicated workshop/lab and a team, you could do soon much
We seem to all be good peasants now unfortunately haha
Hey now some of us would make terrible peasants.
I’m an electrical design engineer but I have a degree in mechanical engineering, so I reckon I’d fit in during the industrial revolution or even the agricultural revolution
Well, i learned farmer first, so no matter the time, i would revolutionize the field.
and be a productive member of society
I just write useless software for a useless company. I’m not a productive member of society today, I wouldn’t be one at any point in the past. 🤷♂️
You’re a Microsoft Excel developer?
Obviously not.
There are no microsoft developers these days.
Only chatgpt spewing slop.
That’s why every single update breaks some fundamental feature that had been working for ages.
And no one can fix it, because they fired everyone who knew anything about how their software works.
I’m a physician - am MD. As long as I don’t get burnt at the stake for witchcraft, I could go back as far as I wanted. People’s biology hasn’t changed much since Neolithic times.
No medicine, no hospitals, no diagnostic or treatment tools? No trauma care. How much can you really do?
As a non-medical person, I can’t do much more than sterilize a wound and apply a bandage. All respect to you but that far back would you be able to do any more?
Be a shame you can’t make medicines though
Just washing one’s hands before touching the patient would make a massive difference, alcohol is pretty abundant, willow bark tea for the pain (and contact your local herbalist for other remedies), you could infect people with cowpox to vaccinate them against smallpox, you might even be able to grow some penicillin if you manage to make some rudimentary Petri dishes out of broth or beer wort and happen to have the right spores floating around…
I don’t have any skills so I don’t think I could get really far back.
I’m barely hanging on now
I haven’t practised it in a long time but my formation was in a horticulture school, I could go pretty far back.
I’m not even sure I can survive with my skills now.
that’s kind of what I’m thinking right now lmao
