Survival tips for those who find themselves suddenly transported back to 1000. Mine: your biggest comparative advantage is the ability to read and write, and your knowledge of modern sanitation techniques. However, given that you don't speak the language, or know how to do any of the basic manual labor careers open to you, you may have a hard time surviving long enough to employ these. Do not be tempted to do nifty things with modern technology, as this will probably cause people to suspect you are a witch or similar. Go to church regularly and mumble in fake Latin; no one will know if you're getting it wrong anyway. Do not walk into a village until you have managed to acquire some local clothes. Don't sleep with anyone. And lay off the honey; modern dentistry is a millenium away.
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"Don't sleep with anyone."
In some of the more, ehm, benign interpretations of the phrase...you may not have a choice, depending on the place and season in which you land. Lower-class living quarters are small and there is neither central heating nor insulation in them walls.
-Find a cow with cowpox and vaccinate yourself against smallpox.
-If you know anything about metallurgy, find a noble and offer to help him make better weapons. Probably the best way to guarantee a decent roof over your head.
As soon as you can, go south.
The original MR questioner posits a a European location for the transfer.
The most literate, urbanized, prosperous, and cilivilized areas near you are the Muslim societies along the Med., from Spain to Syria.
Whatever knowledge and skills you possess will be of greatest value there.
I have a background in physics. I could, with very few resources, whip up all sorts of militarily useful devices: spyglass, gunpowder, steam power. Once I had established credibility, I could go on to introduce electricity.
Someone with a background in chemistry could do even better. Dyes were etremely valuable in the middle ages. Once he had established credibility, he could introduce nitrogen fertilizer and simple drugs.
The guy who posed that question is a marketing professor. Enough said.
And lay off the honey; modern dentistry is a millenium away.
Refined sugars are a millenium away too. People 1000 years ago had many problems, but tooth rot is more of a modern one.
My question; why wasn't poison ivy ever soaked in oil with the burned oil used as a form of chemical warfare? The smoke would have been awful to breathe.
I wonder how useful a modern person would really be under those circumstances. I could probably develop a lot of useful things in modern times, but I don't think I could actually produce them efficiently enough or make them popular enough that they would be worth doing. You have the knowledge to set up a market for mortgages and lending, but would you be able to actually do that in real life?
Modern technology depends on a lot more than just knowing how to make things. It typically requires some acceptance of the technology by those around you.
he could introduce nitrogen fertilizer
Could he make a device that could generate enough pressure to carry out the Born-Haber process?
I can make soap. If I could learn to speak with a carpenter, I could make a trebuchet, though I don't think you'd need anything that destructive in 1000.
I don't think you need to worry about being burnt as a witch so much. In 1000, large scale heretical movements were common.
Bread is worse for your teeth than honey. Starches tend to stick to your teeth and slowly break down to sugars. Sugar itself is more soluble, and tends to be consumed more completely.
Our Latin accents are probably different than their Latin accents.
I think a good pre-trip thought experiment would be, what if you were dropped in the middle of a city today, with just the clothes on your back? What would you do? How would you get money, a place to live, food, water, etc.?
Now imagine doing that in a foreign country, where you didn't speak the language - just some medium-sized town.
Now imagine doing that in a third-world foreign country.
We're starting to get close, but we're not there yet ...
Most of you are acting as if corruption didn't exist - understandable given your modern perspective, but it WILL get you killed.
You invent something, you better have a noble patron who has the power to protect the invention and the profits, because any official can take the former and tax farmers will take the latter.
The first part of survival is surviving.
Europe was a cesspool of diseases back then that came in from all directions (Africa, Asia, etc.) Life expectancy was short and yours is going to be shorter due to your total and utter lack of natural immunity to the rhapsody of local plagues. (Think of what happened to the Native Americans when the first few Europeans visited -- that's you in spades.)
So if this might happen, load up on every imaginable vaccination now (though many won't be much good due to the evolution of disease over 1,000 years) and carry as many antibiotics as you can on your person at all times so that when you are *poofed* back there they go with you.
When you get there be very wary of drinking the water, you know what people did in it. Drink beer, the alcohol kills the germs. If you stay alive long enough to drink enough of it, you'll get your inspiration about a way to to earn some silver and gold.
Another serious survival problem is going to be not being able to talk to anyone on the planet. You won't even know the words to beg for food. See if you can get some useful language lessons under your belt before you go, Latin at least.
The problem doesn't specify whether you can transport back bringing various goodies of your choice with you, or whether like the Terminator you have to arrive bare-butt. It makes a significant difference.
If you can bring back the right toys with an appropriate plan you'd have a lot of opportunity, but only if the diseases didn't kill you.
Could he make a device that could generate enough pressure to carry out the Born-Haber process?
I think you mean the Haber-Bosch process. Today it is run at 100s of atmposheres, but you can run it at just 10s of atmospheres if you are willing to tollerate a low yield. Of course, even to do that you would need support from skilled metal-workes; getting that is the point for first establishing your credibility via table-top reactions.
Alternatively, you can get amonia directly from bat guano, if you can find a large bat colony.
"he could introduce nitrogen fertilizer"
"Could he make a device that could generate enough pressure to carry out the Born-Haber process?"
You just need communal collection of urine from people and beasts, and to make it a bit more effective, ash.
You would also provide entertainment as the crazy newcomer who wants everybody's piss.
I think you mean the Haber-Bosch process.
Yes, thanks for the correction.
You would also provide entertainment as the crazy newcomer who wants everybody's piss.
Yeah, amazing how useful urine would be under those circumstances. If you could purify the phosphorus and treat it with CO2 you could make matches to sell.
But could you actually get people to go along with that? Imagine telling your coworkers today that you wanted them to urinate in bottles for you and give it to you. Even that you'd pay them for it. I would think a peasant would take an even less understanding view. Of course, modern sanitation is much better so maybe I'm wrong here.
Wasn't urine used to process wool back in those days. I know they used to collect urine back in ancient Rome for wool processing.
You could just tell people you needed it for the that....
If you could purify the phosphorus and treat it with CO2
Should be "heat it in CO2." It doesn't actually react with the CO2.
I think that everyone trying to be a techno-wizard is way off base. You're going to have trouble finding the resources to invent new things (telescope -- glass is expensive and poor quality; electricity -- how are you going to machine the parts and get the wire, etc).
The one big advantage that you do have is that we all know a superior form of mathematics in the form of decimal notation. When it comes to basic arithmetic, we can calculate circles around the locals (assuming you know how to translate the results back into Roman notation, of course).
So the obvious career path is bookkeeper. In fact, if you know some basic accounting principles, such as double-book accounting, you could easily make yourself a major asset to the local lord. Improve his bookkeeping and then you might have enough money and influence to work on more ambitious projects.
Yeah, amazing how useful urine would be under those circumstances. If you could purify the phosphorus and treat it with CO2 you could make matches to sell. But could you actually get people to go along with that?
Quite easily; just volunteer to collect the chamber pots. From the early middle ages up until around the 1700s, it was not uncommon for even nobles to have chamber pots situated wherever needed, including around the perimter of the room housing the dining table. Need more room? Just step six feet back and make it. If you're outdoors and the need arises, just pee against the nearest wall.
IIRC Marie Antoinette was the first noteworthy person to demand a privy door. The privatization of body wastes took some time after that to become widely fashionable, and even then, proper sanitation was a ways off -- in fact England still had open street sewers in Victorian times (while the Aztecs in the new world actually had ecnlosed septic systems).
That brings up another important point: the most valuable thing you could bring with you to year 1000 would be noseplugs and a face mask, because the collection of odors that were common everywhere would be gag-inducing to the modern western nose -- human wastes, animal wastes, rotten foods, body odor, bad breath, etc., all combined into a palpable stench -- and probably require several days for adjustment.
Should our purpose in giving such advice be to help the traveler survive or to help the traveler die quickly, so as to protect ourselves? For my part, I say the best thing you can do is drink the water. Then find the largest house and hit on any women nearby.
Optimistic, aren't we? Strangers who don't speak the language are quite likely going to be killed and robbed of their posessions. Better bring an army.
aMouseforallSeasons, where did you read that?
Be capable of reading and writing Latin.
Have a skill useful and practiceable in the year 1000, such as engineer or chemist.
Be a young, beautiful woman that just accidentally lands near a powerful noble.
But lets be honest, most of would be dead within a week.
I agree with Andrew Lias that the techno-wizardry isn't realistic. You would have to build the entire technological infrastructure from primitive levels. Can you smelt high quality bronze? Can you cast or forge it precisely enough to do anything useful? Forget machining.
A basic knowledge of modern medicine, however, would make you far better than the native physicians. Just give everyone placebos, and try to keep things clean.
AT - I don't know how giving people placebos would be a big improvement over what they were doing back then, which were probably also placebos.
I don't know where you think a 6' 2" woman will find clothes in an age where the average woman was probably no more than 4' 10". HaHa, I can see you striding into town wearing a polo shirt and cords and pumps waving and smiling ingratiatingly. If you're lucky they might think you're Venus or Hermes or Mary and not kill you.
One problem with the "Go south" idea. Yes, the Muslim countries in the eastern Mediterranian were much more civilized, as we understand the term. But before you decide to go, check the mirror. In most of the Middle Eastern cultures, the Evil Eye is blue -- if yours are, too, figure to die a quick and nasty death.
The best idea above is the one involving double-entry bookkeeping. Anything you can do which does not involve hardware is going to be of more use than all the technology that you think is going to be valuable. It's an old, old problem: to get to the high tech gadgets you think would be valued (or even to what you think are low tech gadgets), you have to first make the tools to make the tools to make the tools.
In fact, the most useful thing you could study related to hardware would probably be what finds of gold, silver, copper, or iron ore were made in the 200-300 years after the time you will be arriving. Onc eyou get the language, take a small group to one of the smaller ones. Refuse to take any part of the profits yourself. Then suggest that you know of another opportunity. Repeat a couple of times and you will become valuable enough to powerful enough people that you will be kept in (for the time) luxurious confinement, so you can find more.
Re: People 1000 years ago had many problems, but tooth rot is more of a modern one.
Refined sugar isn't alone in causing tooth decay, and it was a rare person who hadn't begun losing teeth to rot by the time they were 30.
Re: why wasn't poison ivy ever soaked in oil with the burned oil used as a form of chemical warfare?
The same reason no one in AD 1000 Europe was putting catsup on their meat: poison ivy, like the tomato, is a North American plant.
Re: I wonder how useful a modern person would really be under those circumstances.
Several SciFi writers have tried this out, with various degrees of seriousness. There was a series of book out while I was in college about a Polish engineer stuck back in 13th century Poland, and using his acumen to defeat the Mongols. A current series by Eric Flint and others envisions an entire West Virginia town translated back to 17th century Germany (of course the town has lots of intact technology, lots of books, as well as diversely skilled people. But the biggest point is the revolution they effect in politics and religion.)
Re: I don't think you need to worry about being burnt as a witch so much.
True. The major witch panics did not come till much later. Occasionally someone would be executed for practicing sorcery, usually because they were monkeying around with strong drugs and (deliberately or not) poisoned someone else.
Re: Our Latin accents are probably different than their Latin accents.
Depends on if you were taught Classical or Ecclesial Latin. Ecclesial Latin hasn't chnaged much over the years, though of course most of us would speak it with a modern English accent.
Re: Life expectancy was short and yours is going to be shorter due to your total and utter lack of natural immunity to the rhapsody of local plagues. (Think of what happened to the Native Americans when the first few Europeans visited -- that's you in spades.)
Um no. The Indians had no prior expererience with these diseases as a whole people. We European, Asian and African descendants do. It's in our genes as we are descended from people who were winnowed out by those diseases. The year 1000 wasn't too bad for major plagues (the 14th century was the real cesspit for that), but of course the big danger is drinking the water. Cholera was unknown in Europe but typhoid and dysentery were not. Also, wound infections (including tetanus) would be a big danger.
Re: Another serious survival problem is going to be not being able to talk to anyone on the planet.
A few words carry over between modern and old English, but it would be pidgin-speak only. You'd be better off knowing Spanish or Russian (or better still Icelandic!) where the modern language is fairly intelligible with its ancestoral form 1000 years back. Lots of vocabulary to deal with still, but at least the major sound shifts and grammatical changes were pretty much in place in those languages already. English, French and German went through some really major alterations in the later Middle Ages.
bcg wrote: aMouseforallSeasons, where did you read that?
I believe most of that information can be found in the following book:
Illich, Ivan. H2O and the Waters of Forgetfullness. Dallas, Texas: Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1985.
IIRC, the book is a transcribed presentation made by Illich at the opening of an artificial pond within Dallas in the mid-1980s. He covers the historical relationship between cities and water in fascinating and very readable detail.
If I were in Europe, the first thing I would try to do is get the hell out of there.
Anywhere from Byzantium to Edo would be more civilized. Most people in these areas knew to boil water before you drink it. Many societies in these areas had some form of dentistry, too.
Deja vu, given the ever-increasing wealth of the Arabs, Indians, and Chinese, I wonder if this thought experiment won't be relevant again...
I think basically you're screwed anyway you look at it. If you try to use science to invent stuff, you're just as likely to be burned as a witch as to successfully bring some technology to market. If you try preaching sanitation (let alone germ theory), they might think you are a Jew - which was almost as bad back then as being a witch. Perhaps the best knowledge to try to sell to the ruling class would be political science. Quote them some Machiavelli, and they would love you.
If you've taken an accounting course you'd be the only person in the world that knows about double-entry bookkeeping. Go find an Italian banker to work for.
I assume that being taken back to 1000 AD is as equally improbable as being placed somewhere in Europe. The point is, the various cultures were at wildly different tech levels. The Islamic lands were discovering optics and the sextant. The Chinese were inventing gunpowder. The Europeans were still wallowing in their own filth and killing over religion, while the Incas had indoor plumbing.
If I were taken back to 1000 Gregorian in the same location I'm in now, I'd be in a wilderness with potentially hostile indian tribes in the area. Obtaining food and water would be my biggest immediate problems, so I'd work on hunting and game-cleaning and cooking skills. You really can't go wrong with those skills anywhere in the world anyway. Assuming it was Europe, I'd think that generalized scientific knowledge would be a fascinating parlor-trick, but it might take some time and military applications to get a decent patron.
The question I believe specifically referred to Europe.
The best answer is to know the formula for Prussian blue and other easy-to-make, long-lasting, synthetic dyes for clothes and paintings. You'd make a killing (think Romans and their purple, Cochineal, etc). It wouldn't raise suspicions (everyone knew about dyes, you'd just have the best ones, and you're obviously foreign, so it'd be a foreigner's secret recipe, like silk), and it's easier than trying to find weapons-grade iron/steel, etc etc for other engineering projects.
Guard your secret formulae jealously...and you'd either find a noble sponsor of your fine industry or you could set it up yourself in the more mercantile regions of Europe.