If you could travel forward/backward in time

[Bullgrit]

Three part post --

Part the first:
The concept of a modern-day person seeming like a "wizard" when thrown back in time is a bit of a trope in fiction. But what would really happen?

Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?


Part the second:
Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now?


Part the third:
If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?

Bullgrit

 

[Nellisir]

The concept of a modern-day person seeming like a "wizard" when thrown back in time is a bit of a trope in fiction. But what would really happen?

Beggery and death, usually.

Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?

A hundred years ago, I'd probably be screwed. Most of my professional knowledge is in construction. I can use handtools, but not well. I might be able to invent a few things. I might actually do better 1,000 years ago, assuming I landed in England, and America. Construction techniques were less advanced, but the tools were basically the same. Probably see if I could survive long enough to invent the printing press and a few other things. Proper hygiene - maybe I could pass off as a physician. I might qualify as some kind of scholar, but not sure. Biggest hurdle would be learning the language before I starve to death.

Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now?

I think the world is going to be pretty weird in fifty years, honestly. So...a hundred. That should give genetics and computers plenty of time to get funky.

If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?

Well, even today there are un-or minimally contacted tribes in South America and...New Guinea? So I don't think any random homo sapien is really incapable of being acclimated to modern day life. Specific individuals might not do well, but that wouldn't be a function of their time period.

 

[Dioltach]

Re your first question: Dara O'Briain on technology: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ0T6E2j3Lo&desktop_uri=/watch?v=yJ0T6E2j3Lo.

 

[Bullgrit]

Dioltach, that's a hilarious video. Thanks for linking it. (I can't give you xp now.)

Bullgrit

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hilarious video!

Anyway, being a black dude, going back 100 years means my income and social status drop alarmingly. Depending on where I was, I would not be allowed to practice law.

Still, I'd make a good cook!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Movies that throw people back in time and have them invent things miss a lot of things. I ran a super hero game with a real life engineer as one of my players, and we did the whole time slip thing...

I jumped them back to 1897 and crashed there plane... they needed to repair the plane, something I thought would be easy, until the player started to flip out on how screwed they were... I indulged him and he went on to explain that they don't just need to make parts, they need to make tools and instruments that they can use to make more tools and instruments that they can then use to make the parts... but the materials for that second set of tools aren't able to be made in 1897.

Not withstanding finding another time traveler he figured it would be at best twenty years to fix there plane...


In the few years since that game we have talked about it a few times, and the end result is that it is pretty hardcore.

I am also watching sleepy hollow (someone from the past living now) and we joke about how his stomach must suck... imagine what is in our food, and think for a second about how little of that was around 100 years ago..

 

[Umbran]

Say you were thrown back in time, at least 100 years, would your modern skills and knowledge be helpful to you? Would you thrive in such a scenario? Or are your modern skills and knowledge pretty much a waste in a time before electronic technology? How about 1,000 years?

Heh. 100 years ago is 1913. Einstein published Special Relativity a few years ago, and he's still working on General Relativity (which he publishes in 1915). If I'm really good, I might be able to reconstruct it from memory, and scoop him! I could certainly beat Chandrasekhar to the basic theory of Black Holes (1931). Quantum mechanics comes to the fore in the 1920s - I could probably manage to get myself into the Solvay Conference of 1927, and become one of the fathers of modern science!

I could probably step into any University in an English speaking nation and start teaching math or physics. I'd be set.

My wife would probably be able to set herself up as the mother of antibiotics - penicillin comes along in the 1920s and 1930s...

1000 years ago... If I stayed in North America, well, I'm now stuck in with a stone age culture. My "modern" skills won't mean much at all, 'cause there's so little to work with.

Part the second:
Say you were going to travel to the future, (suspended animation, a time machine, whatever mechanic you want), how far into the future would you have to go to reach something "futuristic," something truly alien to what you live in now?

This, honestly, I don't have an answer to. The problem is that I cannot imagine how long it would take to come up with technologies I cannot actually imagine right now.

Part the third:
If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?

Someone from the USA in 1913 wouldn't have too much trouble. They know cars and electricity exist. The first commercial news radio broadcast is only seven years later.

From 1813 - Steam power is just debuting in Europe.

From 1513 - Well, if we take someone from Britain, we still speak something they'd basically recognize as English. Communication and learning wouldn't be too hard...

But really, it depends on what culture you're talking about. There are folks today who live stone-age lifestyles still in South America. If I pull such a person to New York City now, how hard would it be for them to adapt?

 

[Nellisir]

From 1513 - Well, if we take someone from Britain, we still speak something they'd basically recognize as English. Communication and learning wouldn't be too hard...

1513 was the middle of the Great Vowel Shift. I'd aim for someone that was literate.

 

[Jhaelen]

A hundred years ago, I think I would have been fine. A thousand years ago, though, I probably wouldn't have any useful skills for that.

I think it will take at least another 50 years before the world has changed in significant ways from today.

For a person from the past to deal with today's life wouldn't be that hard, I guess. It would depend on the person's age to a certain degree, though. The older the person, the harder it would be to deal with the changes.

 

[Dioltach]

Part the third:
If you were going to reach back in time and yank someone, (at least of average or better intelligence, and middle aged), forward to this day and age, how far back-to-forward would you have to bring someone to have them completely out of their world? Would someone from 1913 (100 years ago) be able to come "up to speed" with our world today? How about someone from 1813?

There are people today, in Western society, who have difficulty coming "up to speed" with a lot of the stuff going on. People who are baffled by all the cell phones, computers, ATMs, GPS devices, DVD recorders, and much else.