If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?
A book with pictures detailing all the processes required to make paper, and the schematics for a printing press. I know better than to presume my knowledge of electricity will be of any use, I know better than to think that I understand math better than ancient mathematicians, and I know better than to try to convince them that tiny little creatures are what cause illness. What I can do is jump-start humanity’s ascent to modern technology by improving literacy a few centuries early
I want two books: How to Invent Everything and How to Rebuild Everything in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm. I’m good from there.
The reason I bring picture books is because I know that I’m gonna die within a week, and anyone more than a few hundred years old would never be able to read English after I’m gone. But if Ptolemy gets his hands on a printing press? Buddy we’re exploring the galaxy by Y2K
Current geological mineral distribution map. A dozen ball screws, some linear rods, bearings, grease. A dozen staters of various sizes, and a few hundred thousand diodes, maybe millions. Then as much enameled copper wire and magnet steel as I could carry. Then a e-paper tablet with a long list of patent documents, along with text books from Primary school clear to graduate level physics, chemistry, and math.
Then I would lug a vintage mini lathe over my shoulder for the few steps I have to take because you didn’t specify how far I have to walk.
I should be able to make the industrial revolution from there.
…welcome to 1500 years in the future…now!
I would also make room for some seed packets - potato, tomato, chili, etc.
I want some good food while I prestart the industrial revolution.
I’m either gonna bring a bunch of ‘For Dummies’ books to speed up development and get executed or make a fortune selling meth and get executed
Lol … Roman Empire collapses 300 years before it’s time because of a meth crisis.
Why not sell psychedelics and change history?
Turning Ceaser and his forces into tweakers won’t change history?
they probably would have conquered the New World too.
They would have conquered the New World … in their minds!!!
Then by the late Middle Ages we would have had the Holy Roman Pharmaceutical Corporation.
Psychedelics were pretty common back then. However, they were mostly used in religious ceremonies.
And a copy of the army improvised weapons manuals.
Jump start military tech by 1000 years or so right quick
Six weights of charcoal, one of brimstone, and one of saltpetre. Done, you already advanced military tech by 800 years.
The hilarious thing about the meth idea is that they’d run out and be centuries behind on having any clue as to how to get more.
Unless those “For Dummies” books have expanded their catalogue since I’ve last looked.
If I’m going to be transported to the European peninsula too, besides time travelling, I’d want at least:
- my laptop. Download everything from multiple Wikipedias, including the Italian one for good measure. (Why Italian? Largest Wikipedia in a Romance language that I’m proficient with.)
- some charger for the above. I don’t even mind if manual.
- Latin vocabulary printed book. I can speak some but I’m not proficient in the language.
- Some silver and gold. Money back in Roman times was still based on the value of the coins. And money never hurts.
- Clothes carefully prepared to not look Roman, but typical enough from the times. The idea is to pass as a cultured barbarian from a tribe that is too far away from Rome to bother.
You’re going to need medicine. Penicillin for sure.
Penicillin might be a good idea, but once you set up some simple electricity production, you can generate bleach (electrolyse brine, then input the chlorine back into solution; discard the hydrogen). Being able to bleach your water is huge.
Unless you accidentally get wood splinter and die of gangrene.
I find it uncanny just how close this reply is to an idle thought I’ve had for many years.
Power has yet to be invented. Once your laptop dies it becomes uselesss. Batteries deteriorate over time and without the latest security patches you’ll definitely get infected sooner rather than later.
Power has yet to be invented. Once your laptop dies it becomes uselesss.
That’s why I mentioned a charger in the following line.
Batteries deteriorate over time
Sure, that is a concern. For a few years later; the idea is to at least have at hand some knowledge to translate into Latin and put into useful applications.
Also, remember that electricity can be produced with a bar of copper, a bar of iron, and some acid. Such as vinegar or even citrus.
and without the latest security patches you’ll definitely get infected sooner rather than later.
Yeah, because Mark Anthony will totally send me files like cleopatrahotpix.jpg.exe [/sarcasm]
Take a solar charger, problem solved
No need to worry, those security patches would be millennia ahead of any contemporaneous trojans.
without the latest security patches you’ll definitely get infected sooner rather than later
By what?
Trojan Horse virus
Yeah you gotta watch out for those ancient roman black hats. Or togas.
Tunicae? “Per Hercle, tunicae nigrae sunt diri - computatrum meum inuaserunt! Merda!” doesn’t sound too bad.
Gray’s Sports Almanac 1950-2000.
Just wait 1950 years and you’ll be rich
Buy bitcoin in 100AD…
There’s a legend that the Roman Emperor Tiberius executed the inventor of flexible glass.
After the inventor swore that he was the only man alive who knew the manufacturing technique, Tiberius had the man beheaded. He feared that the glass would devalue gold and silver, since the material might be more valuable.
So y’all better watch out with any plastic…
That guy was definitely a time traveler.
If we lived in a world where plastic didnt exist, and some body brought it in. The closest approximation of articulating clear plastic would be flexible glass.
Old Roman artifacts so I can confuse them with how rusted and dirty they are, great conversation starter.
Truly chaotic neutral
Modern cannabis seeds, because if I’m going to be in Ancient Times I still don’t want to smoke schwag.
Not a bad idea, but also, you could definitely still make hash out of schwag.
Bringing the seeds would be easier though.
And since you mentioned seeds, let’s go ahead and also bring seeds of modern potatoes, tomatoes, definitely chilis like proper habaneros. Salads, perhaps. Definitely modern brewing yeasts! Bananas, maybe? Tobacco, definitely.
There’s even yeast strains which produce opiates instead of alcohol (purposefully made with gmo ofc), but I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on those.
Also, medication. Lots of modern medication.
But a backpack full is a lot. So, seeds, electronics (full Wikipedia and other such information), solar charger, tons of meds. A few good blades, a gun, and several reliable methods of making fire. Several good modern bowstrings. Gunpowder, if there’s room. (Making bullets isn’t too hard and modern smokeless powder would be preferable to basic black powder.)
Holy shit man!
— Julius Caesar
Can you imagine what kind of work Carl Sagan could have done if he had access to modern one hit shit?
A (tape) camera to document how I obliterate the roman empire by spreading pathogens that have yet to evolve but I have developed immunity for.
And something like a time capsule to burry the camera in.
Keep in mind that there were of plenty of pathogens back then that you aren’t immune to now. A good example is smallpox
Well I didn’t expect to survive anyways
Managing expectations 👌🏼
Dont want to be that guy, but the platic softeners inside the tape will most likely evalporate, causing the tape to break up und cruble to dust as soon as you try to play it. The magnetic orientation of the bits will also degarde. Manufacturers give an expected shelf life of 30 years for any magnetic storage medium.
Yeah I was aware of the bits that’s why I said tape. I know there’s some kind of tape they use for long term data storage so that’s why I said tape. There has to be some way to store it that long…
Were working on a medium that uses diamonds.
Sorry, what’s a “tape camera”? A film camera?
Say hello to my little friend!*
^(*COVID-19)
A towel. Maybe some peanuts.
A hoopy frood right here.
Remember that old reddit post where someone asked “what if a battalion of marines were suddenly zapped back to the roman era with all their gear and stuff, what would happen?” and somebody answered with a full on novel they titled “Rome, Sweet Rome” and some time later some Hollywood dude bought the rights to it?
It was a short story, and the film adaptation has been in development hell for over a decade.
Well that’s disappointing
I remember at the time someone warned the writer that this would be the most likely outcome. Most of the things Hollywood buys the rights to don’t get made into movies.
Oddly enough, the ending of the latest Indiana Jones movie has something along these lines happen, if you can sit through the boring middle part of the movie. Not a great movie, but the ending was bonkers (in a good way). “You forgot about continental drift!” LOL
The recipe for making soap A general practitioner’s medical book A dummies guide to Latin A compass Water bottle with filter A taser Instructions on how to make a battery Instructions on how to make gun powder The rise and fall of the Roman Empire books
I would take a smartphone with all of wikipedia stored locally on it, and a USB solar panel or two.
IIRC there are these really durable laptops with solar pannels built into the lid that are made specifically to bring internet to people in third world countries. They’re naturally rather underpowered but you could still put a high capacity SSD in one and it’d be less likely to break than a smartphone.
Portable power supply
Portable dvd player
Portable display
Bluetooth speakers
A copy of Morbius on dvd
it’s morbin’ time!
20 identical ereaders packed with every book I can fit, solar panels, and batteries.
And the rest of the volume with gold.
I would do the same, except instead of gold I would pack as much Fentanyl as possible. (Not like the cops will find you after you time hop anyway).
I could then, heavily dilute the Fentanyl and sell it and earn way more gold. You could also poison your enemies with pure Fentanyl and no one would understand what sort of poison it is.
With all that money you could probably buy a small castle, a loyal guard, hire the smartest people around and have them start creating weapons, medicines and mechanization from the 21st century before you even die.
The other reason Fentanyl is superior than gold is that if people see gold they will just steal it. If they see bricks of Fentanyl, they probably won’t steal it. They might try and see what it is… and likely kill themselves in the process… which would likely dissuade any other thieves associated with them.
That’s incredibly big brain, although highly immoral. But thems are slavers you’re going to swindle so it’s all good I guess.
Not too different from the British strategy in the Opium Wars. They got Hong Kong and lots of tea this way.
Without doing any research, the answer is “watchmaking tools.” Equipment to make small things like watches, and revolvers and what ever you’d need to start a factory. A few things like microscope, binoculars.
They had good craftspeople on hand, just need a little push to start an Industrial Revolution.
You need good quality metal to make precise clockwork. You need to be able to make those metals.
You could bring plans for a high quality forge
The fuel it takes to run a forge wasn’t common so you are still stuck.
Charcoal???
That is what they used, but so much is needed that despite being easy to make it wasn’t available in large enough quantity. You get it by the basket, what you need is train loads.
This guy is 100% correct. There’s no way you will ever be able to start the “industrial revolution”. There’s not enough people mining coal or metal ores. There’s not enough organization to do any of that.
These are the technical dreams of children. The world wasn’t organized enough to even support feudalism. The average person was a subsistence farmer who made a little extra grain to turn into alcohol. They lived in family groups and barely knew what the emperor looked like.
You may already know more important ideas that you use in your everyday life. You probably: wash your hands, wash your clothes, bathe regularly in fresh water with soap and wash your hair, filter or boil water to clean it, use the restroom away from where you eat, know that alcohol kills germs, and most importantly know that you should stay away from someone who’s sick. These things make you as knowledgeable as the best doctors in Rome.
If you payed attention in elementary school, you may have a better understanding of astronomy than the best Roman minds. You may know enough mathematics to chat with Archimedes himself. You already know a superior numbering system to what the Romans used. Literally anything you remember from school would be priceless.
If you bring anything, just make it a telescope and a book of Roman history. Give the telescope to the emperor.Tell everyone you’re a messenger of Minerva or something. They’ll put you in a temple where you can invent a sandwich one year and a toasted sandwich the next. Use the book to stay out of trouble.
You don’t have to change a million peasants, just one aristocrat. Remember, they would import a boat load of wild animals from Africa for one show at the Circus. That kind of money could buy a lot of top workmen.
You don’t need an entire railroad, just a few hundred Napoleonic rifles.
One watchmaker can train fifty more in a lifetime.
Take your example of the telescope. Imagine what one telescope would mean to an army of the time. You could send out scouts with signal flags that could be spotted a day’s ride away.
Romans made decent steel, especially in terms of hardness which is what you need to make tooling.
It wouldn’t be the biggest problem you would face in trying to industrialise Rome
Look up the antikythera mechanism.
The Romans could make enough quality metals for a clock.
Nice!
Also seeds for modern veggies. Easier to grow and more nutritious.
Just nothing from Monsanto, as many of their seeds are sterile.
Best to get some modern old stock. Hell just some beef steak tomatoes and corn would be invaluable.
Most seeds are not steril. Farmers wish they were as hybrids never breed true.
Damn, now I’m wondering if my decision to bring plans for a printing press is actually less useful than accurate timekeeping
Accurate timekeeping means you can navigate the deep ocean without hugging the coast.
People were doing that long before there were clocks that worked on ships.
The idea of a printing press was revolutionary but it’s just an engraved plate, ink, later and a weight on a lever.
I’m confident I could make a printing press without plans having seen one. I’m not confident I could design an accurate watch.
I might manage a pendulum clock. Just. But that’s far less useful.
