micromass said:
Assume that you are being sent back in time. You can choose the exact time period, but it has to be more than 200 years ago. You cannot bring anything with you.
How would you use your current knowledge in order to survive? Would you be able to get rich/famous/powerful? Note: you cannot learn anything new before going, you'll have to rely on everything you know right now.
Assume that language barriers won't be an issue.
2600 BCE. This (I think) is right before civilization started. I would want to do this because it was the greatest opportunity to shape our world into what it has potential for today. Mostly I think this is the case because others would be able to follow a great civilization before developing into a completely different and opposing culture. I would use my knowledge to form a civilization from the grass roots and lead that into the way I perceive the world should operate. If a large enough civilization was started, I think the average person has more than enough ideas and solutions now to prevent these problems from ever happening or at least minimize the severity. We could be 500 or more years advanced in technology and as a society.
Problems we face today that I would try to eliminate: Wars, hunger, poverty, racial tensions, communist countries, lack of literacy and education, weapons, disease, global warming, extinction, and more if I had the time to think of them all.
I would establish a strong enough society so that we could draw in others and begin exploring the world and establish micro societies with the ability to expand across the globe. We would not have to shape culture entirely as culture variation is an important part of humanity. However, cooperation would be the key. We would just need leaders from the original civilization to expand and lead each continent to prevent differences from causing war. We could then get an early start on preventing all the problems mentioned above and establish communities capable of envisioning the future based off of what I know.
The great minds would still come and I would begin starting an organization set to ensure we spread education, science, and all other key ingredients to technology and development. We would have to capitalize on each great mind from then until the present. The Newton's, Einstein's, and others may have a greater society and more information to start with than they did at their respective time. This group would be permanent. We would not be able to afford losing the concept so all that I know would be recorded. We would never let our guards down and assume that our current problems not occur again. We may not have need for development of huge armies and nuclear weapons. We would prevent them before they became too large.
Farming would begin ASAP. I would use my knowledge of farming concepts to start everywhere. Each person would have a role in society and I would try to begin a free market with monetary assets. Trade would begin as soon as other civilizations started. There would be no need to wipe out the america's or other continents. Our explorer's would already know what would ensue and we would find a way to keep ourselves from fearing others of different races. Slavery would only be a caution and not a reality. We would need to unite immediately and encourage learning form one another. Our current races would still be around, but perhaps asians, caucasians, africans, etc would be minorities and the predominant race would be a mix. People would hold power in their goverments so that we voted and evil regimes were never to be established. We would have knowledge of disease and have safe practices and preventative actions for devastating diseases such as HIV, Bubonic plague, and the flu. Once antibiotics emerged we would not abuse them and they would be used properly to prevent antibiotic resistant bacteria. The people would be aware of global warming and we could find a way to prevent it in the first place. Lastly, we would respect our environments and not pollute our earth. We would not poach animals and cause extinction. We would be a efficient society.
