Survive and Get Rich/Famous/Powerful in History: Time Travel Test

[HyperTechno]

I'd make some dinosaur friends.

I'm sure as my existence that there were no dinosaurs in 1816!

 

[rollete]

I'm sure as my existence that there were no dinosaurs in 1816!

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.

I grasp English.

 

[HyperTechno]

I grasp English.

I just missed the "more than" part.
Sorry!

 

[rollete]

You and everyone else in this thread, apparently. Very odd.

 

[HyperTechno]

You and everyone else in this thread, apparently. Very odd.

Well. the topic is very attractive that it's hard to stay within the limits...

 

[mfb]

You and everyone else in this thread, apparently. Very odd.

I saw it, but thought 1816 would be the most interesting time.

 

[EnumaElish]

You and everyone else in this thread, apparently. Very odd.

Cognitively it may be related to the "too sure of oneself" bias. There must be a technical term for it. The following is an illustrative example. Suppose subjects were being asked to name a number greater than the experimenter's age which they had to guess. It should be an easy game to win; the experimenter must in all likelihood be no older than than 509 years, so 510, or 50,000, or 2 trillion, or a googol are all right answers. But instead the subjects would try to guess at her age and then add small integers to the age they guessed. So most answers would be like "38" or "55".

 

[mfb]

Is there a study about that? Sounds interesting.

 

[Rubidium_71]

The best way to fit into the community and make friends would be to offer a practical benefit by helping people. One of the more straightforward methods would be to introduce penicillin in 1816 and keep some of that disease under control. One could potentially earn a decent living as a healer.
A person could also warn folks about upcoming disasters like the Krakatoa eruption of 1883, but I am more pessimistic about human superstition and how people might react to someone accurately predicting future events.
In July of 1888 I might retire to Willoughby, Ohio. I hear it can be quite nice there.

 

[micromass]

The best way to fit into the community and make friends would be to offer a practical benefit by helping people. One of the more straightforward methods would be to introduce penicillin in 1816 and keep some of that disease under control. One could potentially earn a decent living as a healer.
A person could also warn folks about upcoming disasters like the Krakatoa eruption of 1883, but I am more pessimistic about human superstition and how people might react to someone accurately predicting future events.
In July of 1888 I might retire to Willoughby, Ohio. I hear it can be quite nice there.

So you know how to obtain and cultivate penicillin?

 

[rollete]

Cognitively it may be related to the "too sure of oneself" bias. There must be a technical term for it. The following is an illustrative example. Suppose subjects were being asked to name a number greater than the experimenter's age which they had to guess. It should be an easy game to win; the experimenter must in all likelihood be no older than than 509 years, so 510, or 50,000, or 2 trillion, or a googol are all right answers. But instead the subjects would try to guess at her age and then add small integers to the age they guessed. So most answers would be like "38" or "55".

Or not reading the OP + mob mentality.

But given the even more bizarre observation that the OP just follows along, I'm beginning to suspect mind control. A cyberportal into The Twilight Zone is also a possibility.

 

[EnumaElish]

So you know how to obtain and cultivate penicillin?

I'd plan to start with blue cheese gone bad, then move to bathtub mold :) if nothing else they should offer a placebo effect. I think there'd be very little room to make the early 19th-century patient worse, or in any case make too many of them very much worse, although getting it right might take a few years.

 

[EnumaElish]

Is there a study about that? Sounds interesting.

I did some searching. The closest I can find is Anchoring bias, although my recollection is that the process involved some kind of estimation, and subjects were overconfident in how precisely they could guess the anchor itself (experimenter's age in my example). But cannot find the source at the moment. In all likelihood I might have seen it in Sci. Am. or perhaps in Psych. Today.

 

[tionis]

So I will go back and paint portraits of the modern world to sell on the markets. Also write down all the songs that I know and pass them on as my own thus thwarting the composing careers of future artists

 

[micromass]

So I will go back and paint portraits of the modern world to sell on the markets. Also write down all the songs that I know and pass them on as my own thus thwarting the composing careers of future artists

I hope they like ACDC in 1816!

 

[Rubidium_71]

So you know how to obtain and cultivate penicillin?

Yes.
I'm curious, I didn't notice what your 1816 plan is when I looked through the thread. Based on your posts here so far, would you be earning a living as the village heckler?

 

[EnumaElish]

Famous time travelers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends

It's remarkable that none of them is reported to have brought future technology with them. Not even a "most forms of cancer is prevented by interchanging these two genes in the fetus's DNA"-like proposition.

Or how about "the key to economical nuclear fusion is 2 teaspoons of dark matter and a pinch of rosemary."

Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that no famous (or infamous for that matter) inventor has come out saying "a time traveler tipped me."

 

[Kevin McHugh]

Sure,
I sarcast
you sarcast
he/she/it sarcasts

we sarcast
you (pl.) sarcast
they sarcast

Forecast, sarcast, aftcast

 

[EnumaElish]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/package-tour

 

[Fewmet]

I just discovered this thread and read it from the start, expecting to see references to L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall. It's time traveler is an archeologist in Rome just before the fall of the Dark Ages (hence the title). He sells the secret of long division to an accountant (division with Roman numerals is not very efficient), invents brandy and then movable type, getting political power through publishing a newspaper. His command of the period's history plays a key role, too.

I, too, read the OP as focusing on 200 years ago, and spent time struggling to find something fairly low-tech and everyday that would give me an advantage in 1816. I suspect I could support myself as a teacher. There are a number of scientific discoveries I might be able to accelerate like the discovery of Pluto or the mid-Atlantic Ridge if I have access to to researchers in physical science. I think the Thomson experiment was delayed by glassblowers developing techniques for making evacuated flasks...I might be able to fund the development of that technique to prepare the path for Thomson. I don't know if money could be made by anticipating the need for vacuum tubes, but with some reflection I might come up with some similar, easy innovations. If I raised some capital, I could discover petroleum in Pennsylvania.

 

[m k]

Can't remember why it's 1816 but wouldn't it be easier farer back?

 

[micromass]

Can't remember why it's 1816 but wouldn't it be easier farer back?

I don't know, would it? Can you explain what time period would be easiest and how you would do it?

 

[Kevin McHugh]

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.

Can you translate your position as well? Or do we stay in place, and travel back in time?

 

[micromass]

Can you translate your position as well? Or do we stay in place, and travel back in time?

You can choose any spacetime coordinate you want as long as its more than 200 years ago.

 

[Kevin McHugh]

Then I would want to go to the height of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. I would use my knowledge of chemistry to assist the alchemists of the time, securing a respectable position in society, and enjoying the wonders of of the East.

 

[m k]

I don't know, would it? Can you explain what time period would be easiest and how you would do it?

Don't know the period but some time when many of our everyday stuff is still unknown.
Like cleaning, nutrition sources and so on.

Obviously only Europe had dark ages but were they cannibals in Tahiti back then.
Clavell's Shogun mainly excludes far east when India and muslim world is totally unknown.
Maybe 1816 is actually very good year.

 

[kuruman]

I would go 70,000 years in the past and invent lawyers as a first step. Then I would invent the wheel, patent it and rule the world.

 

[m k]

I think you should reconsider.
(Toba)

 

[Fewmet]

As I let this question roll around in my head I increasingly think that simply being a reasonably well-educated person by modern standards would be a significant advantage. Being able to read and write would probably make me employable in a time and place where something like modern English was in use. I can imagine scenarios that would get me recognized as useful to the educated people of the period and so provide relative safety and income.

 

[dvdt]

Since I already know the history of how things are to be,I will use this knowledge of mine to become rich/famous/powerful you name it.

I was thinking along these lines too, but on the other hand maybe you could pick a critical point in history and dedicate yourself to changing it. Something that knowledge of the future could really act as an inflection point for. Presumably whatever it is, also requires that people not particularly believe your stories, but that it's something you can demonstrate. For instance what good would it do to try and warn the people who would first meet Cortez, that they should kill him and his whole crew and anyone like them in the future? They wouldn't believe you, you wouldn't speak their language, and you'd introduce your own host of diseases.

...Which actually brings up another point; go back far enough and maybe the biggest impact you'd have would be introducing modern pathogens to ancient peoples, and essentially giving those pathogens extra centuries to evolve.