How not to die of black plague
June 11, 2008 8:26 PM Subscribe
Hot on the heels of this post I'd like to spin the premise around a bit - what present day skill and/or hobby would most improve my chances to survive and possibly thrive in the year 1000 AD?
To be more specific: the above linked post is based on the fantasy that you are transported back in time instantaneously, with no chance to prepare or learn anything that could help you out. I'm curious to see what skills or hobby the hivemind thinks would most improve someone's chance to survive if you had knowledge of it prior to being transported to the year 1000AD. Should I become a gardening guru? A blackbelt in blacksmithing? A jovial jeweler?
To be fair I think it needs to be something realistically easy to learn and not extremely expensive to take up.
(My motivation to ask this comes from my career and social life being very cerebral and based in the computer world. I've always wanted to counterbalance that with some kind of ultra-practical hobby. This seems like a fun way to get some ideas. Onwards to the Post-Apocalypse!).
To be more specific: the above linked post is based on the fantasy that you are transported back in time instantaneously, with no chance to prepare or learn anything that could help you out. I'm curious to see what skills or hobby the hivemind thinks would most improve someone's chance to survive if you had knowledge of it prior to being transported to the year 1000AD. Should I become a gardening guru? A blackbelt in blacksmithing? A jovial jeweler?
To be fair I think it needs to be something realistically easy to learn and not extremely expensive to take up.
(My motivation to ask this comes from my career and social life being very cerebral and based in the computer world. I've always wanted to counterbalance that with some kind of ultra-practical hobby. This seems like a fun way to get some ideas. Onwards to the Post-Apocalypse!).
This post was deleted for the following reason: This is pretty well into hypothetical chatfilter, and you could really be having some of this discussion in the thread you were inspired by on top of that. -- cortex
You aren't talking about wilderness survival -- you are wanting to survive in a difficult social environment.
Basically, you need social skills -- a common language to be able to talk to people; a sense of who is who, and what the rules are; and only then do you need some sort of "practical" skill that will have a place in that society. And society then, just like society now, had a certain amount of need for cerebral people -- call them scribes, advisers, professors, priests, or what you want, but they were knowledge economy workers just as you are.
But that's no fun -- I'm telling you to stay at your desk and learn a medieval language, memorize social rules, and so on. Great if you want a PhD in medieval studies, but not much fun for the rest of us.
More fun would be to take up the kind of trade that you could imagine a wandering tinker doing (because the only thing worse than being stuck in the 10th century would be to be stuck in one village in the 10th century) -- knife sharpening, pot-repairing, jewelry repair, etc. Basic metalworking with portable tools and common materials. They were probably a bit more casual about lead than we are, but if you can learn how to solder, braze, and weld without bottled gases and electricity you might have a nicely portable career in the first millennium. An occupational hazard might be the occasional accusation of baby-theft and the like, but if you keep your toolkit light enough you should be able to easily outrun the angry peasants.
posted by Forktine at 8:45 PM on June 11, 2008
Basically, you need social skills -- a common language to be able to talk to people; a sense of who is who, and what the rules are; and only then do you need some sort of "practical" skill that will have a place in that society. And society then, just like society now, had a certain amount of need for cerebral people -- call them scribes, advisers, professors, priests, or what you want, but they were knowledge economy workers just as you are.
But that's no fun -- I'm telling you to stay at your desk and learn a medieval language, memorize social rules, and so on. Great if you want a PhD in medieval studies, but not much fun for the rest of us.
More fun would be to take up the kind of trade that you could imagine a wandering tinker doing (because the only thing worse than being stuck in the 10th century would be to be stuck in one village in the 10th century) -- knife sharpening, pot-repairing, jewelry repair, etc. Basic metalworking with portable tools and common materials. They were probably a bit more casual about lead than we are, but if you can learn how to solder, braze, and weld without bottled gases and electricity you might have a nicely portable career in the first millennium. An occupational hazard might be the occasional accusation of baby-theft and the like, but if you keep your toolkit light enough you should be able to easily outrun the angry peasants.
posted by Forktine at 8:45 PM on June 11, 2008
Latin and Greek would be good, although i bet the vernacular would sound very strange to you even if you did read it. Look at old English from 1000 AD to see how different is from today's.
Actually, it might make more sense to study Old English, that way you'd get exactly the language as it was spoken (assuming you ended up in the UK)
But One important skill would be mechanical engineering and metalworking. As well as all kinds of mathematics and the ability to do said math without a calculator. Or learn how to build and use an abacus.
posted by delmoi at 8:48 PM on June 11, 2008
Actually, it might make more sense to study Old English, that way you'd get exactly the language as it was spoken (assuming you ended up in the UK)
But One important skill would be mechanical engineering and metalworking. As well as all kinds of mathematics and the ability to do said math without a calculator. Or learn how to build and use an abacus.
posted by delmoi at 8:48 PM on June 11, 2008
I think Europe didn't get gunpowder till the 1200s; invent that. Keep the formula secret (it only requires three things which are not too hard to find). Some knowledge of basic machining and metallurgy would probably help with the creation of cannon and small arms.
How do you learn the medieval versions of these skills? I'm not really sure. But the modern versions are fun for a lot of people and some of it's bound to be applicable to your imagined scenario.
posted by hjo3 at 8:49 PM on June 11, 2008
How do you learn the medieval versions of these skills? I'm not really sure. But the modern versions are fun for a lot of people and some of it's bound to be applicable to your imagined scenario.
posted by hjo3 at 8:49 PM on June 11, 2008
Yeah, I was going to say study up on the inner-workings and mechanics of the earliest, simple guns. Then create one of those. And rule the world.
posted by jckll at 8:54 PM on June 11, 2008
posted by jckll at 8:54 PM on June 11, 2008
coming from a 'get rich quick' perspective...
How about learning all about Cults-- when you get tossed back in history, you'll likely look out of place, X years of great medical care, all your teeth. You'd look rather good I would think-- take advantage of that and corrupt the masses! Improve their lives through various simple things you've observed in the modern world and you might be quite a loved leader.
Or, on a more down to earth basis, some sort of engineering, better mining techniques, smelting, alloys etc, all fairly basic (at least to beat the materials they were using). Steam engines would surely make you run the world, if you're not killed for being a magician or somesuch.
How about basic medical discoveries, germ theory, penicillin. You could become a quite excellent doctor for the rich and famous-- though you'd need to make sure you'd have your shots for various now existinct diseases.
On your level of questioning, I think that advanced farming practices would be the best thing, or as fairyland said, hunting.
You'd obviously need some land, you won't be speaking the language so that would be tough.
Would be super cool to start the scientific revolution 600 years early :) I could well be dicating this in my flying car if you do your job right!
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:58 PM on June 11, 2008
How about learning all about Cults-- when you get tossed back in history, you'll likely look out of place, X years of great medical care, all your teeth. You'd look rather good I would think-- take advantage of that and corrupt the masses! Improve their lives through various simple things you've observed in the modern world and you might be quite a loved leader.
Or, on a more down to earth basis, some sort of engineering, better mining techniques, smelting, alloys etc, all fairly basic (at least to beat the materials they were using). Steam engines would surely make you run the world, if you're not killed for being a magician or somesuch.
How about basic medical discoveries, germ theory, penicillin. You could become a quite excellent doctor for the rich and famous-- though you'd need to make sure you'd have your shots for various now existinct diseases.
On your level of questioning, I think that advanced farming practices would be the best thing, or as fairyland said, hunting.
You'd obviously need some land, you won't be speaking the language so that would be tough.
Would be super cool to start the scientific revolution 600 years early :) I could well be dicating this in my flying car if you do your job right!
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:58 PM on June 11, 2008
Have you read Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling? It's a post-apocalypse sci-fi/fantasy novel in which the people who thrive are ones who've been involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism and have skills like armory, blacksmithing, bow-hunting; and Wiccans, who know how to do things like make candles and find and use medicinal herbs. As Forktine said, these are skills that would not only serve you individually, but that would make you valuable to a community.
If I had your same goal, I think I'd take up beekeeping. You can do it in your own backyard (depending on local ordinances), and you'd always know what to get everyone for the holidays. For bonus points: learn to brew mead.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
posted by not that girl at 9:02 PM on June 11, 2008 [2 favorites]
If I had your same goal, I think I'd take up beekeeping. You can do it in your own backyard (depending on local ordinances), and you'd always know what to get everyone for the holidays. For bonus points: learn to brew mead.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
posted by not that girl at 9:02 PM on June 11, 2008 [2 favorites]
There was a story I read many years ago about a man who invented a time machine, went back thousands of years and introduced general ideas of hygiene to whichever society he visited.
Fastforward to modern day, the world is so overpopulated (because they're so healthy) that people live underground, digging down to the core, until it's realized that eventually there will be no "earth" left - just a ball of people.
So they build another time machine, and send someone back to assassinate the guy as he gets out of his time machine.
So be careful what you take back 1000 years when you go visit.
posted by Lucinda at 9:05 PM on June 11, 2008
Fastforward to modern day, the world is so overpopulated (because they're so healthy) that people live underground, digging down to the core, until it's realized that eventually there will be no "earth" left - just a ball of people.
So they build another time machine, and send someone back to assassinate the guy as he gets out of his time machine.
So be careful what you take back 1000 years when you go visit.
posted by Lucinda at 9:05 PM on June 11, 2008
Mining maps and the tools to dig. Secret gold mine and/or silver, sell it off and go to the next spot on the map, sort of like the sports book in Back to the Future 2.
posted by Freedomboy at 9:26 PM on June 11, 2008
posted by Freedomboy at 9:26 PM on June 11, 2008
Or, on a more down to earth basis, some sort of engineering, better mining techniques, smelting, alloys etc, all fairly basic (at least to beat the materials they were using). Steam engines would surely make you run the world, if you're not killed for being a magician or somesuch.
Just for a thought experiment, to see how unrealistic some of the suggestions here and in the other thread are, imagine going as an outsider to somewhere in our world that is fairly peaceful, but also poor and with a relatively rigid social structure. A small village in rural Latin America, or maybe somewhere in Mali, say.
So imagine how hard it might be to go from showing up as the new guy in town, to building a viable steam engine. And we are talking about places with pickup trucks, internet cafes, and sometimes cellphone service, right? But to build a steam engine using purely local inputs (as compared to ordering the parts on the internet), you need an enormous and complex social structure oriented towards that production -- a lot of skilled miners willing to do the dangerous work of getting the ore; skilled foundry workers to turn that ore into metal; metal workers to make the tools to make the tools to shape the metal for the steam engine -- and all of this in a place where most of the people need to be working every daylight hour to make sure that they get some food to eat, and in a place where the elites are well-entrenched and happy with the way things are.
And you make these sweeping societal changes, how exactly?
I keep imagining the scale of monomaniacal effort portrayed in Herzog's better films, like Fitzcarraldo, but ending with the torture scene in Black Robe. Science fiction books make this stuff sound easy, but I think it is anything but.
posted by Forktine at 9:26 PM on June 11, 2008
Just for a thought experiment, to see how unrealistic some of the suggestions here and in the other thread are, imagine going as an outsider to somewhere in our world that is fairly peaceful, but also poor and with a relatively rigid social structure. A small village in rural Latin America, or maybe somewhere in Mali, say.
So imagine how hard it might be to go from showing up as the new guy in town, to building a viable steam engine. And we are talking about places with pickup trucks, internet cafes, and sometimes cellphone service, right? But to build a steam engine using purely local inputs (as compared to ordering the parts on the internet), you need an enormous and complex social structure oriented towards that production -- a lot of skilled miners willing to do the dangerous work of getting the ore; skilled foundry workers to turn that ore into metal; metal workers to make the tools to make the tools to shape the metal for the steam engine -- and all of this in a place where most of the people need to be working every daylight hour to make sure that they get some food to eat, and in a place where the elites are well-entrenched and happy with the way things are.
And you make these sweeping societal changes, how exactly?
I keep imagining the scale of monomaniacal effort portrayed in Herzog's better films, like Fitzcarraldo, but ending with the torture scene in Black Robe. Science fiction books make this stuff sound easy, but I think it is anything but.
posted by Forktine at 9:26 PM on June 11, 2008
You could become a felicitous fletcher.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:55 PM on June 11, 2008
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:55 PM on June 11, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
Failing that-- since you are looking for something less cerebral-- get some swordsmanship under your belt, toss in some archery, and top it off with hunting and tracking. (For bonus points, learn leatherworking.) You could become a mercenary, a town or castle guard, or a knight, *and* provide for yourself at the same time.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 8:40 PM on June 11, 2008