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What knowledge would you bring to 1000 BC?

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say you were dropped into the past by three thousand years. It is the Iron age, the world population is about 50 million, there is rice in vietnam, the phoenician alphabet is invented. The small seeds of a comfortable life has been sown, we are becoming farmers and exchanging information. 


I give you the freedom to choose where you want to be dropped off, you can be latin (they just started finding italy so yay to you guys!) or maybe you want to start in the United Kingdom of Israel (no not the one we have now, the one from the bible, genuinely 3000 years ago) there are Iranians in persia so maybe you wanna be there!! the Kenyans are farming, so that’s very cool.


you are you, with all the knowledge of the 21st century that you possess in your brain, what are you teaching the people of the past?

𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯

Hm, no..... Maybe just drop me off in my personal life when I was like 4. LOL XD


I wanna just enjoy childhood once again and just start over to be honest.

If we being strict about what we know and can actually show them, 
show them the concept of steel with a chimney furnace and animal skin bladder bellows. 
Also fired bricks i guess? not sure if they there yet. 
I know how to make saltpeter in the crude oldschool way, so i can introduce to them crude explosives. 
Distillery. to produce concentrate alcohol. for medical and sanitary use. 

@⸸⸸⸸𝕶𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖌𝖆𝐳𝖒𝖔𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖓⸸⸸⸸ in 1000 bc, I feel confident you might be able to explain to them how to extract sodium nitrate, and even source charcoal. Sulfur might be a bit more tricky. I don't think the ancients were doing much with it until about 200bc or so. So how do you describe to them where to get it? 

@Cranky Old Witch
true, id have to be really conveniently close to like, a valcano lol. 
unless i could get out of someone "hey were are there yellow rocks?" would be screwed on the best version, i hear you can do it with just salt peter and charcoal though, but its not as good. 
Hell. maybe its worth experimenting with other ground substances since 2 of them are easy xD. 

i sussspect even like, dry fine powder sawdust and saltpeter in an enclosed capsule will still explode, considering saltpeter is the oxidizer.  If it will be practically usefull outside weapons though, idk. would have to see if you can break big rocks that way xD. 

@⸸⸸⸸𝕶𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖌𝖆𝐳𝖒𝖔𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖓⸸⸸⸸


HOWEVER. if i do HAPPEN to be kinda close to a set of gassing volcanoes, ... we golden 😂

I guess drop me off in pre-Columbian Chile-Peru area and I'll see if I can show them how to make Pizza! (that's where the tomatoes are. No wheat, though. Will have to make a flatbread pizza-like crust from maize or maybe acorns) 

@Cranky Old Witch

BARNACLES! 

I just remembered. No cheese out that way!

Crap. 

Do I teach pizza to ancient pre-Peruvians with no cheese and no wheat? Or teach it to ancient Egyptians with no tomatoes? 

There's this great book I read once called How to Invent Everything by Ryan North. The premise is that it's the manual left inside time machines just in case you become stranded and want to accelerate civilization. 

First things first, we're gonna want to make soap. My homies of this time period are going to be STINKY and DISEASED. Just my basic knowledge of germ theory and soap making will be a massive improvement in quality of life for those around me (assuming I can figure out how to speak with them before they kill me).

~*: We'll see it through! :*~

@tellmesecrets

You'd be surprised but soap was already a thing for 1800 years at that point! and around 550 years ago people finally figured out they can use it to clean themselves!

@Nehiri thanks! That is somewhat surprising. Gotta love that gap between inventing soap and using it for hygiene practices. Reminds me of the gap between the invention of hot air balloons (~220–280AD) and manned hot air balloons (1783AD).

~*: We'll see it through! :*~
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They can build a fire better than I can, but decent plumbing/sanitization (and I stand by this!) is the catalyst for our species' explosion over the past hundred-ish years.

would tell em all they need 2 know abt the 1%, the epstein files n capitalism as a whole js 2 make sure at least they'll prevent the root b4 it starts spreadin

Contributions to society? .  I don't know, probably throw the first liberals off of a cliff? 😋

@SafeInSanity oh no, not locke and rousseau and rawls. keeping hobbes?

two things awe me most: the starry sky above me, and the moral law within me"

neopronouns

@Heroinfather genuinely amazing answer XD

𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯

I don't know much, so I'd probably just everyone in ancient china about stuff I like

phan is real

we'll pretend to leave and then, we'll meet again, when both our cars collide.

Omg thats around when King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty was aliveeee. Part of me wants to teach them a more secure way to hide/protect texts, or recordkeep, perhaps integrating that more heavily into what would become ideal Confucian teachings just bc itd be so cool to have more information. But I doubt I know anything substantial on the matter.


Or subverting the prompt and I'll learn from them. Show them some cool juggling tricks or something like that in exchange.

two things awe me most: the starry sky above me, and the moral law within me"
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