If I snapped you back in time 650 years right this very second, how would you use your current knowledge to succeed?
Its the 14th century and you've had no time to prepare, after you're done reading this post you are snapped. What do you do?
Die a slow death from hyperglycemia once my pump runs out of insulin.
Infect the indigenous population with some god awful pathogen they have no defense against.
Die to a pathogen I have no defense against.
Die to the indigenous population due to being a white dude in pre-contact North America.
It uh... wouldn't be pretty.
Nothing. I’d sit under an tree and enjoy the peace and quiet. No trump. No DC. No MAGA. No reporters. No non stop ads. No social media. No Google. No Elon. No bezos. The list goes on. Sure I’d probably die of some random disease or bandits. But I’d be okay with it at that point.
Well you can do that today. Find a tree out in the middle of nowhere and sit under it without any electronic devices. Then you are oblivious to all that stuff. You may be bothered by the fact that the things are still happening, but there are also plenty of horrific things happening in that time period you went to, you just won't be keeping track of them.
Well you can do that today. Find a tree out in the middle of nowhere and sit under it without any electronic devices. Then you are oblivious to all that stuff.
There is much wisdom buried in what seems like a simple comment here.
Even if you aren’t in the middle of nowhere, you can find or create your oasis.
Nobody would be able to understand me because English has diverged so far from 12th century English that it's a different language. Also I'd be in north America where nobody had even seen a white person. Additionally, I'm 20 ft above the ground right now in a building that didn't exist back then. Finally, I'd be rightfully blamed for bringing plague to the native tribes of the area and likely killed.
Assuming those hurdles were all cleared: I'm a mechanical engineer. So, I'd tell the natives where iron ore, coal, and oil was buried and how to extract and refine it. Tell them how to make gunpowder. Speed run making steam engines and lathes. Get north american natives armed, industrialized, and organized against the external European threat.
Tell them how to make gunpowder.
That right here is all you need. If you can actually forge a gun and show them how to make gunpowder, you don't need anything else. Although even then you would probably be executed shortly after for being a threat to the nobility.
I’d be dead in the vacuum of space. You never mentioned that I’d just go back in time, you forgot the coordinates. Now I’m floating, dead. Thanks man.
This. Once you understand enough about the universe how all coordinates are relative and everything is moving relative to everything else... Like, how the fuck is time travel supposed to work it it was anywhere like this naive movie idea of it? Time travel Hollywood style is literally not a continuous operation and as such absolutely unphysical.
die almost immediately
Yeah, this. I have medications I need. When the pair of contacts in my eyes fall out eventually, I'm functionally blind. All that aside, I'd probably starve quickly since I don't know how to make weapons and other humans haven't made it to where I live yet in 1375 nevermind, I'm high. The humans that are there would probably kill me on sight though.
I'd probably look around for a couple days and then when I got super hungry just find a cliff to jump off.
and if you manage to evade physical harm, sickness will surely catch up with you. the black death was not a 'one and done' pandemic. it lingered and persisted here-and-there for centuries after the widespread pandemic (known today simply as 'the plague') that claimed 50m+ lives, including half of europe's population at the time
You would die. There are many, many examples of explorers from “advanced” civilizations getting shipwrecked or stranded in an area where primitive hunter-gatherers live. Unless they are saved by the hunter gatherers, they are doomed, despite their knowledge of science and technology. Joseph Henrich talks extensively about these examples in his book, “The Secret of Our Success”
Check out this video to get an idea -> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jaoQh6BoH3c
Yes, but what about you?
Of course I want to think I would do better. Maybe I would manage to integrate with the local indigenous people, but the reality is I would likely die. Either way my knowledge of science and “advanced” civilization will benefit me not at all.
Double entry accounting system.
I'm an accountant by trade. The double entry system wasn't invented until the 15th century.
I could account for any lords various assets, goods, and livestock in an efficient, reliable and accurate manner
Being too early to market something also leads to failure
It's never too early to efficiently count your sheep!
I would kill everyone I meet with the plagues I carry which I'm immune to.
You might have a bad time with all the plagues that have gone extinct since then.
I'd be dead since the Earth wasn't in the same position 650 years ago. Even taking that out of the equation, I'd die since I can't communicate with anyone and don't have the survival skills.
ah, someone who understands that celestial bodies change spatial positions with time... nice
Actually 🤓, position and velocity are relative, so that's a nonsensical statement without defining a reference object for the Earth's position. If we're not assuming you end up safely on dry land, you could just as easily end up light-years away as wherever you were relative to the sun.
probably die
The chances of that do seem to be high.
If I snapped you back in time 650 years
2025 - 650 =1375
Its the 12th century
1375 is the 14th century. Which do you mean?
Answering the actual question, nothing good would come of it if my location on earth didn't change. Being the only white person in rural northern Japan well before Europeans came in the 1500s would probably not be a good situation for me. The language, at least the written one, was very different. Being the Nanboku-chō era, things would probably be not great since it was in the midst of 60ish years of war with two different people claiming to be in charge. I can't find, at least before my coffee kicks in, exactly what kinda state Mutsu Province, as it was then called, was in at the time.
English would also be unrecognizable in 1375. At a glance, it seems like it was Middle English, which means you'd probably get as much intelligibility with any other English speakers as a monolingual Dutch speaker would have with a monolingual English speaker today. Maybe a bit closer, but still.
Shakespeare was still hundreds of years away.
...Not that any of this would matter to anyone living in North America.
Middle English is certainly difficult to understand, but most words still bear some resemblance to modern English. I think it would probably be more like a native German speaker trying to understand a heavy Bavarian dialect, or at worst a Dutch speaker trying to understand the same.
In my case, I'd probably be OK having studied French and German (and reading things by Chaucer and Gauer). Though French != Norman French, so that may cause some issues.
Yeah, I did it backwards. Like I knew it was the 1300's but when I said the century, I went back a diget instead of forward.
It's not 1825 where you are?
Technologically, it does feel like that sometimes, but it would seem not.
Well, strictly speaking, if your location didn't change you'd be transported into empty space. So you wouldn't have very much to worry about for long.
Heh, that's specifically why I qualified it as 'position on earth'.
Try to find the nearest shaman, apothecary or herbalist and trade my future clothes/pocket contents for some hallucinogens and painless poison. I ain't living through a time before electricity.
I'm on the Gregorian calendar, 650 years ago is the year 1375. I'm in North Carolina, so if I were to snap back in time at my present location I would be a blue eyed white guy in pre-contact North America. And while I think I'm an above average candidate for the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court scenario I'm not realistically able to start "from scratch." I'd probably make it the summer on forage and my own body fat. I don't picture encountering the natives going particularly well, for me or them. I'm not sick and I'm vaccinated against a lot of shit but watch I'll give them 6 centuries worth of influenza updates.
I don't think it would help that much being plunked down in 14th century England; we're talking Geoffrey Chaucer's lifetime here, to them I'd sound insane. Modern English is a few hundred years off. If they didn't trepan me to let the demons out of my skull and I didn't die of smallpox, I'd try to invent the electric motor 500 years early and be burned for heresy or some shit.
The only non-delusional answer lol
Yeah, I'm here thinking my ass in America pre Columbian exchange is not doing well. Maybe if I make it clear somehow I do not want to do anything but help I could...idk, be part of a native tribe and maybe give them a slight help to the upcoming horrors for them?
It's not going well for anyone.
I'd use my knowledge of the future to do two chicks at the same time
Fucking A
... and B too
"I figure a guy that can time travel 650 years into the past can set something like that up"
well I'm a woman so anything I do will be witchcreaft. I would probably try to get to north america in some way and warn them "the fuckers are coming".
that would mess up the future lol
I don't think I know a single language from the time, so I'm probably getting murdered because I'm a strange foreigner who can't defend themselves with words.
Die because my medications haven’t been invented yet.
Or be murdered because I’m not christian
I reread the Bitcoin paper yesterday, so with my newly refreshed knowledge id find the nearest mathimation, explain it to them, implement the protocol with paper records, handwritten hashes, and messages on horseback or something. After a few years when every major economic power realizes how valuable a deflationary currency that Mansa Musa doesn't control (14th century african gold-salt bazzilionare, ~400 bill USD today), the price of my currency would increase vastly, making me super rich.
So dead
other people would probably have a higher chance of dying than me from the immunity I've got and all the diseases I carry
I'll probably die of dysentery. Just because I know modern hygiene rules doesn't mean I'll survive interacting with all the other people who don't but are used to local bacteria and viruses.
This is probably the most realistic answer. Either you die quickly or you’d wind up, spreading some major contagious disease that nobody has a defense against and wipe out a huge section of the population.
Well, I'm in Australia so I would try and communicate with the indigenous population and teach them how to defend themselves against the upcoming colonist invasion and take advantage of what they have to offer, starting with forcing a signed treaty.
American here: governments have never cared about signed treaties with natives. But your heart's in the right place.
Thanks. I think they do ok in New Zealand though with the Maori.
Wash my hands
The definition of succeeding just becomes not dying.
Given the rate at which people would become mentally or physically disabled because of diseases, you could argue it would have a network effect (probably a better term exists): I would have more chances to meet people and influence them, to learn something useful, to accumulate and use wealth for the above, so yeah...
Everyone dies. You just get to try to make the leaderboards, if that's your thing. There isn't a killscreen that we know of.
Now you're a witch
That would be a warlock I guess.
Where do you wash your hands? Hope you brought a big bottle of disinfectant.
Crude soap is easy to make. Wood ash + water + fat. From there you just fiddle with ratios and timing while trying not to burn your skin off with strong alkalinity.
Running water would allow for 30% reduction in bacteria, according to some sources.
Also, in that time period soap was known in Spain, France and Italy, and I personally made it in the summer using either olive oil or pork fat.
Any body of sufficiently rapidly running water should suffice.
First I would seek the attention of the local ruler by cooking interesting dishes with modern knowledge.
Then I would ask him to create an akademy. I don't know the details but I know what can be known. Intelligent people will reinvent the knowledge.
Some side businesses should make enough money that the akademy and thus further development doesn't entirely rely on the king.
Build cities with public transport and no cars, because there is no car.
Success.
Let me cook you something AMAZING!
First I need some curry...uh...okay, do you have salt? WHAT?
Alright, where is the oven? Time to prepare you some amazing lasagna! Where do you keep your noodles? No noodles? I guess I can hack it with potatoes.
...PO-TA-TOES! YOU...WHAT???
Okay nevermind, let me show you why you need to stop spending all your money on survival in warfare and instead fund my school! I can teach you to...uh...tell you about things we have in the future. No, I don't know how to create any of that. But trust me bro, just give me money. No need to tie me to your trebuchet like that, I'm sure I can remember how to build an airplane somehowAHHHHHHHHHH
You tried.
Edit: But don't worry, your myriads of novel diseases in your body will pretty much wipe out the continent you spawned on. Revenge!
All your points are opportunities. Some should just not be taken immediately. When in Europe, it's not good to start with traveling earth, think Gallileo. When in America, it's better to build weapons first before contacting Europe.
Great idea with the food. Probably won't get called a witch while building trust. Although I have no confidence in my ability to recognize any vegetable or spice, but hopefully a brine would be enough.
find the nearest sword and belly flop on its pointy side
Well, I would give you the answer, but since I snapped back as soon as I read the post, I'm now responding what has been 650 years later for me, and I'm too fucking old for this shit a second time. I bypassed getting snapped back this time by just not reading the post and coming straight in to comment.
Now, what will happen if I read the
As an Australian I would struggle significantly unless you were to also transport me geographically.
I would imagine the east coast / tasmania could be interesting. There used to be hundreds of different peoples that are now extinct and we know nothing about. A struggle nevertheless.
Fuck I think I could just vibe with the Noongars, hunting, fishing and sleeping til I died of old age.
Maybe use basic science and chemistry to improve sanitation and quality of life. Not too much, just enough to be regarded as a clever fella, not a warra wirrin bad spirit.
That’s 1375.
Not good, not bad. Depends on where you ended up on the globe. There absolutely is civilization, but it’s all kings and Tsars and the like. The English and French Hundred Years War is winding down but the plague really did a number on Europe. Lots of war in India. It wasn’t a great time in the Middle East what with the Crusades and all. The Egyptians are conquering Armenia. The Songhai Emprire is growing in Eastern Africa. Southeast Asia had a lot of conquest and a large kingdom growing, might not have been so bad as long as you landed on the winning side. The Ming Dynasty just started in China.
So it’s not like you ended up in pre-civilization or among dinosaurs or something. There are plenty of people around, but it’s still an age of war and conquest. Your best bet to have a great life would be to ally yourself with a strong leader and give them advancements to help that leader “win”. Of course, if he were defeated, you’d be slowly tortured and killed by the opposing side.
Assuming I am physically in the same place, I will fall to my death. If I somehow survive the fall I would be severely injured and alone in the wilderness. Within a few days I would probably die of either my injuries, dehydration, or hypothermia.
Scientifically speaking, the earth is constantly moving in an upward spiral. Your exact physical location would put you in some random outerspace area without oxygen or any protection. Just floating in space until you die.
I would use the superstitions of the people of the area to scare them away from me and my space. I would build a Catalan forge and a smelter that is powered by falling water. I would make gunpowder but not share the recipe. I would also distill alcohol for sale and for hygiene. I would use Leedskalnins PMH to create permanent magnets and use them to make electricity. Electric fences also help keep the superstitious barbarians away. I would also be a beekeeper.
Wow you know how to do all that stuff right now off the top of your head without books or instructions? I am impressed. I feel like the best I would be able to do alcohol wise is distilled prison hooch. Like I know the basic priceable but not the recipe.
People were mining, smelting, and forging many metals 650 years ago. The forge isn't a complicated device. A coal fire with forced air to raise the temperature. Pressurized air can be taken from falling water. There are always bubbles. Leeskalnin's PMH is really simple. If you have copper, silver or aluminum wire and Iron, you can make a permanent magnet. Moving copper, aluminum or silver through a magnetic field gives you electricity. Bees are not too hard to keep. Make a wood house with a small entrance for them and bait the inside with some beeswax and honeycomb and you can get them to move in. I worked at a fireworks factory a long time ago. Gunpowder is not hard to make. Finding potassium nitrate would be the hard part.
I know thousands of songs. Also, musical instruments like the saxaphone haven't been invented yet.
Oh I think you're the first person to suggest music! That is a really good idea, provided you don't die of dysentery of course.
Here are some good time travel stories.
To Say Nothing Of The Dog. In the future, time travel is organized like the Army. The problem is that the actual travel causes a serious case of 'jet lag.' All the agents act like they are half-drunk and sleep deprived.
The Big Time. Two alien races are fighting a time war that spans all planets in the universe. Earth is a minor backwater, but the fighting is just as deadly as anywhere else. A few soldiers and entertainers are catching a few moments respite in a R + R center when the War crashes in on them.
Predestination. A man is offered a chance to find and kill the guy who ruined his life. All he has to do is trust the stranger who is making the offer.
What place do I get teleported to? If I'm teleported to the same place on Earth, then I just fell down several meters into a swamp and am probably going to die here.
You teleported to somewhere safe and private, you won't fall to your death and nobody will see you lol.
I would teach London children the most obnoxious brain rot slang from today as a laugh.
The butterfly effect of that would be weird because all of our brain rot slang would change then.
Exactly, that's the fun part. Would it get worse, or swing the other way, having kids talk like uppity old money aristocrats?
Well, I'm in America, so...
I guess I'd prep the natives to help put up a proper fight. Find a way to teach them that white people (like myself) carry diseases and to stay away and keep them away. If they land on your shores, drive them back. Never let them get a foothold. I'd try to convince them that I was a demon that got away from the other demons to warn of our coming.
I'd do my best to make it so nobody remembered the name Christopher Columbus except as the idiot that died because he thought the world was much smaller than it is and never returned from his voyage.
white people (like myself) carry diseases
Congratulations, you already killed them all
Most likely, you'd just start their mass depopulation pandemic a bit earlier.
Start a cult.
Everything I've seen for the last decade indicates it's pretty easy and highly profitable.
and you have all the knowledge of what cults already took off like wildfire. Mormonism for example, that shit is gold.
You don't even have to show the gold. Just say you saw it and it's now in that tent over there. No you can't go in. This is what was written on it though. Oh it's in a language only I can read. Don't worry, I'll translate. Give me your wife.
I would warn the Native Americans about the Europeans
Europeans would show up and my Native American homies would be armed with cartridge rifles, six shooters and a crank rotary machine gun.
I would try for better, but I think there just wouldn't be the time for fine tooling more advanced fire arms would require. Even getting all that going before I croak is going to take a lot of ambition.
Also assuming they don't think I am some evil spirit that they quickly kill when I demand industrial metal facilities be constructed.
Oh, they would probably also have penicillin before the white man, so that would be a major advantage.
If you could somehow inoculate them against smallpox you might have a fighting chance.
Congratulations, you just brought diseases to the new world.
LAB LEAK
/s
Not native, just 1st to migrate. 1st Americans or Amerindians.
If your argument is that humans can only be "native" to southeast Africa... that's dumb. It might be defensible in an ecological sense but sociologically the word is used differently.
Wouldn't I be in like empty space?
612 years in the past
In Brazil. So almost a century before the first europeans landed here. I'm assuming I just plop exactly in my relative earth-location, but in the distant past. (... It would be really funny if this was overly literal, because I'm currently in the 12th floor, so I'd thanos snap into the past and immediately fall to my death)
Well
As a person from modern times -- From AFTER the Americas came into contact with Europe, if I went near a person here in the Land of Palms (that's what the natives called Brazil!) from those times we'd both get horribly infected and die a lot due to how antibodies work. Viruses did a lot of the legwork in genociding the natives. Euros would deliberately do things to infect natives so they'd die of illness.
The place I currently live in is slowly turning into a desert, but was a deep jungle back then (... It was still a deep jungle in the 1910s tbqh).
.......... I think I'd just die? Become food for a jaguar or eat a poisonous fungus or sth.
Would love to indulge in the fantasy of giving the Guarani people guns and a warning to shoot white people on sight just to see how history would change, but that ain't happening.
Market myself as a powerful man of religion and/or magician, depending on the local vibe. Then use knowledge of science and tech to build myself a reclusive retreat where I can have regular baths and write books with predictions to mess with the world 650 years after I would die.
I like your style. If you really wanna have some fun, don’t name the United States as the United States, but name the year and then say something to the effect of the most powerful nation in the world will come under rule of an authoritarian individual who has dreams of becoming a dictator.
I love it! Predict that a large empire of equals will fall after 250 years.
I'd die pretty quickly.
Die as you forgot to teleport me to where the earth was at the time.
Otherwise I guess my main knowledge that could be useful is some basic first aid. Secondary to that, a little bit of electrical stuff.
Assuming you live in the west, you want to get executed by the catholics?
I'm really hoping to stay where I am. I'd rather try to integrate with the Coast Salish people than 14th century Christians.
If I time traveled to the same geographical region, considering I'm in South Brazil, if I don't get immediately killed by some jungle animal or tropical disease, I'd probably end up starting a pandemic among the natives.
I would pretend to be super-religious. Throughout the whole of human history, pretending to be super-religious has always been a viable path to survival and personal advancement.
Apart from that, I'd probably just die.
Oh! You could start Mormonism! Its super new as far as religions go, and it was mad easy to convince the masses it was real, all you do is say you have special tablets of text that only you have been given the ability to read by God, and BAM new religion just launched and you're the leader.
The best way to find hidden treasure is to hide the treasure yourself!
I'm in the US and in a place that native Americans didn't have settlements. I'm very familiar with the area and have hunted, hiked, and camped here my entire life. With no preparation or modern equipment I give myself about a week before I get eaten by wolves or a bear, maybe gored by an elk or bitten by a venomous snake. I don't expect that I would see another human during that week. Native hunting parties visited the area so it's not impossible that I would see someone but it's very unlikely.
This is something I often wonder about, what could one person even do with all of today's common knowledge? You can't very well just invent the printing press and have the same impact as Gutenberg - you need something what the few people who can read would, and most people can't translate the bible from Latin into renaissance German and/or don't know enough about the catholic church to write scathing remarks on it like Luther.
You can write and read - that's something. Maybe more importantly, you can do math with arabic numerals - boom, easy accounting job. With a bit higher education, you may even just invent calculus once more. You know how long it took for people to figure out you can put pi on the number line? Proving all the formulas in your head is the hard stuff, but you have a head start just by knowing them. We all clown on the wormhole explanation with the paper, but it does prove Euclid wrong 400 years early.
Ah, and you can just become a medical genius by using soap and bandages - "do no harm" is better than most.
Heres the thing though, you can write, but can you write and read Middle English from the 1300's? There are some similar words but its a very different language than what you and I are used to, it's another 200 years before Shakespeare and most English speakers struggle with even as far back as that.
I just asked AI to write my above comment in Middle English
"Lo! Her is the thinge, but thou mayst writen, canstow yet writen and reden in the Englissh of the thrittene hundred yere? Certes, ther ben som wordes ylich, but it is ful divers from that which thou and I ben y-used to. Two hundred wynters yet moot passen er Shakspere shal come, and fele folk that speken now Englyssh han gret strif to undirstanden that tyme."
Even that is very modern-looking to this Chaucer enjoyer.
You probably can read middle English sooner than you can speak it. Like writing with a feather on parchment, I assume you don't just die and have time to learn.
Side note, I now want to translate all my emails to my supervisors into middle English
That reads like Dutch to me. Perfect! I'll be fine.
Should be noted though, even with the best plan, your frail body, weird language and no local knowledge will mean you probably still die in 2 - 72 hours.
Wait 612 years and buy Microsoft.
It's 1375 and I'm asphyxiating somewhere in the Milky Way about 600 light years from Earth.
But let's assume that somehow my latitude, longitude and altitude relative to Earth somehow remain the same. Now I'm spawning several feet in the air probably in sight of several villagers. If I'm lucky, they'll think I was sent by God. If not I'm gonna have a real bad time. There's a good chance I'll break a bone in the fall, and that's not going to go well at all.
But let's assume there are trees here. Lots of them. That's actually pretty likely. They hide my sudden appearance and mitigate bone breakages.
Now I'm on the outskirts of a village, battered and bruised and very strangely dressed. I don't speak any language they'll understand despite technically being from that area. Middle English is the language of the day, and I speak something that won't evolve for at least another 200-250 years. Shakespeare is technically modern English and is hard to comprehend sometimes. Here we're talking Chaucer and that's pretty much opaque.
I'm literate, but not in Latin, and that's the language of the Church. I'm numerate, but they haven't got beyond Roman numerals yet.
I'm not even sure where the church is. I know where it is in the modern day, but that building's no more than 200 years old. Maybe it's on the same site. I'd head there for shelter at least.
I know the Lord's Prayer in modern English. Chanting that quietly might spark some recognition in anyone present but then it might count as blasphemy to say it in anything other than Catholic-Church-approved Latin.
Come to think of it, I could probably blow a couple of minds by writing the alphabet they know and then the same with the extra letters that have been added since.
And then I'd be burned as a witch.
Pretty sure the Earth isn't traveling the universe at light speed
Yeah, I was about to go to bed when I was writing that. "Several" or "a few" would have been better.
1375....
We can work with metals, so we can probably make boilers.
I invent steam power 400 years early.
You'd need metallurgy which was only invented in the process of building bigger naval guns, much later.
The issue was pressurizing the steam, which wasn't possible in the middle ages. You had no rubber for seals, no steel that would hold, and no tools to drill holes precisely enough.
That's why the Romans already used steam for simple parlor tricks but it couldn't be made to do actual work until the modern era
Real science and innovation comes in increments
no rubber for seals
Modern synthetic rubber would indeed be unavailable, but I vaguely recall reading something to the effect that early steam engines used leather seals or something like that.
But yeah, there's a lot of missing prerequisites for machinery. Even simple rotary power -- like from a windmill or waterwheel -- would suffer from being incapable of long distance transmission. Such a limit means the interior lands of a country away from a river or coast would remain unusable for development beyond basic agriculture. No railroads, no A/C, no Phoenix Arizona.
Re-invent. Your still far too late to be first.
People always think that the spark of invention is all that's required, ignoring the social and material tinder and kindling that's required for something to be useful and take off.
Die of bubonic plague, get killed for being a witch/warlock, die of appendicitis...
I'd make some fucking soap.
Do you know how to make soap? I'd want to but I'd have no idea how. If it already existed the hard part will be how to make enough money to buy it, as a software dev I'm not sure I'd have any sellable skills
How to make soap: Mix a fat or oil with a strong base like potassium hydroxide, resulting in an exothermic reaction called saponification.
Kind of. All you need is fat and lye. Some experimenting would need to be done but I'm somewhat confident I could figure it out.
And you could make a living selling it. Assuming you can convince people of its benefits.
I would fall from a very high place
Probably die
I don't know how to refine oil, but knowing that its refinable into diesel/gasoline is a pretty good start to looking for it. Steam power easier to figure out. A head start on murdering some sperm whales for lighting industry seems easy enough to figure out. Partnering with metal smiths who might have a clue on making gun barrels, and pipe's in general that could be used for advanced weaponry, would be an easy path to get governments to give me a ton of money for weapons research by just showing them some drawings. Doesn't really matter if I ever figure out how to do it, just the vision of what is possible would make me richer than Musk. Richer if I can help enslave all of humanity to one empire.
Electricity is a pretty easy concept. Steam power driving magnets and copper. That rare earths make better magnets should be easy enough to search for them. Copper wires to deliver the electricity easy AF. Can help jump start progress to late 21st century for some things.
Fuck you buddy, I'm barely getting by with modern medicine, you just ended me.
Many years ago when I thought about this, I realised I wouldn't be able to put much of my modern knowledge and skills to use. I decided I'd learn to make basic matches by distilling urine into phosphate, which wasn't invented until the 19th century, but I've forgotten the process. Collect lots of urine and boil it? Also, if you make white phosphate it can cause horrific toothache and they have to remove your jaw... So, I'm hoping another commentor will suggest a safer skill I can brush up to be ready for travel.
Use all the science i know from school to helpfully quicken scientific progress and spread trans propaganda
England is in the midst of the Hundred Years war with France and considering I'm ~193cm and the average height of a man in England in the 14th century is about 171cm... looks like in getting my arse drafted and shipped off to France, to act as some kind of intimidating presence. That is until I have to swing a sword, which my body, that's used to sitting in an office looking over excel spreadsheets, absolutely can't do, so I get bum rushed/hit in the face with an arrow and die.
That's the most likely scenario.
Worst case scenario, considering I don't speak middle English or Latin, I'm treated as an enemy and locked up in a dungeon somewhere.
I don't think there is realistically a best case scenario
I'd just like to interject that while traveling was rare in medieval times, it did happen. People usually didn't get thrown in jail for it, even if they didn't speak the local language.
Regular people didn't really speak Latin beyond a few bits of prayer. The lingua franca was a mix of various coastal languages (think of the belter patois in the expanse), but even that was only known to traders.
You'd have a tough time for sure, but wouldn't necessarily get in trouble.
Uhh anyone know where to get estrogen injections in the 14th century?
I bet there is a crunchy mom that can tell you what plant to eat, but there's like a 70/30 chance its gonna kill you instead.
Better odds than having my body change back, sooooo ....
I could probably discover electricity, depending on where I landed. Jewelers of the time could make wire, copper was common, and magnets (lodestones) had been discovered. Realistically though I'd be a dumb giant (ie, speak no known languages of the time and statistically I'd have like a foot on the "tall" people of the era). I'd probably try to find some party trick that looked like magic to people of the era then hope that people would welcome and try to integrate me rather than burning me as a witch. Then I'd probably die in a week or two anyway to some disease lol
Coating wires to make windings may prove tricky tho
The party trick thing reminded me of a book series called Magic 2.0 that I read a while back . This guy figures out that the universe is a simulation and basically hacks the code; now he can jump through time as he pleases. He goes back to the Middle Ages and brings plastic wrap with him and calls it clear paper, which convinces everyone that he's a wizard. It was a fun read but got dumb around the 3rd-ish book.