I don’t want to live in the awful past, I want to live in the post-scarcity utopian future!
Fully automated gay space communism ftw
Too bad I can only upvote once, which is not sufficient to convey my feelings.
I will share my upvote with you, comrade.
Thank you, comrade!
Yes, I’d like to skip the decay of capitalism and the rise of fascism please.
Andy Weir has a question he likes to ask people: “you have to go back in time with no recourse to return, and you must do so in multiples of 100 years. Which year do you choose?”
He then goes on to note that people usually pick the closest date, and draws from that that we are progressing and getting better as time goes by.
I would pick a time before the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry. 15000 years ago, just to be on the safe side. Most infections haven’t crossed over from other animals. A diverse diet. Sure, I’d have to find and befriend a nomadic group, and escape predators. But I’d rather take my chances there than in any other “civilized” period of history.
Another option is, if I can pick the place, I’d go to one of several points in the western shore of the Americas that were not inhabited by cannibals in 1426, try and befriend as many locals and convince them to KOS any European. Which has the added bonus of creating a time paradox.
I’VE TRAINED FOR THIS DAY
SEND ME BACK TO THE 6th CENTURY BCE
I’M READY TO REINVENT CIVILIZATION
Hopefully your minor infections are too foreign to them and don’t simply wipe them off the earth. And hopefully the food available doesn’t completely fuck up your modern digestion.
But I’m with you on going back really far. Before property ownership. Before human-caused climate change started (which was well before industrialization, due to cook/heat fires).
Downside: dogs and cats not domesticated yet. Probably no/limited pack animals either. If you don’t find the locals relatable or existing, you’re in for a rough time. Also most/all food hadn’t been selectively bred yet, and was nothing like what we are used to today, was all small, hard, seedy, not very sweet. Most foods we eat are also non-native, and were brought back from global exploration, so that varied diet you are anticipating might be largely salted or smoked meat, instead. Certainly the case if you go somewhere with seasons. I have a rough idea of what can be foraged around me, but most of it is modern cultivars. The wild ones are kinda meh, tbh, you have to get really creative to use them.
But a major upside is even if you are the dumbest person alive today, you’ve got a LOT of knowledge to offer such primitive societies.
There’s a lot of strong evidence that agriculture reduced variety in human diet considerably. But you’re right that the variety we have nowadays is hard to beat (though scurvy is making a comeback).
The medieval one would be just being a serf. We often imagine our ancestors being some knight or lord when in reality nearly 90% of the population where subsistence farmers.
Knights were like pro athletes.
This mene made me go an read article on the history of women’s restrooms 🤣
I’d like to skip to the part where we guillotine all of the fascists, racists, and corrupt politicians.
To be fair, women shouldnt be going to the bathroom be it in public or otherwise.
I just asked to be born 10 years earlier so I could enjoy the 80s. Got my own coke spoon and everything.
Only nobility and rich commoners really had to think about fighting wars; most medieval people would just be tending to their lands.
I mean, it depends on where your standard for ‘rich’ is. As late as the 12th century AD in England, all freemen were required to have a basic standard of equipment in case they were called upon by the king for military service. That’s apart from any demands laid on them by their immediate overlord.
Sure, but those requirements didn’t translate to actual military service for the vast majority of people. In the first place Medieval economies couldn’t (or wouldn’t, depending on how you look at it) fund the large-scale armies that would make conscription desirable; it made a lot more sense for elites to recruit pseudo-mercenaries (or just outright mercenaries) and reward them for loyal service. There are plenty of exceptions, but historically military service has been something you do because you’re rewarded for it, not because scary men with swords will kill you if you don’t.
But military service was widespread as an obligation, and armies were not always small. The small size of most medieval armies has more to do with logistics concerns and speed of mustering from distant fiefs more than a general lack of use of the poor. During The Anarchy in England, clashes of tens-of-thousands of troops occurred, despite England only having a population of ~1 million to begin with. Not only that, but garrison forces were still needed in wartime, a common obligation of serjeanty and wardstaff in feudal contracts. Recruitment of mercenaries became more common as the medieval period wore on, but mercenaries aren’t always available - and the earlier in the medieval period, the more sparse mercenaries are. Not to mention the trouble of seeking them out to begin with; not always a good choice when forces are needed quickly.
Being rewarded for service and being obligated aren’t mutually exclusive. And you don’t have to be threatened with death for it to be obligatory - fines were the usual punishment for evading service in most medieval polities.
