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Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

kottke.org

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Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

#11
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hygiene.

How can you make money with that? Purveyor of scented soaps? ;)

There might be reasons for doing it other than making money. For instance, (1) making life more pleasant for yourself and (2) saving a whole lot of lives.

Perish the thought that anyone might think either of those more important than making money, of course...

Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

#13
post #11
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you make money with that? Purveyor of scented soaps? ;)

There might be reasons for doing it other than making money. For instance, (1) making life more pleasant for yourself and (2) saving a whole lot of lives. Perish the thought that anyone might think either of those more important than making money, of course...

/joke/

Still, there's an argument to be made that people can be better convinced of a need if there's something they think they have to buy.

Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

#15
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the commentors at Kotte's mentions that you could sell boiled water as "de-sprited water", good for all menner of medical procedures. Unfortunately, another commentor recognized that firewood would be difficult to access, and cow poo doesn't fire hot enough.

Why would firewood be difficult to find? I could be wrong, but I don't think the European deforestation had set in yet, at that time. Is the wood in most European forests not of sufficient quality?

Didn't the ancient Chinese mine coal? Not a bad map to bring with you: surface coal deposits. Still, start global warming 500 years early?

Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

#17
there are a few series that cover that area.(not exact mind you, but close enough)

First you have the Assati Shards series(1632, 1633, 1634)...basically a town in Virginia get transferred to Germany in 1632.

And then you have the Conrad the Engineer series, where you have a guy transported to 13th century Poland, just before the Mongol invasion.

But chances are, no matter where you wind up...you'll be dead within a week. Why? Simple...language barrier. You won't be able to understand a thing....even if you wind up in the most civilized English speaking country. So you'll probably wind up getting burned as a demon who is speaking in tongues

For example...this is what Beowulf's first few lines look like in original english.

  Hwæt! We Gardena         in geardagum,
  þeodcyninga,         þrym gefrunon,
  hu ða æþelingas         ellen fremedon.
  Oft Scyld Scefing         sceaþena þreatum,

Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

#18

What would you do to prepare if you knew the journey back in time would start in one hour?

Pray that I'll be transported to the Middle East, where it is warmer, and where the arabs of the time were vastly more enlightened and tolerant than most of Europe. They might keep me alive long enough for me to learn Arabic and learn to blend in..

Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

#19

What would you do to prepare if you knew the journey back in time would start in one hour?

Backpack full of seeds. Potatoes, corn, etc etc. The agriculture of that time was pretty much non-existent. You'd get something like 20x the output from your seeds.

Re: Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?

#20

Prediction is impossible, we all know that. What we don't know is that retrodiction is also impossible. History is a form of science fiction. The future is history that hasn't happened yet. History is the sensibility of one time, assessing another time, that it cannot possibly know. -- Bruce Sterling, http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/1-25/Note%2000001.txt

Superman can't really fly, but he's still fun to watch.
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