this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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Comic Strips

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[–] Drusas@fedia.io 1 points 4 hours ago

Way overused joke.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Nate Bargatze had a joke about this, where he says if he went back in time knowing everything he knows now, he doesn't think he'd make any difference or even be able to prove it at all.

[–] Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Forget cellphones, let me tell you about Linux and my favourite distro.

[–] JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

First you'll need to build the first computer from raw materials.

[–] cinoreus@lemmy.world 9 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I'll be honest, looking at how stupid people are today, I absolutely have no curiosity in seeing how stupid people were 300 or 400 years ago

Okay I don't wanna sound too cynical, but let's even forget complex physics, how are you going to even teach basic physics, and how likely are they are to even listen to you? Yes every action has an equal and opposite reaction, what's a peasant gonna do with that knowledge? Unless you bring a real piece of technology with you, I feel it would be very hard to get their attention.

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 2 points 7 hours ago

Yeah I don't see how much chance you'd have with trying to share all your future knowledge, you might get really lucky and meet some scholar that takes you under his wings but chances are much higher of getting burned at the stake/beaten to death.

You might have a slightly better chance just trying to fit in acting dumb and using your knowledge to get ahead, but of course for that we have to conveniently ignore that you'd get utterly fucked by the new-to-you bacteria and infections and probably will die from some paper cut.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 34 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Get a specific rock, refine it and draw specific patterns with anoter refined rock, add some sort of tamed lightning.

"Witchcraft!'

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 17 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

If you squeeze enough runes it and write the correct spells it can mimic humans. Now we can't tell who's human and who's a pile of rocks.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 2 points 7 hours ago

Not me, I'm definitely a pile of rocks, oh ah, uh... I-I-I mean human, yeah totally that's what I meant.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 6 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

fun fact there's an antique chinese/southeast asian fairytale about it

the original human, the buddha, was lonely and thus wrote faces on rocks. the rocks became "alive", at least they looked alive. They were automatons. That is the explanation why today, there are people who are more or less machines (very superficial, only useful for work, no deeper soul), and people who have a much deeper soul (the buddhas).

[–] Ugh@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

Well, I'm not superficial, and my crippled ass sure isn't useful for work... so that must mean I'm a buddha! Woohoo?

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 12 points 12 hours ago

Guess calling people NPCs is a timeless tradition, even if the terminology has changed.

[–] morto@piefed.social 5 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Almost everything we have is so fragile... sometimes I wonder how back in time we go if a production chain collapse happens

Stone Age, or some form of Scavenger-age in not much better shape than stone age.

Almost all of the accessible surface minerals have been mined. That means if the production chain collapses everything goes to shit. We cannot mine and refine the materials we need without heavy and specialized machinery. No reboot. The minerals are inaccessible. That machinery’s production relies on a huge amount of materials, from energy to electronics, and the logistical network to put it all together.

Our production chain is very discrete in a lot of ways. Electronics made one place, smelting another, fuel by ships, food over here, lithium someplace, copper somewhere else, iron from far away, medication over there, clothing someplace else. If the global network fails, that’s it. People starve. The specialized knowledge is lost to make things. Systems fail rapidly. The manufacturing of electronics quits, along with the rest of the supply chain. People probably eat all the seeds for crops. Lack of pesticide and fertilizer, plus climate change, wipes out yields for many. No way to harvest enough or transport it anywhere. Small pockets of humans might survive, but it’s gonna be hand-to-mouth or subsistence farming at best.

You’d go back in time quite a ways pretty quickly. People living tribally in the more remote parts of the world would maybe survive depending on how nasty climate change gets.

[–] JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

Something tells me we're going to experience that collapse & regression soon!

[–] cattywampas@lemmy.world 49 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I would like to take this opportunity to tell everyone about the fantastic book How to Invent Everything by Ryan North. It's framed as a survival guide for stranded time travelers and goes into detail about many foundational technologies, how they build on each other, and how to make them yourself from scratch. It's truly a fascinating read.

[–] xylol@leminal.space 11 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

that reminds me of the show Connections, not so much the time machine but how technology was built on eachother in such strange ways, it always starts off with some randome thing then you get sucked in and end up who knows where by the end of the episode, its so good

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series)

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 5 points 12 hours ago

I love that show - it and The Twilight Zone are probably my all time favorites. The production is amazing and it's just so fun and interesting.

[–] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 7 points 14 hours ago

This is a great book. I read it a few years ago and I still think about it. The breakdown of how everything is built on each other was interesting.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 17 points 14 hours ago (11 children)

If I could go back in time my contribution would be electric motors/dynamos. I'd also teach basic battery technology, but with basic motors and wiring you can drastically jumpstart anywhere in the Eastern hemisphere starting really fucking early. I'm talking shitty transports in early Rome and streetcars in 11th century China.

You get massive labor saving devices early on and the basics to move forward and invest in more metallurgy.

But most importantly I understand how they work, how to demonstrate their usefulness, how to build them from ancient materials, and how to explain exactly why they work. Only problem is I won't speak the language and Romans ain't listening to a galla explaining engineering.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (3 children)

Just be aware that precision metalworking wasn't invented until the renaissance, so you might need to invent that first or your motors will wobble badly.

Edit: that might have even been the industrial age instead of the renaissance. It might have been what really kicked off the industrial age, though the invention itself was for more reliable guns iirc.

[–] noughtnaut@lemmy.world 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'd invite you to watch a bit of the YouTube channel "Clickspring" and ask if you'd like to revise your statement. πŸ™‚ As a spoiler, he starts off with a blank desk, builds a lathe, and then an entire antikythera mechanism - by hand, using essentially bronze-age technology. And, he does that while making it look so very mesmerising and elegant. Time well wasted!

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, I'll check that out... I was thinking that primitive builder guy would do well going to the past but I wasn't sure how much he could teach people, so it's cool to hear about a someone doing higher tech from scratch.

Also, that ancient puzzle box/lunar calendar/whatever it was is a counter example showing that some artisans were capable of precision work. The industrial revolution might have been more about scaling precision work to mass production levels. Like adopting standard units of measurement was a big part of it, which isn't really technology but just getting everyone on the same page. Before that, a foot could have a different length depending on where you were, if that region even had a reliable and reproducible definition for what a foot was exactly.

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[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

How to you make electrical motors and batteries from ancient technology and raw materials?

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[–] x00z@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

I think it's good general knowledge to understand how a computer works.

I really like this video about transistors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pqfjer8-O4

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 9 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Shepherd is surprisingly fluent. I would have expected something more like "αšΊαšΉαš«α›? α›αš³ αšΎα›– αš©αšΎαš·α›α›–α›αšͺᚾ"

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago

That was clearly before that Babel tower thing.

[–] lauha@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I wouldn't expect middle eastern shepher to speak futhark

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[–] kboos1@lemmy.world 29 points 18 hours ago (9 children)

If I went back in time at least 200 years ago and I wasn't burned for witchcraft the world would be a much different place.

[–] cattywampas@lemmy.world 22 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

200 years ago was 1826 and firmly in the industrial/modern era, they were not executing anyone for witchcraft at that time.

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 14 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Witch trials were more a 1400-1700s deal.

I learned this when I took a class in university 13 years ago. I got a b- so keep that in mind.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, it was a populist concession to the protestant Reformation. The high middle ages would leave you just being seen as a cunning person or a lunatic depending on charisma and reproducibility.

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[–] lath@lemmy.world 9 points 16 hours ago

Were I to time travel, I'd like to piss into the primordial soup so we'd get everyone ready for microplastics early on.

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