If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?

        • bluGill@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          That is what they used, but so much is needed that despite being easy to make it wasn’t available in large enough quantity. You get it by the basket, what you need is train loads.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            This guy is 100% correct. There’s no way you will ever be able to start the “industrial revolution”. There’s not enough people mining coal or metal ores. There’s not enough organization to do any of that.

            These are the technical dreams of children. The world wasn’t organized enough to even support feudalism. The average person was a subsistence farmer who made a little extra grain to turn into alcohol. They lived in family groups and barely knew what the emperor looked like.

            You may already know more important ideas that you use in your everyday life. You probably: wash your hands, wash your clothes, bathe regularly in fresh water with soap and wash your hair, filter or boil water to clean it, use the restroom away from where you eat, know that alcohol kills germs, and most importantly know that you should stay away from someone who’s sick. These things make you as knowledgeable as the best doctors in Rome.

            If you payed attention in elementary school, you may have a better understanding of astronomy than the best Roman minds. You may know enough mathematics to chat with Archimedes himself. You already know a superior numbering system to what the Romans used. Literally anything you remember from school would be priceless.

            If you bring anything, just make it a telescope and a book of Roman history. Give the telescope to the emperor.Tell everyone you’re a messenger of Minerva or something. They’ll put you in a temple where you can invent a sandwich one year and a toasted sandwich the next. Use the book to stay out of trouble.