Basically the title, you need to use the skills you have now and be a productive member of society.
I don’t mean go back and show the wheel or try invent germ theory etc.
For example I’m a mechanic i think I could go back to the late 1800s and still fix and repair engines and steam engines.
Maybe even take that knowledge further back and work on the first industrial machines in the late 1700s but that’s about it.
Yikes. I’ve moved from IT tech support to MGMT. I don’t really write with a pen, and largely rely on emails/teams. I think if we went back any further than the late 80s I’d be totally screwed.
Umm, but what if I’m a science teacher? Like, my specialty is history and presentation of science experimentation. The primary limitation is whether I am allowed to bring the tools of my trade (books), which would help me survive in England or Iceland as far back as 900 AD.
If language isn’t an issue I could probably work as an engineer in ancient Egypt or a math teacher in ancient Greece
If I had access to good quality copper, I could invent electricity and do very well for myself.
So long as I can avoid Ur in the 18th century BC, I could go back pretty far.
Don’t buy it from Ea-Nasir, he’s got a complaint.
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I’ve been doing computer engineering long enough to do the field in the 80s and still live as comfortably as I do now, if not more so.
I also sail, with a license old enough that I have my own sextant and reduction tables. I’d assume those skills transfer hundreds of years back, but I wouldn’t like those survivability odds.
I dont know how my skills might translate. But my ex would find work immediately. I mean, being a whore was a living back then. She could suck and fuck cavemen and probably eat well enough. She would probably try to get double teamed by Neanderthals, because filling 1 hole wasnt enough for her.
Yikes!
Hope you’re in a better place now.
my skills sadly don’t allow me to go back in time at all.
My skills travel pretty far. But with my gender id not be allowed to use them.
As a software engineer, I’d struggle with the limitations of ten years ago.
But on the non-work side, I have no problems with maintenance on my house and hand tools haven’t changed much, so at least 80 years
That’s interesting - I wasn’t aware of how fundamentally we’ve moved on in the last 10 years. Presumably you went to uni, so that’s 4 years, so you’ll have the theory I guess? I did my Degree in ‘computing’ in 2003. Did some Java and Web design using Dreamweaver and a whole module on Lotus Notes. Yeah, not super useful!
I’m a structural engineer. I might not have all the materials needed, but I could probably still design old masonry structures if needed.
and be a productive member of society
I just write useless software for a useless company. I’m not a productive member of society today, I wouldn’t be one at any point in the past. 🤷♂️
I’m a chef, so probably back to when fire started to be a thing people used.
I’m not even sure I can survive with my skills now.
At least as far back as keyboard instruments have been around I could be a musician. Ending up further in time, I’d be a composer; the guy that revolutionised polyphony.
‘Palestrina, that’s really nice. Now check this out’
I’m a physician - am MD. As long as I don’t get burnt at the stake for witchcraft, I could go back as far as I wanted. People’s biology hasn’t changed much since Neolithic times.
No medicine, no hospitals, no diagnostic or treatment tools? No trauma care. How much can you really do?
As a non-medical person, I can’t do much more than sterilize a wound and apply a bandage. All respect to you but that far back would you be able to do any more?
Being able to set a bone, sterilize a wound, and stitch it closed would make a huge difference for a lot of people. High proof alcohol and cauterization, and fine enough needles are the hardest parts on that list.
Be a shame you can’t make medicines though
Just washing one’s hands before touching the patient would make a massive difference, alcohol is pretty abundant, willow bark tea for the pain (and contact your local herbalist for other remedies), you could infect people with cowpox to vaccinate them against smallpox, you might even be able to grow some penicillin if you manage to make some rudimentary Petri dishes out of broth or beer wort and happen to have the right spores floating around…
