[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

[Paul D. Anderson]

Christopher Wright Wrote:

> Walter Bright wrote:
> > Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >> Sometimes I run these crazy calculations: how much modern firepower 
> >> would be just enough to turn the odds in a classic battle? At 
> >> Thermopilae, I think two Vickers with enough ammo would have been just 
> >> about enough. Also at the Lord of the Rings 2 night castle defense, 
> >> one machine gun would have sufficed (better protection and fewer 
> >> assailants).
> > 
> > Sometimes I think what if I were dropped naked back in time 20,000 years 
> > ago? Assuming I didn't get promptly cooked for dinner, what technology 
> > could I deliver that would have the most impact?
> > 
> > I can't decide between iron, agriculture, or writing. I suspect writing. 
> > Every time humans got better at communicating, there was a huge increase 
> > in the rate of progress.
> 
> Writing allows you to keep solutions to problems that only come about 
> rarely. Disseminating these is very time-consuming, though; copying a 
> manuscript by hand takes months. But 20,000 years? I think basic 
> sanitation comes first. It also doesn't take very long.
> 
> Once you have writing, though, it becomes *much* easier to approach 
> things scientifically, especially with a bit of arithmetic. So that 
> might be more worthwhile, since they can arrive at sanitation eventually 
> anyway, and sooner if they have writing.
> 
> Of course, in any case, you need to get around two obstacles: the 
> language barrier and your ignorance of whatever you're trying to teach. 
> I know less about agriculture, probably, than any stone age farmer. I 
> don't know anywhere near enough about ironworking or mining to be able 
> to offer any meaningful advice. But most people know enough about 
> writing to create a writing system for another culture, if they just sit 
> down and consider the problem for a few hours.
> 
> So in your case, I dare say the only technology that you listed that you 
> could deliver is writing. Even a metallurgist might have significant 
> trouble providing ironworking to a culture without the typical modern 
> tools of that trade.

Alan Lightman wrote a short story, "A Modern Day Yankee in a Connecticut Court", describing the difficulty of bringing modern technology into the past. The protagonist couldn't convince the citizens of 19th century Hartford that his technology even existed, much less how to make it work. (The expert in the court was Thomas Edison.) He could name things -- "television", "air conditioning", "TNT", etc., but that was about it.