1000 bc

[Synobun]

How do people know that such learning won't be lost? We know that the ancient Romans had running water and yet a thousand years later they did not. So society can go backwards when an advanced civilization is destroyed.

There is no guarantee, but if a society or culture were to be suddenly vastly improved without giving them the means to destroy themselves (AKA avoid giving them better weapons), it's possible the effect could be eternal in a sense.

 

[uppi]

There is no guarantee, but if a society or culture were to be suddenly vastly improved without giving them the means to destroy themselves (AKA avoid giving them better weapons), it's possible the effect could be eternal in a sense.

But almost any technological advance might give a culture the edge in a war. Teach them how to build a steam engine and they will be able to mobilize their troops much quicker. Give them a telescope and they will be able to spot the enemy earlier. Improve their medical knowledge and they'll have less soldiers dying from minor wounds.

So not giving them the means to wage war more effectively would be quite tricky.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

There is no guarantee, but if a society or culture were to be suddenly vastly improved without giving them the means to destroy themselves (AKA avoid giving them better weapons), it's possible the effect could be eternal in a sense.

The only weapons that could help a culture destroy themselves bioweapons and you won't be able to introduce them. It takes more than a generation to create the necessary infrastructure in a pre-industrial society.

Improve their medical knowledge and they'll have less soldiers dying from minor wounds.

So not giving them the means to wage war more effectively would be quite tricky.

If you don't want the peopleto be warlike make sure their standard of living is high and they don't need to expand.
They'll inevatebly get stronger and that's not a bad thing. As I said: self-defense, Assyrians...a rich society needs superior weapons or it will be too tempting a target.

You don't even need to use medical knowldge to treat soldiers. Tell the midwives to wash their hands and the parent's to boil clothes from time to time: you have now greatly reduced infant mortality and more than doubled population growth.
Crop rotation and fertilizers mean more food from less fields.
Congratulations: you have now the economic basis for a large standing army.

 

[Synobun]

But almost any technological advance might give a culture the edge in a war. Teach them how to build a steam engine and they will be able to mobilize their troops much quicker. Give them a telescope and they will be able to spot the enemy earlier. Improve their medical knowledge and they'll have less soldiers dying from minor wounds.

So not giving them the means to wage war more effectively would be quite tricky.

I probably should have stated a direct influence to them having an edge in battle. It could be said that improving their child bearing skills and doctoring could fuel a bigger army. It could be said that improving their crop yield would let them feed their soldiers better, etc. Those are all decisions they make. But directly giving them a cannon or a musket would influence them towards war.

 

[Darkwind]

How do people know that such learning won't be lost? We know that the ancient Romans had running water and yet a thousand years later they did not. So society can go backwards when an advanced civilization is destroyed.

That is why it is much easier to go to China where writing already exist and bamboo "books" and library exists already. (1000 BC is in Zhou Dynasty) Large scale farming can support a decent number of urban population and scholar class, which is crucial for any technological advancement.

The major thing you need to worry is how to avoid the massive "burning of bamboo books" done by Qhi Shi Huang when Zhou Dynasty ends.... May be someone already traveled to 1000 BC, but all records are destroyed by Qhi Shi Huang

 

[Winner]

Jealousy?? LEAVE JARED ALONE!!!! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!

Yes, Vic, I'm sure that historians who emphasize wie es eigentlich gewesen are just bitter that they didn't think up some incorrect overarching trend to which they can fit their data. It's the same reason they don't keep to slavishly reusing Marxian analysis everywhere to the exclusion of all other tools: they're just jealous of the guy who looked like Fred Douglass. Clearly.

At what point do they cease to be "tendencies" and become "a few examples in unrelated locations that seemed kinda similar on the surface"?

*handwave*

I wasn't talking just about the historians, but hey, if you feel the need to lecture, go ahead.

To say it more eloquently:
"Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken."

That's why I'd go with mass produced steel swords and improved agriculture and hygiene.. Much easier than to build a gun.

Ah, Alpha Centauri, a well of wisdom and the best "Civ" game ever released... *overpowered by nostalgia*

 

[Tee Kay]

Like any of them would listen to us.

Which is why step one would be taking over the country.

It'd also help if you could demonstrate some godlike powers.

Most of us won't have enough technical knowledge to affect much technological change by ourselves, anyway. The most you could do is get other people to do your experiments for you and nudge them in the right direction. For instance, I don't know how to construct a steam engine but I do have basic knowledge of how it works and I could get people to experiment with building one if I have enough power at my disposal.

If you don't want the peopleto be warlike make sure their standard of living is high and they don't need to expand.

I don't know, I can't think of an example where that has worked... and plenty of examples of rich societies enthusiastically conquering poorer ones.

 

[dwaxe]

What other health advances could you easily promote?

 

[DroopyTofu]

Am I allowed to take this with me?

 

[Darkwind]

omg.. that poster is so useful, you can use that alone and improve the technology to 1800 levels in less than a generation. (They would have learnt the scientific theory if they can understand all the stuff on the poster.)

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Am I allowed to take this with me?

You can't take anything with you, but you're free to memorize is.

 

[Commodore]

I'd bring a tank and beat the crap out of every ancient nation. Unless we are in a game of civ...

Somebody didn't read the OP properly.

Anyway I could teach them all the stuff I learned in the Army as well as some engineering knowledge from courses I took.

 

[mechaerik]

You can't take anything with you, but you're free to memorize is.

What if I tattooed it all over my body?

 

[jtb1127]

I'll teach them how to build large ships so they can get to the Americas faster.

 

[timtofly]

I'll teach them how to build large ships so they can get to the Americas faster.

Don't forget to tell them not to use the name Titanic and the north atlantic is off limits.

 

[Souron]

Am I allowed to take this with me?

I don't think the explanation of flight is right. And some of the stuff isn't useful. For instance, it's not useful to say that the number of protons determines the element without at least observing the periodicity of the elements.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, the lift is created by the change in direction of the air as it flows over/under the aerofoil. The air goes down, so the aerofoil goes up. Nothing to do with speed differences.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yeah, I was going to point that out too.

Also, Penicillin is by no means "the best" antibiotic. Even before resistance to it became so common, the naturally occurring penicillin was effective on only a relatively small set of bacteria. I don't get why it says "other bacteria," since penicillium is a fungus and not bacterial. The fungus does not actually produce the antibiotics under most circumstances, but only when subjected to stressors (like bacterial growth) that inhibits its normal growth.

 

[dwaxe]

Well what would be a good antibiotic, oh Great Sage?

 

[puglover]

This. Everyone thinks their modern ideas would be accepted so easily? You would be killed for witchcraft/going against the gods/heresy/etc.

Not to mention a lot of ancient ideas were accepted simply because it worked for them. To impose a foreign cultural custom on them risks destroying the fabric of their society.