scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/5d5oov.md

Trying to fix medieval Europe

• Author: u/None *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5d5oov/trying_to_fix_medieval_europe/

• Score: 11

• Created: 2016-11-15T22:54:52

Post:

I was almost sure I'd seen this discussed in here before, but use of the search function hasn't turned up anything. So! Here's the question: a time traveler from modern times has been sent back to Bronze Age England. They don't have any technology with them; only knowledge. Using that and the resources available to a random person in the Bronze Age, how can they optimize the world?

Sanitation is probably the obvious one, along with "don't make drinking vessels out of lead". What are some other options?

Comments:

u/alexanderwales [+22] Time flies like an arrow (40 minutes later)

Previous comment threads here and here might be helpful, as they're about closely related subjects (and have lots of comments).

Edit:

The first question that you have to ask yourself is, "What's wrong with medieval Europe?" Slavery and pseudo-slavery to start with, high infant mortality, low life expectancy, death to random illness, quick spread of disease, horrible treatment of women, horrible treatment of anyone poor, lack of literacy/intellect/rationality, political instability, unjust rule hereditary rule ... I think that's fairly good as a starting point.

But I would be very cautious about something like introducing hygiene and pasteurization, because plummeting infant mortality rates and wildly increased life expectancy probably lead to bad outcomes if they don't come with attendant advances in agriculture to feed all those people. And making it eight times more likely that someone will survive an amputation probably means that there are a lot of amputees going around ... in a world whose social safety nets I don't trust to handle the influx.

In other words, I'm skeptical about handing out scientific knowledge like candy. Yes, it's pretty damned easy to make an electromagnet, or generate electricity using a water mill, or calculate longitude and latitude, or whatever, but in terms of actual results? That's a big question.

u/Strange-Aeons [+18] (2 hours later)

While it wouldn't neccesarily fix medieval europe, handing out science like candy would make a terribly fascinating setting. Imagine this traveler has a lot of scientific knowledge but is completely lost in politics/economics or trying to implement safety nets-- it would create a very interesting world.

u/paradoxinclination [+4] (2 hours later)

Low culture high science. That kind of hypothetical earth would probably end up looking a lot like the techno-barbarians of Warhammer 40K, future technology being used to enforce archaic social systems.

u/BadGoyWithAGun [+2] (6 hours later)

Isn't the system in 40k portrayed as being absolutely necessary to preserve humanity?

u/Garudian [+6] Dai-Gurren Brigade (22 hours later)

That's what the people on top say.

u/paradoxinclination [+4] (7 hours later)

In the worlds ruled by the Imperium, yes, but there are still hundreds of feral worlds that fit the archtype.

u/MagicWeasel [+8] Cheela Astronaut (46 minutes later)

The "technical" term for "fixing medieval europe" is "uplift", I have seen it discussed in quite a few worldbuilding wednesday threads, though google is failing me at the moment.

Here's another thread that may be relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/39rv97/you_cannot_create_gunpowder_what_invention_can/

u/Cedrices_Diggory [+4] (20 hours later)

Not exactly rational, but there's the 1632 book series. It's about what happens when a 1999!W.Virginia town gots magically plopped into the middle of the 30 Years War. The Author recognized that eventually his historical schema would make the series non-rational, so he regularly collaborates with other writers and cannonizes fanfic.

It works.

There's no top-down optimization of a world, but you do get to watch a slow and juicy yankeesque tech/cultural innovation diffusion into renessance europe.

Baen put the first ebook out for free as a lure http://www.baen.com/1632.html

u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)

Seconded on this series. It's a great deal of fun, and the Grantville Gazette series is a good resource -- each book contains a set of short stories and then some non-fiction treatises on one or more technologies and why they could / couldn't be build at that tech level.

u/gbear605 [+3] history’s greatest story (28 minutes later)

Do they have the knowledge of the local language? Because that's extremely vital to actually doing anything.

u/ToaKraka [+3] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (an hour later)

I was almost sure I'd seen this discussed in here before, but use of the search function hasn't turned up anything.

Reddit's search function is useless. The best way to search for something is to use Google.

A Google search for medieval site:www.reddit.com/r/rational reveals several relevant threads.

u/serge_cell [+1] (13 hours later)

Effective and significant innovation will cause migrations on massive scale with many unpleasant consequences like enslavement, possible genocides etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_migrations

u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (21 hours later)

I don't think it's possible to have a reliable plan for making strong positive change in the short term (meaning, within twenty years). Probably the best thing to do would be to sit down and write a few math textbooks.

u/Icare0 [+2] (4 days later)

My new pseudo-historic headcanon is that Newton was a time traveler that did exactly this.

u/DRMacIver [+1] (2 days later)

"lest darkness fall" by L. Sprague de Camp is a pretty good novel about exactly this premise. IIRC it's fairly rational.

I don't recall the details very well, but IIRC the protagonist introduces distillation as a way to get rich quick, then moves on to other innovations like double entry accounting and not burning friendly time travelers at the stake.

u/BadGoyWithAGun [+1] (6 hours later)

Don't give them any mechanical technology or scientific knowledge ahead of time. Instead, focus on preparing them to defend against advances in social technology. Unless your goal is to turn medieval Europe into something that fundamentally isn't medieval or European, what you should do is warn the ruling classes against the dangers of failing to defend the legitimacy of their institutions. The only legitimate uses of futuristic knowledge in this scenario would be things like convincing people that God is real, their ruler has a divine right to rule, and producing illegitimate children outside your dynasty is a bad idea.

u/The_Magus_199 [+7] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (20 hours later)

...isn't that the opposite of optimizing? It sounds like you'd be making sure the world is more resistant to improvement.

u/BadGoyWithAGun [+1] (20 hours later)

Well, the OP didn't mention in respect to what he wanted to "fix" medieval Europe. I content that if the result of your "fix" is a world that isn't medieval and European, you haven't fixed it, you've destroyed it.

u/The_Magus_199 [+10] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (20 hours later)

Are the people still there? Then you haven't destroyed it. You're treating the post as suggesting fixing medieval Europe by its standards, but I'm pretty sure it just meant that you're tossed into that time and place and want to improve it by your standards, not theirs.

u/BadGoyWithAGun [+1] (20 hours later)

That's an interesting standpoint, but not what I'd assume given the information provided.

u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (a day later)

This sounds like the moral fallicy that is the prime directive. To be more explicit: what is more important the social construct we call "medieval Europe" or the people our time traveler encounters? /u/alexanderwales has some very good arguments about considering second order effects, but frankly fuck that if: penicillin, crop rotation with peanuts for soil re-vitalization instead of a fallow year, citrus for scurvy, and shrug not sure what else would pass determined self reflection can be introduced 3-4 centuries early?!? Yes the first generation of saved lives will probably die in migration/population pressure based wars (net population gain 0) but how much of everything else will go faster, how much net population gain, how many quality adjusted years of contentment will you net.

And making it eight times more likely that someone will survive an amputation probably means that there are a lot of amputees going around ... in a world whose social safety nets I don't trust to handle the influx.

I rather be starving, and scorned as a cripple, than not be. With the former I have a chance to make things better. Yes there might be better things to do and you are going to want to sit and think, before you act but not living to see the reward is no excuse to not try. I mean if you believe that then we'll never get to other stars unless we can build our first interstellar ship in one generation with perfectly safe stasis pods.

u/BadGoyWithAGun [+1] (a day later)

what is more important the social construct we call "medieval Europe" or the people our time traveler encounters?

That would depend on your terminal values. OP asked us to "optimize the world", but failed to specify what it is we're optimizing for.

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