Ask for the gun and the bullets.
Before I’m sent back, shoot the time travel master (nerd!) in the head. Shoot their attendants, too (nerds! nerds!).
Grab all the other options, and load them in the time travel car. VERY IMPORTANT: the Moog will be playing the Knight Rider Theme until further notice.
Time travel back to the Vatican, Apostolic Palace. Driving the motorcycle up to The Pope, I do a jump that involves me turning upside-down OVER the Pope, during which I look down, shove the LSD down the Pope’s throat, and then do an Akira-slide right in front of him.
In fluent Latin, I explain to the Pope that I am a messenger from God who has been sent to deliver a Mighty Revelation. For the next several hours I use all the other options I brought back to astound and amuse The Pope during the LSD trip. During this phase of the experience, the Moog will be playing selections from Pink Floyd, focusing on music from Dark Side and before. The key message of The Revelation is that I am an agent of God to be protected and revered.
After the Pope comes down, I scope out the Vatican’s Cardinals. (The Moog will be playing Guile’s Theme during this phase.) The spices are covertly swapped for hashish and opiates, which I use along with the Warheads candy to bring mini-Revelations to those Cardinals who seem friendly. Those Cardinals who seem hostile to me, are fed bits of the Uranium. I am declared a Cardinal. When the time is right, The Pope is also fed bits of Uranium.
After the Pope dies, a conclave is convened in the Sistine Chapel to select the next Pope. The Moog will be playing Objection from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001) during this phase. As a Cardinal, I attend, and will use the motorcycle to pop wheelies and do donuts until I am elected.
When I first appear on the Papal balcony, to be revered for the rest of my life as an infallible being whose words must be obeyed without hesitation, the Moog will be playing the instrumental version of We are Number One from Lazy Town, and I will be doing an appropriate dance.
I had the same idea for the items.
Pick gun and the bullets.
But instead my plan was to shoot myself.My plan was to take the dab pens and the moog, assuming it could be used as a backup battery to the pens. And then just plan to hang myself when confronted with the inevitability of sobriety.
Hey y’all no need for that! Meet up with me in the year 1214, and Pope Rolando will set you up as Archbishops somewhere. We can even go on convenience store runs in my time machine!
Everyone taking this challenge is invited. All your sins will be forgiven!
That moog isn’t a fucking iTunes playlist, it’s a musical instrument that needs a real person to play it so your entire plan is completely shot.
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The moog is “magic - works without amp or outlet” so it is magic. (Given.)
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Therefore the moog is AI, since magic and AI are indistinguishable. (Lemma: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” -Clarke. The exact workings of contemporary “AI” neural networks are insufficiently understood, therefore indistinguishable from magic.)
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Because the moog is AI, I can talk to it like ChatGPT, I just have the wrong keyboard.
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Use the keyboard like this: first key is “A”, second key is “B”, etc. Type out some sentences until the AI figures out the pattern. I have plenty of time to do so, since I have a time machine.
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Use the keyboard to chat with the moog to tell it what I want it to play.
Problem?
yes there’s a problem, its only magic is that is works without an amp or outlet. none of the other things you’ve listed are implied or remotely plausible.
I was using a specialized form of argumentation which I thought befitting this community. Here are the details: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/troll-science-troll-physics
Was this the right decision? Perchance.
Absolute madman 👏
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This is the best comment I have seen on Lemmy. You are a genius.
I would read this comic book.
What about the other items? Bottle rockets off the papalcony for sure. Dab pen for office duties after I think.
The laser pen would also be a mind blower during the high times.
What a fucking ride. I had all the tracks on background play in pipepipe. Incredible.
Just hope your time machine doesn’t deposit you off during the Western Catholic Schism or else you’ll have to repeat this multiple times with multiple popes.
Or maybe this is how the Western Schism is avoided in the first place. The Lord works in mysterious ways…
I’ll take the DeLorean and the castle
A shame it’s only to the medieval times. Had it been to 2000 years ago I’d choose the gun and the bullets. To kill Saul of Tarsus. This would prevent Christianity to exist (and Islam by extension).
Better maul Saul
I think the choice here is the gun or the bullets, not together. So you’d have to run him over with a bike or light a bunch of rockets in his bum.
Sorry - I see you can pick two items. So you’d have to light a bunch of rockets in his bum and then run him over with a bike.
Well, it would have still existed, just been pretty distant from what it is today.
More “everything is permissible” (1 Cor 10:23) and less “God will destroy both stomach and food” (1 Cor 6:13).
Trying to live in the “raised by wolves” timeline?
What astonishes me most is that at least half of you are probably highly paid engineers that are debating this on company time instead of using your brainpower for actual problems.
I like it!
Also I choose spices for instant riches and laser for burning out the eyes of my enemy to solidify my identity as a magician. After that we can finally focus on growing weed and mushrooms because y’all know 5 tanks ain’t gonn last long.
Being unproductive is a form of radical resistance that transcends simply materially impacting your employer and their unrealistic expectations on your labor and extends into destabilizing the fundamental narratives burned into your brain by society about what makes you a valuable human and what the basic pursuit of happiness really entails.
I couldn’t agree more. However I do think the revolution would be more accessible with some punctuation now and then.
Tell that to Thomas Pynchon
Kinda surprised there aren’t a lot of people choosing the castle. Could probably donate that to the royal family for enough cash to get reasonably started and probably get awarded some kind of title or at least a court position with a generous salary.
The Delorean is on the sheet, so it’s available, and I’m taking it.
I’ll take the castle too, since being landed gentry is one of the best ways to survive back then.
10 jars of spices and the motorcycle. Selected properly and in big enough jars, I could become a very rich man selling those spices.
The bike I’d have an artisan painstakingly disassemble while documenting it for recreation.
It’s bound to have a battery, lights, alternator, and some semiconductors. Use them to bootstrap electronics.
The engine could be retrofitted to run off alcohol, or use it with steam. Don’t know how possible that is.
The springs would make for killer crossbows. Tire rubber, too.
Really, the motorbike is a mountain of treasure.
Gasoline to alcohol is not hard to do. Just the air/alcohol ratio.
You could sell the spices for a lot of money.
Everything else would get you burned as a witch.
This would be my plan. I’d take the casio watch because fuck yeah. Otherwise I’m taking a spice rack full of Saffron and becoming a lord.
I’d probably take the motorcycle at least and see if I can convert it to run on wood gas.
Or alcohol. tw200 would be good on medieval paths.
Oh that’s pretty clever actually…
Obviously two of the literally magical free energy synthesizers.
Imagine the synthphonies that could be composed!
I’d hit em with Veridis Quo
I would go with 5 watt laser pointer. I would roleplay as a wizard.
There is a book called Off To Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer that is basically this and it’s hysterical.
How would you play wizard with a laser pointer (with no way to recharge when the battery ran out)?
Like miracles I would do it in a few times only during my lifetime. The rest would be just me roleplaying/bullshitting my way to becoming a noble. Maybe along the way create a crude battery.
If you’re lucky to have a laser with charging circuit and port for power you just need to build a generator. Still difficult from scratch but feasible
As long as you have copper/lead/zinc and sulfur, you can make batteries to charge your stuff. The baghdad battery is several thousand years old.
It seems like they need another dose of awe. I haven’t needed to do this in a few years.
Button clicks softly. Button clicks softly. Button clicks softly several times…
Ummm, what’s going on here? It should have plebtky of juice left. I haven’t used it in ages!
Metal grinding on metal.
Shit… The battery is corroded!
Voices from outside
Burn him! Burn the witch!
BRO THAT WATCH IS IMMORTAL I BOUGHT IT BACK IN 2014 AND I STILL USE IT LMAO
While I definitely recognize the enthusiasm for the model… I would count it as not particularly useful in a medieval context unless you are a ship captain drawing maps. You need multiple people with synchronized time to make them useful for military ir social application.
Now I’m wondering how did we ever manage to kill each other before timezones?
More or less the same. Sharp or heavy objects were popular. But saying “the attack commences at three o’clock” wasn’t a thing. The idea of a second is about 1000 years old and we couldn’t measure them at all accurately until about 500 years ago.
The very loud noise was the standard of military co-ordination for most of human history.
Fuck all that shit I am bringing Dishwashers and Bicycles and starting a global feminist uprising.
(the bicycles are both for transportation and for powering the dishwashers)
I’d probably do a combo clothes washing machine & dryer over the dish washer since that chore takes way longer to do manually.
Yup, right up to the victorian period wash day was just that… A dawn to past dusk slog where you spent a lot if time up to your elbows in water and sometimes caustics.
Medieval dishes were a much easier chore. Rince with water and place in sun to UV sterilize when able.
good point
That’s pretty brilliant.
You absolute fools, shameless buffoons, the Watch and the 5 watt laser pointer are the only perfect combination.
With this combination could have created the greatest army to rule the seas, commercial ships, spices and war, bring anyone do their knees with a single flash of this ray.
Put fear in to the souls of millions with this futuristic weapon and burn ships at a distance.
Illuminate the night sky as only gods can do. Become the alpha and omega, master of time and light, seas and commerce. Render the Dutch and Britain absolutely to shreds and raise a civilization based on Aegean culture from the Mediterranean with laws and different approach to puritanism and culture to power earlier, with science and mathematics for everyone.
Fuck, well live a different present, here’s why:
Wristwatch :
Solar Navigation: By knowing the exact time during the day, navigators could use the position of the sun in conjunction with an astrolabe (a device already in use during the Middle Ages for astronomical measurements) to determine their latitude. The watch would help in timing the sun’s zenith (its highest point in the sky), which occurs at local noon, allowing for a more accurate reading.
Star-based Navigation: At night, timekeeping would be essential for using the stars to navigate. The position of certain stars and constellations relative to the horizon changes predictably throughout the night. Knowing the exact time would allow navigators to calculate their latitude based on the altitude of known stars above the horizon.
Dead Reckoning: This is a method to estimate one’s current position based on a previously determined position, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, along with course directions. A precise timepiece would have significantly improved the accuracy of dead reckoning calculations by allowing sailors to keep track of time more accurately during their journey.
Longitude Problem: Although determining longitude (east-west position) remained a significant challenge until the development of the marine chronometer in the 18th century, a precise timekeeping device in the Middle Ages could have theoretically been the first step towards solving this problem. If navigators had a way to keep track of time accurately during their voyages, they could compare the local noon (when the sun is highest in the sky) to the time at a known location (like Greenwich, England). The difference in time would allow them to calculate how far east or west they had traveled.
Tide Predictions: Accurate timekeeping would aid in predicting tides, which was crucial for coastal navigation. Knowing the time of high and low tides could prevent ships from running aground and help in planning more efficient voyages.
The laser pointer:
Burn Materials: It can easily burn through various materials like paper, plastic, and wood with direct and sustained contact. It can also etch patterns or marks on surfaces
Visibility: The beam of a 5-watt laser can be extremely bright and visible, even over long distances.
This whole post assumes you can derive some pretty advanced trigonometry from scratch.
TL;DR: To navigate using an astrolabe and a watch, measure the sun’s altitude at local noon with the astrolabe. Adjust for the sun’s declination from an almanac. Your latitude is roughly the corrected sun altitude. For longitude, compare local noon to the reference time on your watch; every hour difference equals 15 degrees of longitude. This method involves basic trigonometry for calculating angles and positions but is quite approximate and not highly accurate for longitude.
This allows to navigate beyond the horizon from the coast so you can travel overseas and beyond where other people has been on a ship without following the coast.
I mean they did have decently good mathematicians abord the ships who were already great mappers. An accurate time peice would help with accuracy… But nautical maps were nautical maps. More accurate ones are great but they did already have serviceable ones.
What’s wild about the cultural concept of your average maps of the period in a more general sense is they were often more conceptually philosophic and religious tools meant to illustrate a “you are here” for the soul. Geographic accuracy was at best a secondary consideration.
But it is me going back right? So as long as I revise before the trip, it should be fine.
Tab of acid. Having a local nobleman burned as a witch might be useful
That’s probably the least valuable one since there are natural hallucinogens all over the place that were already in use.
Yes but LSD can be absorbed through the skin, so you wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble of convincing someone to eat poison
These are all terrible options.
I think that’s the point.
The spices are pretty good - great, portable money source that won’t get you killed for being a witch. Everything else sucks.
Well ACTSHUALLY, depending on your definition of the middle ages, you wouldn’t be very likely to be killed for being a witch, since the witch hunt came into being after the Reneissance.
That said, I would also take the spices. The amount of spices in that picture would probably set me up for life. Buy a nice place somewhere in Northern Italy and live out my days learning to play the moog, amusing my medieval friends.
Motorcycle isn’t abad choice. You get an alternator and a battery out if the deal. You can rig up a simple water turbine to charge it easily enough. You also get a bunch of steel, rubber/plastics, some wire, tubes, and a couple of pretty good lightbulbs (possibly even an LED one depending on the headlight/taillight). Taking the magic Moog as the 2nd option seems like the best idea considering it’s magic.
Sure, but they’re terrible options because of how dumb people used to be. Like, you’d probably have to keep it secret or get called a witch or something.
Something I think would be more useful would be seeds for crops, specifically resistant to plant diseases that would have been devastating back then. Like, take some potatoes that are resistant to whatever caused the Irish famine. That wouldn’t be as likely to get you burned at the stake for being in service to the devil
You might have some issues with potatoes in the medieval period. The Irish potato famine happened because potatoes radically changed the amount of calories you could grow on a set peice of land. The population spiked and crashed because of land efficiency dependancy over the course of years but that all happened well past the medieval period that was more the Industrial Revolution.
The potato was not really a thing in the medieval period. They started showing up in the Renaissance as a curiosity from the new world and took a long time to actually take off since they were very unpopular as a food… Like strangely unpopular. They actually started gaining popularity first as a decorative plant.
Mind you they are dead easy to grow so if your intention is to farm them for personal use for food security they are a solid pick. Still since they are something nobody around you would have seen before you would probably need to construct an adequate lie about how you got them.
The potato famine happened because Britain stole all of Ireland’s potato’s. There were ships full of potatoes leaving Ireland regularly. There was no actual issue with growing food, except that potatoes were too cheap for the capitalists to profit off ofby selling them back to the Irish.
Well… No. It’s more complicated than that. The Irish potato famine happened because the lack of genetic diversity in the crop and a wet humid year caused a massive viral collapse ( scientific name for the blight :Phytophthora infestans) which caused the crop to turn to sludge in the ground. The effect wasn’t limited to Ireland, big chunks of England, Wales and Scotland also had the crop collapse… The fact it was so deadly though and why we call it the “Irish Potato famine” and not the British / Irish /Welsh and Scottish Potato Famine ", that was mostly capitalist bullshitery. There was a lesser known " Highland Potato Famine " but Scotland got away mostly unscathed by comparison by basically holding landlords highly to account for famine relief early and received greater charitable relief due to better solidarity between Scotland and England.
The flashpoint was all caused by the fact potatoes grow in much poorer soil than other crops the population which had seen an overall increase due to the caloric production increase. Basically the population rose because of production of the crop and then saw massive hardship because the crop when it failed could not be easily replaced by sowing other alternative crops. The viral collapse of the potato crop lasted practically a decade. If it was simply the matter of one bad year the supply and storage of other food stuffs would have softened the impact and they would have recovered over the next couple of years while they sowed other crops like they were used to doing when other crops failed… but the land literally couldn’t support other crops because the soil was way too poor. It was potatoes or bust and the potatoes were damn near impossible to propagate unless you were lucky and your tiny potato patch was properly isolated… Which most people’s weren’t.
Other crops like cereal grains (including some of the less popular ones like millet and corn) were bought up in bulk and imported by the British back to England but they basically diverted everything they could from Ireland early and once they had secured a sustained cereal grain supply to England from the colonies they never distributed anything back to Ireland despite the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The British were bastards who actively and “passively” contributed to the famine deaths via tremendous greed… But the potato crop failure was real and there were more than a few extra steps in the plot that was more about grain import/exports to make up for the shortfall than moving potatoes around… Because the potatoes were basically just rotted slime.
I choose the bottle rockets twice.
That’s the most reasonable choice imo, you could probably earn a fair bit of money with those.
I’ll exchange all that for:
- Good knife and a sharpening stone
- Flint for making fire
- Compass
- Axe
- Several years of training in self defense and living off the land. (Or else they should send a Navy seal)
Edit: Ah it’s a shit post, I always get those wrong 😁
