Nothing to do with the Roland Emmerich film, rather another wacky time travel hypothetical. I want to see how many people are optimistic about the future, how many are more secure with what they know.
Here’s the set-up. A familiar looking individual appears at your door with a strange machine. They tell you that in in one week, the space-time continuum will tear itself apart and end the universe due to a cock-up in the flux capacitor of his machine. It can be fixed by you travelling in time, although looking at the machine you see a lever with only two settings - 10,000 B.C. and 10,000 A.D. You will stay for one year, then return to the present date.
You can take a 5ft by 5ft by 5ft storage container with you, with whatever you can get your hands on within the week. Don’t worry about killing your great, great, great etc grandfather or squashing butterflies if you pick 10,000 B.C., the machine has a timeline maintenance device inbuilt. You can select where in geographic terms you wish to go - if the area is underwater in the time period you will be placed as close as possible.
As you’re about to ask the stranger what the world is like in 10,000 A.D., they disappear with a flash of blue light, leaving a copy of tomorrows newspaper. So, which do you pick?
AD, please. I more-or-less know what the world would be like in BC, whereas AD would be new.
Although I don’t see food and water for a year fitting in a 5x5x5 box, we’ll have to see what we can cram in there - I’m not sure what to expect from the future…
That’s if the Earth isn’t a radiative wasteland prowled by cyber-zombies by then…see the wonderful Exit Mundi for all the calamities that may befall Mother Gaia in the future.
Plus, you should be able to fit all necessary meds in the 5x5x5 box.
Gotta be A.D. I like camping, but I don’t think I’d be happy for a year without a shower. I figure my odds of hot showers are way better in 10,000 A.D.
Not to be snarky, but the above statement sounds pretty arrogant. As far as human cultures go, we have only isolated fragments to even study from 10 000 BC, and most of the evidence is highly debatable and controversial in terms of what it actually tells us of the time period. The Final Paleolithic and Early Mesolithic are under intense study the world over - many things once thought to be so-and-so have been re-interpreted in recent years and loads of basic stuff is still pretty much unknown, such as what people wore, what kind of dwellings they lived in, what they really ate (animal vs. plant food), how various societies were organized (hunter-gatherer bands don’t fit much of the evidence), what type of religion they practised, what kind of contacts they had etc. I know you know this, MrDibble, but some others may not.
I’d take the one year in 10 000 BC option. I’m familiar with and interested in the features of the time period (see above), and learning the rest would be awesome beyond belief (and would help my academic strivings nicely ). Keeping myself alive for a year would be hard work but certainly doable. Had I a big box full of useful post-industrial camping and hunting gear with me, I might find myself in more trouble than it’s worth, so I’d probably stick mostly to nondescript vitaminized dry foods wrapped in buckskin for insurance against lean times.
Off to the past. 125 cubic feet is enough that I can pack all I’ll need to survive - mostly tools. Pick an isolated spot that has fresh water and small game, then work on my satori. I can whip up shelter quickly enough, and fire is no sweat. Trap and fish for food and get grizzly.
Just knowing that in 8000 years from now there’s something around for me to fix gives me confidence that it will be a livable world. Plus, I can check out the winning lottery numbers for the next few years.
10,000 AD. I have no doubt that humanity will survive, though there might be some rough times along the way.
For instance, take global warming. But what’s the worst case? That we cook the world enough so that we have a great die-back, to the point where there are way fewer human beings, and we put a lot less carbon into the atmosphere for several centuries. Problem solved - in the long run.
On the whole, I’d expect the future to keep getting better than the past. It’s generally done so. So I’ll take my chances, go to 10,000 A.D., and make a living by telling people what things were like in the year 2000, and selling the assorted artifacts I’d packed into my 5x5x5 container.
Hey, OP - speaking of that 5x5x5 container, can I bring stuff back in it as well? Because tech from 10,000 AD is likely to be far cooler than the latest iPad.
And yet, we still know a million times more about that world than the world of 10 000 AD.
I selected to go forward. Partly for that reason–the excitement of seeing the completely new & unknown–and partly because I estimate my odds of surviving until 9999 BC as extremely low.
I’d go AD, or CE, since Christianity would be relegated to mythic status by then.
If our society has continued, I’d assume surviving would be no problem. However, in 10,000 CE, we may not even still be biological. Or perhaps some sort of hybrid. If society has operated continuously for all that time, they surely could figure out what I am and how to communicate with me.
On the other hand, if things are bad, say a totalitarian state that hates outsiders, I couldn’t hide. Their technology would find me easy enough.
In 10,000 BCE I’d probably choose someplace where humanity hasn’t spread yet with no large predators. Say, the island of Oahu. Mild winters, few poisonous things. I’d bring small plants for papayas and modern bananas.
You can buy a year’s supply of food in 9 six gallon buckets from survival nut stores. So, I’d probably bring that.
But I can’t give up the chance at seeing the world of tomorrow. I’d still bring the food and guns and whatnot, since civilization might have been destroyed.
My biggest fear would be that 10000AD would be a bombed out wasteland of toxic cinder. If it isn’t, either would be cool. In 8000 years, I would expect any humans to be cyborgs though. That’s a bummer. Though maybe they can outfit me with wizbang superhero nanotech before I return to 2011.
Seriously, you could come back super rich from what you learn in AD. Plus, there’s decent chance you could learn how the time machine works in that era, and have one built when you get back home, then hop in for a vay-cay in BC next year.
Definite possibility of death either way, but more upside in AD than BC.
). Keeping myself alive for a year would be hard work but certainly doable. Had I a big box full of useful post-industrial camping and hunting gear with me, I might find myself in more trouble than it’s worth, so I’d probably stick mostly to nondescript vitaminized dry foods wrapped in buckskin for insurance against lean times.