To make the biggest possible impact we would need to send back a method that would allow everyone, not just the noble and/or priveleged, to read. That would open the lines of communication to all classes. When I think about what turned inventing up a couple notches in the past century, I believe it was the fact that more peple were aware of what was happening and being developed in all corners of the world.
That being said, I am not sure if we should send back a child’s primer for reading (and in what language?) or do we send solar powered tape recorders?
Send back a good world atlas to Prince Henry of Portugal (1394-1460). The scholars of the era weren’t stupid; they realized the Earth was a sphere and it was possible to sail to many locations via the ocean. The problem was no one knew the exact way. Henry, a younger son of the King of Portugal, financed a number of voyages of exploration. He would certainly have taken advantage of any maps which showed the outline of the continents, the locations of islands and rivers, details about the mineral welath of various lands, and distances to travel.
Bah! You guys are all trying to help the colonialists! Why help them spread their woe faster? Besides, once the world gets explored (which it eventually will) there isn’t much more use for navigation tools. It wouldn’t really change things that much.
My first thought was to find some way for Africa, Native Americans and other colonized people to fight back more effectivly, thus preventing the current state of affairs in Africa, American slavery, Native American genocide and the host of evils that come along with our “age of discovery”. I hoped to find something that would elliminate the third world.
But then I though, nah. Anything I come up with (guns, etc) would just exchange one tyranny for another. Instead, I came up with a better idea…
How about a camera and a darkroom setup (with instructions). Imagine how cool it would be to have photos of people from five hundred years ago! We would have a visual record of all sorts of thing- from the untainted American wilderness, the French Revolution, the old tea-houses of Japan. It’d be awesome! See Shakespeare!
Bolding is mine to outline the statement I am commenting on. If my bolding somehow misinterprets your intents, I apologize.
Not to start an argument or hijack this otherwise illustrious thread, but most of the african slaves were sold by their own willing people, not captured by white slavers.
I forgot to add my own comments. I like the idea of an Encyclopedia Britannica translated into Latin and given to the people, but who could read it? The people in power. Who have the most vested in keeping the population ignorant? The people in power. It wouldn’t work.
I think, however, large, detailed diagrams on how to build a printing press, along with simple descriptions of canning methods and railroad theory in plain middle english, nailed to the door of every church and cathedral in all of Europe, would advance civilization quite rapidly. I wish I had some ideas on Africa and Asia, but I’m afraid I don’t know much about them. Perhaps something along the lines of agriculture and irrigation for the african peoples, and electricity generation for the asian people. I think the asian intelligentsia would have been advanced enough even then to understand and develop electricity, and the african people could probably benefit much from learning modern agriculture and irrigation techniques. For the Amerinds, maybe introduce weakened smallpox strains, along with other common European diseases, to strengthen the people against the unintentional germ warfare of the early settlers?
Remember, though: An object is but one, and can be broken. Knowledge is self-replicating and cannot be destroyed.
Well by then I think it would be already too late to stop Europe’s dominance. Spaniards have already been back and forth between the Americans several times. Portugal had either already reached Japan or was just about to, but they have landed in Brazil. And since you can send back only 1 piece the people who receive it will have to know enough to reverse engineer it to learn the technology hidden inside. The only culture on earth that has a ghost of a chance of doing that with out being swallowed would be the Muslims. China could, but I doubt they would. They’ve already gone ahead and destroyed their fleet of sailing ships which dwarfed anything produced anywhere and turned inward. So basically anything you put into the hands of anybody but the Europeans or Muslims would end up pretty quickly back in the hands of the Europeans.
Incidenitally the OP asks for no morals in this issue, just the greatest amount of change. So in that light…
To Europe: I like the idea of a map, but we’ve got vague enough maps out there already. Europe has tons of fool sailors willing to test the waters for treasure. I think I would send back a book “One and Several Variables” and I’d send it to Da Vinci. I think it would blow him away, very easily lurch western history at least a century forward. Who knows with these equaions he might decide to go out and build his helicopter and flying machines.
Now that I think of it I can’t think of any reason why the Muslims be able to use it almost as effectively as the Europeans.
If I did want to help the Indians of the Americas I would send a group of horses to the Incas. They’re not really technology but I think it would dramatically increase their power and abilities.
If they were aware that the item was from the future, I’d probably leave behind the New York Times with the headline “God is Dead.” It might even stop a war or two.
In case anyone’s interested, this topic was sort of the central theme of a little-known book by Orson Scott Card (of the Ender’s Game series fame) called Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus. I highly recommend it. This book really baked my noodle.
The people of five centuries ago would need to appreciate an item’s usefulness for it to change history.
A sack of high yield seed grain would change things. Crop yields have profound effects on society.
A clipper ship could alter events if they learned how to sail it.
I’d probably give the industrial revolution a boost with a water powered spinning or knitting machine.
Somehow I doubt that better guns would create the most profound change. Europe in 1501 was already a highly militaristic society. Whatever country found the technology first would have an advantage for a few years, but others would soon capture the technology and things would continue as before but with higher casualty rates.
I agree. The assasination might have been the catalyst or powder keg that started the war, but it certainly wasn’t the cause. The war was pretty inevitable based on the alliance structures of the European nations. Some international incident would have eventually caused the war.
What about one of those children sets full of experimental things related to electricity? A battery, a couple of wires, a lovely hand-powered generator and so on. Once our ancestors understand the concept that electricity can flow through the wires (they don’t need to know anything about electrons!), they would get the idea of telegraphy, and they would start to think about what cool things you can do with electricity.
Since the item would have to be understood by its recipient and able to be either constructed back then or suggesting things that could be, I’d send da Vinci the Wright Brothers’ plane along with an explanation of how it worked. Aeronautics might still have to wait for the Industrial Revolution to build useful airplanes, but that would still mean at least 80 extra years of advancement and greatly improve long-distance travel and space exploration. In the meantime, I’m sure Leonardo or another Renaissance genius could find practical uses for primitive flying machines.
