# Take a modern invention back in time **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 16, 2021, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446 "2021-11-16T10:16:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/121 "2021-11-30T21:48:02Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > So you could definitely bring the concept back quite a long way but what you need to make it work is a society where the land-owning elite have sufficient clout to annexe common land. Or potentially a prehistoric socialist agrarian community. Or, if you’ve got four farmers with adjacent fields (and the proper crops for rotating), get them to give it a go. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/122 "2021-11-30T23:46:08Z")
Probably the most effective thing we could do would be to take a copy of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ back a few hundred years, because the rapid rise of technology and the human condition could not have happened without it. and one of the reasons the industrial revolution didn’t happen earlier was because political systems did not allow people enough proprty ownership to profit from innovation except when they usednit for themselves. Absent property rights, it was an advantage to keep processes and techniques secret. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/123 "2021-12-01T00:02:56Z")
Side question: If I could take my 2011 Outback back in time to, say, 1971 how much do you think a car company would pay me for it to get the 40 year ahead technology (Assuming that they didn’t kill me for it or steal it some other way)? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/124 "2021-12-01T01:25:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Probably the most effective thing we could do would be to take a copy of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ back a few hundred years, because the rapid rise of technology and the human condition could not have happened without it. and one of the reasons the industrial revolution didn’t happen earlier was because political systems did not allow people enough proprty ownership to profit from innovation except when they usednit for themselves. Absent property rights, it was an advantage to keep processes and techniques secret. That’s a wild overestimation of the effect of Adam Smith’s book. If it had never been written, not much would be different. The Industrial Revolution was already long since underway when _The Wealth of Nations_ was published. Systems of patents for inventions and intellectual property had been evolving in Europe since medieval times. The first proper legal patent system was created in Venice in 1474. > **[Venetian Patent Statute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Patent_Statute)** > > The Venetian Patent Statute of March 19, 1474, established in the Republic of Venice the first statutory patent system in Europe, and may be deemed to be the earliest codified patent system in the world. The Statute is written in old Venetian. It provided that patents might be granted for "any new and ingenious device, not previously made", provided it was useful. By and large, these principles still remain the basic principles of patent law. > The dominant view among historians and legal scholars... In England, the first patent law was the Statute of Monopolies of 1624. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/125 "2021-12-01T01:35:08Z")
Yeah, I should have been clear thatnI meant those things couldn’t happen without property rights, not that _The Wealth of Nationss_ itself was solely responsible. You can go back further than the patents you mentioned, The Hanseatic League in the 1200’s was an example of city-states convincing the Monarch to allow them to keep a lot of the proceeds of trade and therefore enable investment in things like trade route protection. But Adam Smith certainly explained and codified the principles of Capitalism and why it was so necessary for human flourishing, and helped accelerate the process. But clearly things had already started moving in that direction, or his use of a ‘pin factory’ as an example would have been meaningless. I should also include ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’, which was equally or even more important. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/126 "2021-12-01T13:48:29Z")
I think you’d do better bring back an illustrated copy of Diderot’s Encyclopedia. Or maybe one of the many modern “How Things Work” books. Especially if it’s got a lot of very clear illustrations. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2021, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/127 "2021-12-02T15:45:24Z")
It’s not an invention, but introducing horses to Native Americans early might be helpful to them. Or not, I’m not sure. Or perhaps showing the Inca that Cortez was just a guy in armor? I suppose these are changing history, not giving a physical advancement. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2021, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/128 "2021-12-02T20:22:51Z")
But does anyone remember this thread? [Anyone with hands-on practical experience with fire bows?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-with-hands-on-practical-experience-with-fire-bows/813330). It’s actually quite funny and seems to suggest that starting a fire this way is much more difficult than it seems. I don’t personally know one way or the other but this I do know - in a post apocalyptic, all technology is gone, world, I would probably be one of the first to die of starvation or something of that ilk 😀 ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2021, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/129 "2021-12-02T20:33:54Z")
A LOT of starting a fire with a bow depends on what kind of wood you have available. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/130 "2021-12-02T21:25:09Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Again, its going to fail. Since the “knowledge” is predicated on several things which they don’t have yet. And the “things available” will not be able to be useful. A simple example, gunpowder. Back in my college chemistry days, I could probably have made some. But sending me back to say 5000 BC, before the metal age…forget it, I am not making much of anything, let alone a gun. For that matter, _good, reliable_ gunpowder isn’t as simple as one might think. The saltpeter is probably the trickiest step. Master the multistep process by which it is created and purified, or else you get crappy gunpowder that fizzles like a squib. For that matter the sulfur and charcoal need to be first-rate too. And to really get decent gunpowder you need a semi-industrial setup such as a [ball mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder#Production) and to [corn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder#Corning) the powder. Not that any of the above isn’t doable if you really know how, but it speaks to something I’ve learned in my handicraft/ survival skills efforts: if you’ve never actually done something before, you only think you know how. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/131 "2021-12-04T17:03:27Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > if you’ve never actually done something before, you only think you know how. Dunning-Kruger strikes again. At the Cons here we’ve had an anthropologist who’s an expert flint knapper. She sold kits which included a large piece of buffalo hide, an [Ishi stick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi)\*, a chunk of heat-treated chert, and an instruction DVD. What she did not include was the high level of skill she’d earned over the years. \*“Among Ishi’s techniques was the use of what is known as an Ishi stick, used to run long pressure flakes.[[58]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi#cite_note-Hunter-58) This is known to be a traditional technique of the Nomlaki and Wintu tribes.” [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/83BYHiydbew/hqdefault.jpg "Ishi Stick Pressure flaking 1") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83BYHiydbew) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/132 "2021-12-05T16:12:13Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Probably the most effective thing we could do would be to take a copy of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ back a few hundred years, Would anyone care? Economic systems don’t change because some Scottish guy wrote a book, they change because it’s in someone’s interests for them to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/133 "2021-12-05T16:23:39Z")
Sure, but when a German writes a book, it’s all “revolution of the proletariat” this and “nothing to lose but your chains” that and before you know it there goes the Winter Palace. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/134 "2021-12-05T16:56:45Z")
Wasn’t there an Omni magazine story in which a time traveler presented a pocket calculator to Isaac Newton, who promptly freaked out? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/135 "2021-12-05T17:18:26Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Sure, but when a German writes a book, it’s all “revolution of the proletariat” this and “nothing to lose but your chains” that and before you know it there goes the Winter Palace. If someone were to take Marx’s book back in time a century or two it would have little or no effect. The culture and the circumstances had to be suitable for its reception. The Russian Revolution happened because WWI had bled Russia dry, social systems and infrastructure that were far less developed than elsewhere in Europe were collapsing, and the failures of the Tsarist government were overwhelmingly clear. With or without Marx, the Tsar would have been overthrown and a different government established. A Communist revolution didn’t happen in Germany, or France or Britain, or elsewhere in Europe, because the circumstances weren’t right for it. Certainly Marx’s book had an effect, but it only had a meaningful effect where the time, culture, and circumstances were suitable. Technology is difficult to take back in time, as has been discussed in this thread. Social theories would be far more difficult to establish in a different place and time. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/136 "2021-12-05T19:35:35Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Wasn’t there an Omni magazine story in which a time traveler presented a pocket calculator to Isaac Newton, who promptly freaked out? _Newton’s Gift_, Paul J. Nahin. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/137 "2021-12-05T20:24:01Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > If someone were to take Marx’s book back in time a century or two it would have little or no effect. The culture and the circumstances had to be suitable for its reception. I know, it was a poor attempt at humour ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/138 "2021-12-05T20:51:15Z")
I thought it was funny. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/139 "2021-12-06T08:42:08Z")
Thanks, but it’s only a good communism joke if everybody gets to laugh ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446/140 "2021-12-06T17:00:00Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Side question: If I could take my 2011 Outback back in time to, say, 1971 how much do you think a car company would pay me for it to get the 40 year ahead technology (Assuming that they didn’t kill me for it or steal it some other way)? This is probably a good example for revolutionary technological advancements vs. evolutionary advancements. A car from 40 years ago doesn’t differ all that much from current cars in a revolutionary sense. It’s still got four wheels, an internal combustion engine, steering and all that. Some small features might be “revolutionary”, like airbags, or intermittent wipers, but most of the actual improvements are likely evolutionary. That is, they had things like electronic controls that improve performance, but most of the changes are just small improvements over time. The cumulative effects of 40 years of integrated circuit development wouldn’t be much of a surprise to them, and even with an example in hand, they likely couldn’t match that improvement any time soon. Revolutionary improvements are those, “Wow! We never thought of THAT!” kinds of things. Even if they couldn’t produce the 40-years-better versions, they’d at least be able to produce some kind of version of it. I’m not sure if there’s anything in the last few decades of automobile improvement that would really be called “revolutionary”. In thinking of what my dad’s car had back in the 80s, and what my truck has now, there are differences, but nothing with a real “Wow!” factor. Like, yes, intermittent wipers are nice, but not impressive. Automatic headlight controls. Is hooking up your light control to a photosensor so the lights come on automatically when it gets dark a “revolution”? Or is more of a “Yeah, we thought about that years ago, but such sensors aren’t currently up to the job” thing? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-a-modern-invention-back-in-time/954446.md?page=8)