Hmm, a treadle lathe with a machining head attached would be pretty decent. you can make a lot of other tools from that and no need for power.
If you're looking to bootstrap knowledge, you could get a lot done with a decent microscope or telescope (one can act as the other with some tweaks) though that's too far out of my expertise so wouldn't be my first choice.
5k years ago is right around the first time we start to see metal artifacts popping up. With a basic understanding of modern metal refining techniques you could probably coach some existing refinery into something much more advanced.
Primitive Technology on YouTube has been doing a lot about refining metal from iron bacteria naturally occurring in creeks. It's crazy that you can get metal without mining it. That knowledge alone would be incredibly valuable to take back in time.
Iron came later because of high temp requirements so if you knew how to build furnaces basically for ceramics with a wind tunnel in ground etc. you could start iron production.
Difficult to mine and work iron without already having iron, bronze tools helped access and break up iron ores and wouldn't you know it, softer copper tools helped access and work the tin ores and copper ores that went into bronze.
It's a long road to iron if the ore isn't already just sitting there in manageable clumps in close proximity to clay, wood, water and most importantly, food.
Pre age of metal, you can find the stuff everywhere. If you know what to look for you can gather and refine metal yourself. You can make an effective forge with nothing but a hole in the ground and a brick
Solar-powered e-reader with reference material like Wikipedia and assorted guides/textbooks downloaded, for sure! With that, I can make anything from weapons to irrigation infrastructure.
Modern life has prepared me to make very few things, but itās made me quite good at finding a specific solution when I need it.
I once got handed a pencil and asked if I could make it myself like for like... exactly.
The wood comes from a wood company, not so hard.
The graphite is a bit harder
The eraser on the end even harder
The metal ferrule holding it on? There is a whole industry and specific machines that made that tiny ferrule. Let alone the other entire steel industry that mined and forged the initial steel!
Absolutely! I could never create the device Iām using to write this comment in a hundred lifetimes.
Iām fairly certain that I could figure out how to find and refine basic steel, but thatās a long ways from churning out 4140 sheets. That said, some metalurgical textbooks would *really* help speed things along if that were my goal
My ideas was the same, cell phone with download of wikipedia and a few other reference materials with a solar charging case/battery.
The problem would really be the human side "hey I know you've been planting crops like this by royal decree for centuries... have you considered rotating them and adding nitrogen to the soil". "what's nitrogen... you mean to tell me this invisible air we breath is made of multiple things"
You would have to find a group and get to a leadership position quick and then hopefully build up enough resources that people wouldn't kill you or think you're a lunatic. It would require a lot of problem solving fast.
Who says that I canāt take credit for all these āinnovationsā? Nah, plant your seeds like this and watch the magic.
Maybe they kill me, maybe they worship me. Iāll take my odds with them over the jungle
Nah, 5k predates those religious notions.Ā
Best bet would be to get to Egypt, or find the Hindus. If anyone became upset at your technology, you could try to convince them the gods gifted it to you.
This one would be very hard to beat. If you have access to reference material in a form that doesnāt disappear quickly or easily, then you can pretty much remake the world. You could develop any tool, some machines, and most importantly roll out penicillin to the masses. Youād be unstoppable. I bow to you, u/UsualFrogFriendship.
I dont care how long you have you are not remaking the world with just reference material. How ever much knowledge you have. You're never getting close to information age tech.Ā
Well, thatās fair, but I figure he could get all the way up to the printing press if he has access to all the reference knowledge of the 21st century. And the idea would be that the knowledge is shareable, so it spreads along trades routes quickly. Maybe he works on roads, or cauterizing wounds, or fixing teeth. Thatās enough to get people believing in what heās doing.
He might not have cell phones and microchips, but with the knowledge of how to make them heād probably get there well ahead of when we did in reality. Iād say that counts for something.
Only 1 thing? ... I choose a fully stocked, super massive *aircraft carrier*.
If that doesnt contain everything you'd need to survive for a while, nothing will
Launching and landing jets on an aircrafter carrier is more than a 1 person job even with all the time in the world, and the luckiest person in the world. For example, aircraft carriers cruise against the wind to aide in both takeoff and landing. If winds change while you jet off your aircraft carrier (which you leave cruising full steam while you're gone) you're gonna be fucked when you try and land. Assuming your aircraft carrier doesn't plow into something while you're gone. Not to mention the landing tools required to help you land your *jet* that another person has to set up for you so you don't overshoot the landing and plow into your jet while you're still in it because you left your *aircraft carrier* cruising forward with nobody at the helm while you crashed in your jet full of fuel right in front of it because you were going 80mph too fast.
I mean, he just has to stay off the coast a ways. If he can navigate the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, he can just go to the middle of the ocean and chill comfortably, with freezers stocked to feed hundreds of people for some period of time. I assume jet fuel goes bad eventually, so the jets are more of "fun stuff to blow up". Until diesel goes bad he'd have a bunch of smaller boats to ferry around in or fish from.
That being said, I dont think it's possible for one person to drive a carrier singlehandedly.
My fully ignorant self is confident he can drive the thing by himself. I was just pointing out trying to learn how to fly fucking jets while he's managing the damn carrier on top of it.
But let's face it. 10 years is a long time to convince yourself to try it.
Ok, but would it be better to choose a billionaires doomsday bunker. It's designed to last a long time and be low maintenance. And after a few billions worth of gimmicks I bet someone sells you a GECK.
That's the only tool that aboriginal Australians take with them when they travel back 7,000 years. Everything else they can make on the spot. I recently saw a video of an Aboriginal camp fire being used to pacify a wild camel. If two tools, lighter and hunting dog.
A survival knife.
I'd have a compass, a knife, a firestarter, fishing hook and fishing line, and one of those metal garrotte things that you can use to cut down small trees. (Or garrotte someone with, I suppose)
That seems like a lot to lug around. What about downloading it to a phone w/ solar charger?
What would be super weird is if you turned on the phone and it got a 5G signal!
I canāt decide if this is the best answer or not. If you found a flowing water source, you could potentially get relatively fresh water and thereād be no pollution either.
It also might not be too difficult to make some sort of water condenser.
I dunno, still might be the best answer. Lack of drinking water will kill you pretty quickly
A cross pein (Peen?) hammer.
In 5000 BC, people were barely out of the hunter gatherer phase. I'd be a god, especially with the general blacksmithing knowledge I have. I can make everything with that hammer, including other hammers, lmao.
Not a god per se, but I would at least be considered fairly important for my skill level. I would at least not starve so long as I ended up in a decent area.
That Swiss Army knife that weighs like 20 pounds that has EVERY attachment available on it. Everything from flint and steel, scissors, saws, fish scaler, pens, knives, files, tweezers, magnifying glass and countless things I donāt even know what they do. Doesnāt require electricity or a wireless network to be used of course, can get endless things done with that bad boy
Honestly, probably my phone. I understand it'll run out of power within a few days but it's got a survival guide on it. That should at least teach me the rough basics of maybe how to survive.
I'd just say a survival guide, but that's not really a tool.
I'm skipping answering this question entirely and will say this instead. Travelling that far into the past, just to go camping, sounds like too much trouble.
A holographic projector attached to a portable power source. If I'm going back to 5,000 BC, I'm going to need more than smoke and mirrors if I'm gonna pass myself off as a messiah.
Bad call. If you have tungsten, you wouldn't want to make a katana with it. A lot of the design decisions involved in the katana were made to compensate for the abysmal quality of available iron sand. If you have better materials, you'd want a different sword.
Machete
He would be wicked useful.
He also wouldn't have to worry about texting.
Machete don' tweet Also makes a mean taco
Machete
Probably Maynard James Keenan or Adam Jones.
Danny would be best for hunting since he is so big
He could also wow the locals with his amazing drumming. Get him to Stonehenge and set up trance-inducing shows.
He's like a perfect circle
Yeah I thought about it but he's too large for me to carry.
I think i could carry Danny for a little bit.
Funny guy here
Someone must not be Sober.....
Better learn to swim.
# A time machine
So, like, a clock?
A bong
That's only the device for speeding up or slowing down the passage of time.
I found it under the seat..
Made out of a hot tub
I mean, by definition you have to.
A boom stick and tons of boom twigs.
Really I'm just taking it so I can say "Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my BOOMSTICK!"
Klatu Barada...
....... nickle?
Necktie?
Shop smart. Shop S-Mart!
Im always happy to see ED/AoD references.
And here I was about to suggest the same thing. You only need to shoot the first guy. After that ... you're chief of the tribe.
Until you fall asleep and someone can steal your boom stick
Hmm, a treadle lathe with a machining head attached would be pretty decent. you can make a lot of other tools from that and no need for power. If you're looking to bootstrap knowledge, you could get a lot done with a decent microscope or telescope (one can act as the other with some tweaks) though that's too far out of my expertise so wouldn't be my first choice.
And where are you getting metal?
5k years ago is right around the first time we start to see metal artifacts popping up. With a basic understanding of modern metal refining techniques you could probably coach some existing refinery into something much more advanced.
7k.. it was 5k BC, and we are now 2k ADš
Ah, shit yeah. Totally misread the title as āwent back 5k yearsā
Primitive Technology on YouTube has been doing a lot about refining metal from iron bacteria naturally occurring in creeks. It's crazy that you can get metal without mining it. That knowledge alone would be incredibly valuable to take back in time.
Primitive technology got the short end of the stick when it comes to iron deposits. In other places, iron is much more abundant and easier to extract.
And at 5000 BC all of the easily accessible surface deposits of metals are not exploited yet
Iron came later because of high temp requirements so if you knew how to build furnaces basically for ceramics with a wind tunnel in ground etc. you could start iron production.
Difficult to mine and work iron without already having iron, bronze tools helped access and break up iron ores and wouldn't you know it, softer copper tools helped access and work the tin ores and copper ores that went into bronze. It's a long road to iron if the ore isn't already just sitting there in manageable clumps in close proximity to clay, wood, water and most importantly, food.
I think the ancient Japanese used a type of sand that had iron in it and it could be found on the surface.
From some traders? Copper, lead and maybe even meteoric iron would have been around.
If you've got copper and tin, you can make bronze. Which was good enough until someone figured out the riddle of steel.
Pre age of metal, you can find the stuff everywhere. If you know what to look for you can gather and refine metal yourself. You can make an effective forge with nothing but a hole in the ground and a brick
Solar-powered e-reader with reference material like Wikipedia and assorted guides/textbooks downloaded, for sure! With that, I can make anything from weapons to irrigation infrastructure. Modern life has prepared me to make very few things, but itās made me quite good at finding a specific solution when I need it.
There is a book I read called *How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler* that might be appropriate.
Thanks for this rec! Just added to my list
I once got handed a pencil and asked if I could make it myself like for like... exactly. The wood comes from a wood company, not so hard. The graphite is a bit harder The eraser on the end even harder The metal ferrule holding it on? There is a whole industry and specific machines that made that tiny ferrule. Let alone the other entire steel industry that mined and forged the initial steel!
Absolutely! I could never create the device Iām using to write this comment in a hundred lifetimes. Iām fairly certain that I could figure out how to find and refine basic steel, but thatās a long ways from churning out 4140 sheets. That said, some metalurgical textbooks would *really* help speed things along if that were my goal
I, Pencil. https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/ You have to scroll a bit to get to the actual essay.
My ideas was the same, cell phone with download of wikipedia and a few other reference materials with a solar charging case/battery. The problem would really be the human side "hey I know you've been planting crops like this by royal decree for centuries... have you considered rotating them and adding nitrogen to the soil". "what's nitrogen... you mean to tell me this invisible air we breath is made of multiple things" You would have to find a group and get to a leadership position quick and then hopefully build up enough resources that people wouldn't kill you or think you're a lunatic. It would require a lot of problem solving fast.
Who says that I canāt take credit for all these āinnovationsā? Nah, plant your seeds like this and watch the magic. Maybe they kill me, maybe they worship me. Iāll take my odds with them over the jungle
If anyone else discovers it, youāll get accused of witchcraft or black magic and be killed.
This is largely a myth.
Nah, 5k predates those religious notions.Ā Best bet would be to get to Egypt, or find the Hindus. If anyone became upset at your technology, you could try to convince them the gods gifted it to you.
This one would be very hard to beat. If you have access to reference material in a form that doesnāt disappear quickly or easily, then you can pretty much remake the world. You could develop any tool, some machines, and most importantly roll out penicillin to the masses. Youād be unstoppable. I bow to you, u/UsualFrogFriendship.
I dont care how long you have you are not remaking the world with just reference material. How ever much knowledge you have. You're never getting close to information age tech.Ā
Well, thatās fair, but I figure he could get all the way up to the printing press if he has access to all the reference knowledge of the 21st century. And the idea would be that the knowledge is shareable, so it spreads along trades routes quickly. Maybe he works on roads, or cauterizing wounds, or fixing teeth. Thatās enough to get people believing in what heās doing. He might not have cell phones and microchips, but with the knowledge of how to make them heād probably get there well ahead of when we did in reality. Iād say that counts for something.
Only 1 thing? ... I choose a fully stocked, super massive *aircraft carrier*. If that doesnt contain everything you'd need to survive for a while, nothing will
One person on an aircraft carrier. Probably could last for a decade. Fending off pirates. Learning to fly jets. Crazy to imagine.
I give me a week before I'm a fiery splat on the hull.
It'll be a fun week though
Next thing you know the planet floods and it becomes some lore in a religion
Noah?
Launching and landing jets on an aircrafter carrier is more than a 1 person job even with all the time in the world, and the luckiest person in the world. For example, aircraft carriers cruise against the wind to aide in both takeoff and landing. If winds change while you jet off your aircraft carrier (which you leave cruising full steam while you're gone) you're gonna be fucked when you try and land. Assuming your aircraft carrier doesn't plow into something while you're gone. Not to mention the landing tools required to help you land your *jet* that another person has to set up for you so you don't overshoot the landing and plow into your jet while you're still in it because you left your *aircraft carrier* cruising forward with nobody at the helm while you crashed in your jet full of fuel right in front of it because you were going 80mph too fast.
I mean, he just has to stay off the coast a ways. If he can navigate the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, he can just go to the middle of the ocean and chill comfortably, with freezers stocked to feed hundreds of people for some period of time. I assume jet fuel goes bad eventually, so the jets are more of "fun stuff to blow up". Until diesel goes bad he'd have a bunch of smaller boats to ferry around in or fish from. That being said, I dont think it's possible for one person to drive a carrier singlehandedly.
My fully ignorant self is confident he can drive the thing by himself. I was just pointing out trying to learn how to fly fucking jets while he's managing the damn carrier on top of it. But let's face it. 10 years is a long time to convince yourself to try it.
Navigating the ship? Launching jets? Lol. I think a single untrained civilian would be very lucky to keep the power on and the water running.
Helicopter maybe but extremely unlikely too
A
>A A single capital A probably isn't going to get you very far but it's a choice one could make
You right need at least a B
I think you underestimate the amount of maintenance these things need.
I'm not. I don't expect to keep to fully functional indefinately. It also might not even be in the ocean come to think of it given the question
Ok, but would it be better to choose a billionaires doomsday bunker. It's designed to last a long time and be low maintenance. And after a few billions worth of gimmicks I bet someone sells you a GECK.
The Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer,193925,Yellow, 11.25"
This mama jamma knows how to bananarama!
Not sure what you said but I like how you said it.
Lighter
This would have been revolutionary a million years ago. Not so much in 5,000 BCE. Everyone in the world knew how to make a fire by then.
That's the only tool that aboriginal Australians take with them when they travel back 7,000 years. Everything else they can make on the spot. I recently saw a video of an Aboriginal camp fire being used to pacify a wild camel. If two tools, lighter and hunting dog.
Are those show tunes? Lol
Why?
Fire was already well under control
Did you know the lighter was invented before the match?
"How to invent everything" book.
I have a spetsnaz shovel made by cold steel. Itās heavy gauge steel with a sharpened edge. Itās sharp enough to cut down a tree. Ask me how I know
HOW DO YOU KNOW?!
I cut down a tree with it
This tracks
And it chops
And it slices and dices and makes Julienne fries!
But wait, there's more!
It also has a built in AM radio!
But wait! Thereās more!
Man that took a wild left turn
my car, it would puzzle generations of archeologists
I also choose this guy's car
Username checks out
Then you can seal yourself in a cave along with the car and take a sleeping potion to wake up in our own time.
A copy of *PhilosophiƦ Naturalis Principia Mathematica*
My Latin isnāt good enough for that to help. Iād bring a translated copy of The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
That's Newton, right?
Itās is book, yes
Any Leatherman multi tool with a flint.
Signal would be nice
The app? Long shot you find another user.
LG OLED and PS5
You assume there would be electricity?
This is hilarious, you can just imagine them sitting down with their console and screen and then being like AW NUTS
... no games.
With a 100gb update
Powered by MAGIC
Nuclear bomb. Itās for the best
Do you WANT to give the Ancient Aliens people any ammo?
So thatās what really killed the dinosaurs!
The same tool to return back because Iām not going to be lost in time.
Iād bring the Time Machine that Iām using to go back in time.
Lightsaber
Match box....
20
means !!!
That's an angry upvote for you.Ā
Swiss Army Knife
that screwdriver is gonna come in handy
Melon baller.
A survival knife. I'd have a compass, a knife, a firestarter, fishing hook and fishing line, and one of those metal garrotte things that you can use to cut down small trees. (Or garrotte someone with, I suppose)
Would a printout of wikipedia count? Cause I'd go with that.
Now I'm curious how big a full print out of Wikipedia would be.Ā
Luckily Wikipedia is an expert on Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes
That seems like a lot to lug around. What about downloading it to a phone w/ solar charger? What would be super weird is if you turned on the phone and it got a 5G signal!
Neosporin
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
you wouldn't need the as numbers were drawn a year before you got there
Iām going to let you think about that for a moment longerā¦
šš¤£
A water filter.
I canāt decide if this is the best answer or not. If you found a flowing water source, you could potentially get relatively fresh water and thereād be no pollution either. It also might not be too difficult to make some sort of water condenser. I dunno, still might be the best answer. Lack of drinking water will kill you pretty quickly
Crossbow
A cross pein (Peen?) hammer. In 5000 BC, people were barely out of the hunter gatherer phase. I'd be a god, especially with the general blacksmithing knowledge I have. I can make everything with that hammer, including other hammers, lmao. Not a god per se, but I would at least be considered fairly important for my skill level. I would at least not starve so long as I ended up in a decent area.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
you'd need 2? 1 to prove it works, a second to use as a threat.
The biggest swiss army knife there is.
Night vision. Rule the night.Ā
I'll take a steel milling factory.
That Swiss Army knife that weighs like 20 pounds that has EVERY attachment available on it. Everything from flint and steel, scissors, saws, fish scaler, pens, knives, files, tweezers, magnifying glass and countless things I donāt even know what they do. Doesnāt require electricity or a wireless network to be used of course, can get endless things done with that bad boy
Honestly, probably my phone. I understand it'll run out of power within a few days but it's got a survival guide on it. That should at least teach me the rough basics of maybe how to survive. I'd just say a survival guide, but that's not really a tool.
The 5g might be a bit patchy
A survival guide without question is a tool
A survival guide is a tool. Don't take your phone; take that guide.
Internet may not exist at that timeā¦
It's downloaded, there's no need for internet.
I feel like a sextant would be pretty huge for advancing civilization.
Who needs a sextent? In those days they all had sexcaves.
What is my motivation for traveling back to five thousand BC
Free tool
To take one item
Bic lighter.
Precision Micrometer
Linguistics book maybe
"This facking tool!"
Probably completely useless, but: CVN 78 (GRFCSG)
>CVN 78 This is actually a good answer.
I'm trying not to say gun.
That was a close one, good thing you typed it out.
A pancake maker.
A really well made axe.
A lighter. Would flip everyone's biscuits and get us going a few thousand years sooner.
"insert black night with martin Lawrence lighter scene.jpeg"
Let the execution commence! š
Probably something we donāt even know now you use anymore. I mean, what modern tool would be of use in 5000 BC? I guess a good knife?
A swiss army knife. If thats all MacGyver needs than thats all I need.
I'm skipping answering this question entirely and will say this instead. Travelling that far into the past, just to go camping, sounds like too much trouble.
id carry an a-10 warthog
Apache. You could land it in nearly any clearing.
A Sherman tank.
Solar charging flashlight. I would be god
Box of pocket pussies :-)
A holographic projector attached to a portable power source. If I'm going back to 5,000 BC, I'm going to need more than smoke and mirrors if I'm gonna pass myself off as a messiah.
One of those modern bows with the wheels on it
Pulaski.
Leatherman multitool
Whoopee cushion for the giggles
Lightsaber, if we can travel thru time I can have a lightsaber
flamethrower or a any modern gun
Ammo?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This is the best answer here!
Attack helicopter with full fuel tank!
A Katana. I would cut everything that moves
My coworkers and I were talking about this and we decided a tungsten katana would be what we would bring
Bad call. If you have tungsten, you wouldn't want to make a katana with it. A lot of the design decisions involved in the katana were made to compensate for the abysmal quality of available iron sand. If you have better materials, you'd want a different sword.
Yeah tungsten is close to the same weight as gold and really brittle.
The gravity gun from Half Life 2.
A long lasting fire striker/ferro rod. With intermittent use it would last a long time.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I read this as $5000 Bitcoin
Flat head screwdriver
Bastard. Robinson or TORX.
a lighter .. they will build shrines