Ask Lemmy

I'm not even sure I can survive with my skills now.

I put all my skill points in computers so I could go back to the 70's maybe. The computers made before the ibm pc still seem close enough to be usable by me.

I could also go to neolithic era as rock-on-stick-skull-crusher

and be a productive member of society

I just write useless software for a useless company. I'm not a productive member of society today, I wouldn't be one at any point in the past. 🤷‍♂️

Baking bread goes back pretty far. Think I'd rather just jump of a cliff, though.

I'm a musician, so my skills have always been in demand, although the wages have always been in dispute for as long as there has been music. People love music, they just don't like to pay for it.

I could be an excellent prostitute, so checkmate motherfuckers.

Some of the original plastic reactors still run where I work so 1950's is the oldest operational unit and wasn't modernised. No computer. The corpses of the older stuff remain abandoned and in place. Not much different, just much less production rate and smaller.

1940's I suppose.

I'd be fine in any time period where I could still understand English spoken however. I don't care what I do for a living. Can't remember how far back that would be, Rob Words surely has a video about this.

My skills travel pretty far. But with my gender id not be allowed to use them.

I'm a physician - am MD. As long as I don't get burnt at the stake for witchcraft, I could go back as far as I wanted. People's biology hasn't changed much since Neolithic times.

With my work skills I won’t be particularly useful before the first high level programming languages started coming in the 60s. But I also gained some handiwork knowledge over time so I won’t be a lost cause if someone sends me further back.

Weaving, pottery, gardening, spinning. Yea it'd take a while to adjust to the culture and way of life but I could probably go all the way to Sumer if I wanted and language & diseases weren't a problem.

If I had access to good quality copper, I could invent electricity and do very well for myself.

So long as I can avoid Ur in the 18th century BC, I could go back pretty far.

I can learn new things, so any time in human history.

I can pick things up and put them down, so as long as there’s things that need picked up and put down I’m good.

As a waitress, probably the 1980's.

As a computer scientist / CS teacher, probably the 1960's... without being outed as a time traveler, anyway.

I don't even got skills for today

As a software engineer, I’d struggle with the limitations of ten years ago.

But on the non-work side, I have no problems with maintenance on my house and hand tools haven’t changed much, so at least 80 years

I imagine I'd make a not totally incompetent blacksmith, or some other equivalent allied trade. In fact, I'd probably have a better chance at that 300 or so years ago than now.

Yes, I do already have my own anvil. Jury's out on whether or not I feel like lugging it with me, though. The fucker is heavy.

For all of human history, labor has always been a productive skill.

I can do labor in any era.

I've been doing computer engineering long enough to do the field in the 80s and still live as comfortably as I do now, if not more so.

I also sail, with a license old enough that I have my own sextant and reduction tables. I'd assume those skills transfer hundreds of years back, but I wouldn't like those survivability odds.

Hmm. Before the end of the 19th century you're going to run into non-standardised/completely bespoke parts problems. How are you on a lathe, or doing blacksmith work? Hot riveting was a separate trade which you wouldn't have to do, at least.

I'm kinda obsessed with what I call technological bootstrapping, and so I have useful book knowledge about every step along the way. Doing it in practice is another thing, though; the locals are going to run circles around me unless I can invent stuff. (And even the scenario rules aside, not starving or being "disturbed" while I work on whatever project is a thing)

So, I think I have to echo the "it's not going great in 2025" answer.

If you placed me at the beginning of the industrial revolution I could from available materials build a working telegraph and telephone system and do pretty well for myself.

Prior to that I could be a pretty good peasant.

As a kind of generalist (risk analysis-mitigation, engineering and NGOs), I think I could go back some centuries in time as an advisor or leading teams to improve their quality of life.

Yeah I can go pretty damn far back. (username)

My computer skills? Not far. My house painting skills? I guess maybe 200 years, but I’m not excited about the prospect of using lead-based paint and wood ladders. As a jazz-trained musician, I guess to the 1940s.

Depends on the skillset in question.

On one hand I work with IT/Clusters and robotics for the geophysical exploration sector. 20 years, probably. Beyond that and it gets dubious apart from this one system that actually runs on MS-DOS to this day (because MS-DOS is surprisingly good at realtime stuff if you want it to do something very simple).

On the other hand I do a lot of digital I/O and automation which would probably be very useful in the 60s, maybe even before if I manage to join the pioneers.

On top of that, I grew up on a dairy farm, and learned a lot of that trade from my dad. I can milk a cow by hand, so if that was all I needed to do, I could go back all the way to Mesopotamia.

I'm pretty good at hunting and gathering. Back before my broken neck and back, I was super into wanting to buy some remote place in the Appalachians and pseudo homestead. I have messed with many of the required skills. I wanted a place in the mountains with a year round creek for a water wheel, building a foundry and forge, along with a manual machine shop. I was into what I could do using junk from pick-a-part type junk yards. People often only think of parts for whatever low end car, but if you actually have a fundamental understanding of cars and the various technologies in different applications, a junk yard gives tremendous access to industrial technology for many types of machines and equipment. Junk yards are not setup for that kind of thing either. A little bit of flattery and flirting with a cashier goes a very long way when none of the collection of parts on your cart have legitimate prices on the menu.

Even with my disability now, I could probably survive in the wild by trapping game and some minor gardening if the population was low enough and I was in a decent location compared to where/when I live now in the era of the 50 year mortgage fuckwit dystopia.

I am a carpenter so I could probably go back and get drinks after work with Lu Ban in 5th century BC China.

I can dig a hole in the earth so I'd say my skills apply all the way back to Ur and Sumeria.

I think my knowledge of first aid and basic anatomy would be of some use in any pre-modern time period. I know enough to make a positive difference at least (wash that cut, dont drink water from downstream of your encampment, give the sick plenty of fluids, etc)

Beyond that, i'd be behind everyone else. I can fish, forage, garden, cook, start fires, and build shelter, but so could everyone for most of human history. I could probaby keep up with a hunter-gatherer society, but i'd be the least capable among them.

At least as far back as keyboard instruments have been around I could be a musician. Ending up further in time, I'd be a composer; the guy that revolutionised polyphony.

'Palestrina, that's really nice. Now check this out'

Grew up hunting, growing, and preserving a good percent of my food. I might need to brush up on specifics but i think i could do okay if i had social supports for my disability (food providers usually do/did)

Gonna blow Galileo's mind with an equatorial telescope mount. Even more so when I attach a clock to it and make it automatically track the sky. I'm skilled enough to construct one, assuming I can communicate with other laborers to have the parts made

As far as general labor skills go though, I could make a living just about any time with agriculture. Unskilled labor is timeless