
Would you have survived in the middle ages? - soundsop
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1247
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mahmud
I am from Somalia: In 1991 - 1992 I witnessed exactly that, a lapse into a
dark, and long forgotten period of pure human savagery.

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gregwebs
There is an assuption here that the only infulential factor on health is
genes. Environment could play an even stronger role. A person in the middle
ages wouldn't be surrounded by a toxic environment and be consuming the
chemical-laden nutrient deprived food that is standard fare today.

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rjprins
Speak for yourself, the nutrient rich food and especially the variety I eat
each day was not available in the middle ages. Remember that people in the
those times where much shorter (as proved by the shorter beds), this is the
result of malnutrion.

Toxicity is likely to be higher then, open or no sewage systems, very low
hygiene (people didn't bathe, lots of animals) and remember they used
woodstoves in side the house!

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gregwebs
sewage systems are necessary for sanitation in cities. Most people were living
in the country side. "hygiene" is largely a social aspect that doesn't effect
health much. Some researchers claim people did not lose height in the Middle
Ages at all. Variety of food is not that important- we just need to get all
the required nutrients in the foods we eat. Great to hear you are able to go
against the modern trends and eat nutrient rich food.

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zackattack
This was my favorite kottke.org post from last year,

"I wanted to ask for survival tips in case I am unexpectedly transported to a
random location in Europe (say for instance current France/Benelux/Germany) in
the year 1000 AD (plus or minus 200 years). I assume that such transportation
would leave me with what I am wearing, what I know, and nothing else. Any
advice would help."

<http://kottke.org/08/06/survival-tips-for-the-middle-ages>

Jason even opened it up for comments.

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anthropocentric
In reading the Kottke thread for about 30 mins (it rules), I just had this
thought: What if Michaelangelo (or some other prolific inventors) weren't that
special. What if they were simply average Joe's like you and me that were
transported back in time. They used their basic knowledge of stuff around them
to "invent" things.

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zackattack
Honestly, besides the natural teleological questions this prompts, if I were
transported back to the middle ages there's not all that much I'm sure I could
invent. For example, I have no idea how a computer is actually built, from the
ground-up. Maybe I could have a few acute scientific observations ("try
penicillin!"; "use tungsten for your light bulb!", "b-b-boil that milk!") and
I could probably derive Calculus. But... that's about it. The vast majority of
human knowledge is culturally transmitted; few humans have cumulative "clones"
of the current "repository" of human knowledge stored in their memory.

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eru
Yes. Though knowing that certain directions are promising, would help. You
know where to search.

For example, I could not build a steam engine, but I know enough to describe
how one could build a basic atmospheric steam engine, and that to improve upon
it, you'd need to separate the condensation of the steam from the rest of the
engine.

But I guess I would have a lot of problems, convincing any sane medieval
person to take my ideas seriously.

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khafra
You could leave one helluva Leonardo-style sketch notebook, at the very least,
if you could be spared the parchment.

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TheSOB88
Brings up the point of our continued evolution towards weaker bodies - the
more cures we have for asthma, children's diabetes, etc., the more the people
that have those ailments reproduce, and the more people there are with those
ailments.

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Bjoern
Actually humanity is not really part anymore of the "survival of the fittest"
or evolutionary cycle. We are actively changing ourselves and starting, in
laboratories at least, to modify genetics. Won't take long before parents can
"modify" their children to be smarter, healthier, etc.

~~~
habs
I disagree. We are no more not part of the evolutionary cycle than we are not
part of planetary climate change. (Pardon the double negative).

Evolution is no more than genetic drift within a population through
reproduction and variation shaped by selective pressure. What you describe as
gene therapy could be seen as a selective pressure. But there are many
selective pressures on large populations of humans and these selective
pressure vary from one set to another. I do agree that the dynamics of
selective pressures has changed for humans thanks to modern medicine. But I
contest it still applies.

