PDA

View Full Version : What would you miss the most in the past?



Accelerator
2021-07-20, 11:48 AM
Congragulations. You're sent back in one of those time travel tech uplift stories. The bad news here is that you're stuck here with nothing but the clothes on your back, in a strange world and strange land.

What aspect of the modern world would you miss in the modern world?

edit: Me? I'll miss music most of all. I can download, listen to, and read any kind of media from tens of thousands of people, from anywhere in the world. To once be exposed to countless music and artistry and then be cut off from it... I'll go mad.

LibraryOgre
2021-07-20, 12:29 PM
Aside from my wife and kids?

Depending on the location and era, air conditioning is a big one. I'm sure I'd adapt, and encounter other things I really miss, but here, in a San Antonio summer, I'd miss air conditioning.

Tvtyrant
2021-07-20, 12:57 PM
Congragulations. You're sent back in one of those time travel tech uplift stories. The bad news here is that you're stuck here with nothing but the clothes on your back, in a strange world and strange land.

What aspect of the modern world would you miss in the modern world?

edit: Me? I'll miss music most of all. I can download, listen to, and read any kind of media from tens of thousands of people, from anywhere in the world. To once be exposed to countless music and artistry and then be cut off from it... I'll go mad.

The good news is there was way more music in the past! Everyone sang all the time and there were live bands everywhere because you couldn't record music. Most of it was music groups could sing together like Old Susana or marseilles marseille, but still.

You know the scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles were they are all singing Flintstones on the bus? That.

comicshorse
2021-07-20, 01:02 PM
Running hot water

InvisibleBison
2021-07-20, 01:03 PM
In the short run, heating/air conditioning.

In the long run, medicine.

DavidSh
2021-07-20, 01:33 PM
What aspect of the modern world would you miss in the modern world?

It depends on how far back I go. I mean, I could be reasonably happy going back to 1970. I'd be reading a lot more books, magazines, and newspapers. The main problem would be a half-century of medical advances, but this wouldn't be obvious until something came up. I know others here wouldn't be so happy.

970, or 30BC, would be completely different.

Fyraltari
2021-07-20, 01:48 PM
All the tech, all the medicine, all the social justice, all the "not-getting-killed-in-dumb-wars".

Edit: I mean, I'm a white cishet French man so I'd be mostly fine for the serious stuff, but not having ways to repair my glasses if they are broken (or change them eventually) and the lack of accomodation for left-handed people would be issues, but not that much.

J-H
2021-07-20, 02:02 PM
I'm from Texas, so...air conditioning.

Going with that, I ran across one of those "what one innovation changed your life the most." The answer from an old guy was "window screens." In an era before air conditioning, everyone slept with their windows open. Window screens kept the flies and mosquitos out, so you could sleep without getting bitten or having lots of annoying buzzing in your ears.

Willie the Duck
2021-07-21, 07:27 AM
Refrigerated food preservation sure sounds like a rough one to give up. Quick communication and news around the world seems like a game changer. Still, I think I would adapt to that kind of stuff.

What I think I'd never get over is the lack of ubiquitous reading material. Even in eras with books -- heck, even eras post printing press -- it's frighteningly recent that anyone not of extravagant means could have a collection of books every middle class household could easily dwarf nowadays.



Running hot water
Running everything. Whatever products of a comfortable life a given era of history has, in almost every era previously, you couldn't have things 'on standby,' and ready to go with the simple turn of knob, push of button, etc.

Accelerator
2021-07-21, 07:52 AM
The good news is there was way more music in the past! Everyone sang all the time and there were live bands everywhere because you couldn't record music. Most of it was music groups could sing together like Old Susana or marseilles marseille, but still.

You know the scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles were they are all singing Flintstones on the bus? That.

Yeah, but here's the thing. My taste in music is pretty modern. Lots of beats, electric guitars, J-pop and the like. And i like blasting them at full sound into my earbuds.

I've heard of the old songs before. They're nice, but not that nice. And they have to be performed manually. There aren't even phonographs or tape recorders.

Forget singing. The instruments needed to play my music doesn't exist yet. It'll be real quiet. Too quiet for me.

NichG
2021-07-21, 09:06 AM
There's lots of stuff I'd miss which would likely kill me or lead to my body breaking down in serious ways, but that stuff aside, probably computers and the ability to use them to test out ideas via programming or store information so I don't have to remember it.

Murk
2021-07-21, 09:08 AM
Indeed depending on how far back in the past, I would have to say a dustless environment.

I've gone wilderness camping a few times. It's fun. I think I could learn to live without most of the luxuries of modern life. But even after a few days it starts to bother me how nothing is ever truly clean or smooth. Even after washing or cleaning, there is dirt or dust around. Things are moist or damp. There's a little bit of sand in your hair.

I don't mind being a bit dirty, and I'm not trying to imply the past was unhygienic or gross. But it's amazing just how clean we can get our houses nowadays, and how normal that is. It requires great societal infrastructure to get there: paved roads, vacuum cleaners, perfectly fitting windows, clean tap water, and a hundred more things. If any of those are missing, there will always be a bit of dust around, and after a few years none of your things will be clean anymore.

I can imagine that gets incredibly frustrating after a while.



Probably tied with smooth surfaces. Just, you know, a spot to sit that isn't slightly bumpy or uneven. A table that isn't grained or rough. Clothing that isn't fuzzy or itchy.

DavidSh
2021-07-21, 09:56 AM
Forget singing. The instruments needed to play my music doesn't exist yet. It'll be real quiet. Too quiet for me.
Until you get a home visit from your local bagpipe ensemble.

warty goblin
2021-07-21, 10:16 AM
Once my modern sanitation spoiled digestive system acclimated to the local water fauna and I stopped peeing out my ass constantly. Assuming I survive the dysentery, don't offend somebody badly enough they stab me to death, and can find some situation slightly better than enslaved agricultural or mine laborer, I suspect the big thing is gonna be food.

We currently eat stuff sourced from literally an entire planet and produced with the immense power of modern industry, biotechnology and chemistry. Go back very far at all and this goes away. Big example, prior to 1492 if you're in the old world, that means no chocolate, corn, potatoes. If you land in the new world you're stuck with no wheat bread, bacon, sheep goat or cow dairy (or meat).

And even aside from hard limits like the raw ingredients being on the other side of an uncrossed ocean, your diet is going to almost entirely made up of what is locally available. Meat is gonna get much less common, the diversity of seasonings will crater, refined sugar will disappear, and so on. Instead you're gonna get whatever staples can be grown locally and preserved via traditional methods. Distinct foods for breakfast lunch or supper are gonna vanish, along with things requiring precise modern cooking. Its gonna be very monotonous, and much of the time way, way less fresh than you are used to. Get ready to eat basically the same thing at every meal. Forever.

Another thing is clothing. We sure do like our nice soft knit cottons, complete with that little bit of spandex for a pleasant stretchyness. Say goodbye to all of that. You'll be wearing woven fabrics which don't stretch, and they won't have fancy tailoring either, because non-square cuts waste fabric. And unless you're weirdly wealthy, you'll only own a few sets of clothes as well, which by modern standards will hardly ever be clean. And the show situation is pretty much a nightmare.

Aedilred
2021-07-21, 11:29 AM
As with the above, the critical question has to be "how far back?"

Any point since the end of the Cold War? That's fine, I've lived through most of it once; I know what things are like and how they work, more or less, and what happens and where to go and where not to go and how to talk to people.

After 1945 - a bit more alien, but still very familiar. I'll miss modern telecommunications and I'll probably find everyone a bit racist for my tastes, but I'll cope. There's fun to be had.

After 1918 - This is getting trickier. Travel is difficult, long-range communication by telephone/etc. is not impossible but much trickier. But it's still similar enough and I know where the opportunities are, more or less. Travel is difficult, but doable.

After 1815 - I've just got the shirt on my back? That's a problem. Do I have the skills necessary to earn a living in this sort of society? Contemporary technology is already oustripping my modern understanding, so I can't realistically take up science and cheat, but it's still frustratingly primitive compared to what I'm used to. No electricity to speak of.

After 1660 - The horror, the horror. So much smallpox. So much slavery. So much backbreaking labour required to get even life's basic amenities. So much entrenched class structure making it virtually impossible for a vagrant with no identity to accomplish anything of note. My best bet is probably to find some learned gentlemen and hope they find my ideas and stories interesting enough that I can get by on their patronage.

16th/early 17th century - The mindless, indiscriminate (and sometimes highly discriminate) violence. The plagues. The lethal consumer products. What do I miss? Everything. There's nothing here for me.

15th century - You know, this might actually be an improvement on the C16/17. There are chances here if I'm quick and brave enough. Sure, the entertainment is ghastly, so life's pretty dull, and life is still going to be rough, but I can probably make a living, perhaps even a decent one in time.

14th century - What language are these people speaking? No, I'm not a foreigner, this is English. E-n-g-l-i-s-h. Yes, I can read, but not Latin uncial, and my Middle French isn't up to much either. Look, do you know anywhere a bit less plaguey I can go?

Early Middle Ages - well, maybe if I avoid being sold into slavery I'll be able to scratch a living somewhere, eventually. If I'm lucky.

Antiquity - yeah, definitely going to end up a slave, and probably not the fun kind unless I learn to speak the language really fast.

500 BC - 4500 BC- I'll be lucky if I last five minutes.

4500BC or earlier: Check this out. I call this a wheel. Let's get a couple of these together and get a head start on those bozos over there.


This is taking a moderately realistic view of things. In a fantasy version of the past or if I were able to go back while retaining the same status in society as I have now and acquire the immunity and hardiness necessary to survive in a harsher time, the 17th century could be ok - though I'd still miss an awful lot about the modern world - but with the premise as it is, the experience would be horrendous.

veti
2021-07-22, 06:30 PM
I'm from Texas, so...air conditioning.

Going with that, I ran across one of those "what one innovation changed your life the most." The answer from an old guy was "window screens." In an era before air conditioning, everyone slept with their windows open. Window screens kept the flies and mosquitos out, so you could sleep without getting bitten or having lots of annoying buzzing in your ears.

Fly screens have been around since the 19th century, so he'd have to be a pretty old guy for those to have been an innovation. More likely his childhood home just didn't have them. Before then, there were such things as mosquito nets that could be hung around your bed.

Assuming I were in my present location, and going back:
20 years: building standards. Houses that were built back then were still pretty shoddy.
50 years: computer technology. Almost all my marketable skills would become useless.
100 years: medicine would start to be a big thing. Not sure how widespread refrigerators were back then, either. And phones were pretty rare.
200 years: peace. There was fighting around here back then. Also electricity and all the things it makes possible. On the plus side, I could probably make myself a famous scientist in this period.
500 years: my life expectancy would be measured in days, I wouldn't speak the language or know enough about anything to buy tolerance, let alone support, from the locals.
1000 years: people. There was literally no-one here then. And I'm too old and too ignorant to do Robinson Crusoe.

Tarmor
2021-07-22, 07:19 PM
What would I miss....

Depending on how far back into the past I was, the main things that come to mind are: my own car, a PC, heating, glasses (as in spectacles) and coffee.

DavidSh
2021-07-22, 08:42 PM
50 years: computer technology. Almost all my marketable skills would become useless.

How's your Cobol, Fortran, or PL/I? It looks like C is a couple of years in the future.

Caerulea
2021-08-04, 02:51 PM
20 years (this is still before I was born so...): Access to all human knowledge everywhere and anytime. Mostly listening to any music I'd like constantly.

40 years: The internet, computers, and also being able to be me in public. I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure a someone who was AMAB wearing skirts with hair almost down to their waist would be frowned upon. Furthermore, if I was born anywhere before this period I would be dead. It wouldn't immediately be an issue for me but lack of modern medicine would be a problem within a few years.

80 years: Not being at risk of being drafted for war. Travel in general would be a lot harder, as would keeping in touch with my friends. I'd have to get in the practice of writing letters. College would be a lot cheaper though, that's a plus. On the other hand I couldn't major in compsci. Not being able to purchase music to listen to at home would very annoying, but in less than a decade I might be able to.

160 years: Cleanliness, diversity of food, modern medicine, air conditioning. Heating a house via stove is kinda nice, but dragging in wood is a pain. Cars haven't been invented yet so I'd have to deal with horses as the primary mode of transport within towns. I couldn't drive down to the city with friend for a day, at least not easily. Also SLAVERY WOULD BE A THING. General tolerance of nonwhite people, that's a big thing considering all of my current friends.

320 years: My ancestors had not yet come to America from Germany and England at this point, so I'm going to relocate myself to England. The culture would take a bit of getting used to. Religion would be much more important than modern day, and social expectations would be quite different. I would probably end up having to get a job which involves physical labor, likely farming. If I could bring my violin I might be able to make a living with that.

Majiy
2021-08-05, 04:44 AM
Glass windows and general lack of insulation in winter come to mind.

Eldan
2021-08-05, 10:34 AM
A lot of good answers. One that's a bit further down the list than Refrigeration or Not being Murdered, but still relevant: washing machines. I'd hate having to either set a day aside every week for doing my laundry, or paying someone to do it for me, or just wear the same set of clothes most of the time.

veti
2021-08-05, 08:35 PM
A lot of good answers. One that's a bit further down the list than Refrigeration or Not being Murdered, but still relevant: washing machines. I'd hate having to either set a day aside every week for doing my laundry, or paying someone to do it for me, or just wear the same set of clothes most of the time.

Meh, you'd quickly get used to that. The point is, everyone would be in the same boat - everyone was more or less equally smelly, the only difference is that if you were hobnobbing with the rich and powerful they'd have perfume to cover up the more natural scent. If you tried to wear clean clothes every day you'd stand out as a freak, even in quite wealthy company.

Peelee
2021-08-05, 09:16 PM
Didn't even need to open the thread. Saw the title and I had my answer immediately ready: Air conditioning, hands down.
Aside from my wife and kids?

Depending on the location and era, air conditioning is a big one. I'm sure I'd adapt, and encounter other things I really miss, but here, in a San Antonio summer, I'd miss air conditioning.

I'm from Texas, so...air conditioning.

My people!