Just something to think about

[GunnyGene]

How would you explain the world we live in today to one of your early ancestors who arrived on these shores in the early to mid 1600's ? Could he or she comprehend even the simplest things that we take for granted? And the nearly 400 years of history that would be in his or her future?

 

[DGW1949]

There's some days that I can't even explain it to myself.

DGW

 

[reuben_j_cogburn]

once upon a time...... in a galaxy far far away....

 

[Jeepnik]

Ruben nailed it. Science fiction relies on suspension of reality.

 

[s4s4u]

400 years ag0? Just the last 100 years would be an expose....

 

[coachk64]

I had a friend who suffered a head injury in 1996 and went into a coma. When he woke up after a week or so he had no memory of anything that occurred after 1976, when he was discharged from the Marines. During that time he had married an unpleasant woman and had two kids that were nothing but problems. He also had to deal with the advent of home computers, new style of cars with options not conceived-of in 1976, the microwave oven, cell phones, the space station, televisions with 150 channels available, and a myriad of other common every-day items that blew his mind.

He ended up killing himself, supposedly because he just couldn't adjust to the differences only 20 years made.

I think someone being exposed to the last 400 years of advancements would have to be very open-minded indeed to be able to even survive it.

 

[Paul B]

I had a friend who suffered a head injury in 1996 and went into a coma. When he woke up after a week or so he had no memory of anything that occurred after 1976, when he was discharged from the Marines. During that time he had married an unpleasant woman and had two kids that were nothing but problems. He also had to deal with the advent of home computers, new style of cars with options not conceived-of in 1976, the microwave oven, cell phones, the space station, televisions with 150 channels available, and a myriad of other common every-day items that blew his mind.

He ended up killing himself, supposedly because he just couldn't adjust to the differences only 20 years made.

I think someone being exposed to the last 400 years of advancements would have to be very open-minded indeed to be able to even survive it.

I think you may be right. A while back I was thinking about the Grandfater who raied me. How he came back from the grave for a short visit. His reaction to what has transpired since his passing was nice but very overwhelming. He's been gone about 65 years now.
Paul B.

 

[Fox Mike]

400 years from now what would we have to understand that is new and unusual? Villages on the moon? Space travel like we, today, fly across the US? No longer any gasoline power things? I would love to be able to see it.

 

[Jeepnik]

This of course brings up the question. Who would adapt better. Someone going forward 400 years, or someone going back 400 years.

 

[nvbirdman]

My grandmother was born in 1880. She was in her twenties when the Wright brothers flew. She lived long enough to see Neil Armstromg take his famous walk.

 

[blume357]

Just to expand on the evolution of humans .... yesterday I was stopped at a red light and looked over to my left and there was a young woman in a car holding her cell phone in front of her on the steering wheel and she was texting ... using both thumbs and so fast I could almost not see her thumbs move.
I used to could type pretty good.. except for the number keys... I'm loosing that now but just think about the dexterity needed to do this on a small phone with just your two thumbs? We are evolving with our technology at an exponential rate.

 

[Yaworski]

This is a common theme in sci-fi/fantasy stories.

I would think that an intelligent person could adapt to the technological advances pretty easily. House is cold? Push a button. Room is dark? Push a button.

What would probably be hardest to deal with would be the changes in society. Girls walking around practically naked. Open disrespect of elders.Basic courtesies vanished.

 

[gunzo]

Very likely that folks from the past could comprehend. They were burning what they though were witches, folks that were a bit different at the stake. How many fires would they build in these times.

Actually, about 30-60% of the people living now, can't/won't accept reality so thinking that folks from centuries ago might go mad at seeing todays happenings.

 

[XUSNORDIE]

The first thing I would advise them to do to is sit down and relax.....then hand them a full finger pour of my highest proof bourbon "you'll need this".........once that is finished I would turn on the TV:

CNN/MSNBC: "There are these kooks....."
FOX: "But don't worry....some of us are normal"

 

[Jim Walsh]

No different than the new guy on the job. He would be assigned to apprentice under one of the experienced guys whose job it would be to assess the capabilities of his student and provide a detailed hands-on explanation of the operation starting with the health and safety mandates.

 

[GunnyGene]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke

 

[Yaworski]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke

Silly statement, it presumes that you accept that magic is real.

If I was suddenly transported 500 years into the future, my first thought when confronted by something new would not be "magic" it would be "tech."

 

[Jim Walsh]

I would hire a forensic accountant to determine what had happened to my estate. Then I would tap a touch screen, open a door, and enjoy an instantaneous Thanksgiving dinner, hopefully one not provided at the behest of the Morlocks

 

[MaxMan]

I think they would understand the why it happened but the why did you let it happen would be hard for them.
All most all of them would have had a background in Bible as almost all were of some type of Christian order
Jerimiah 17:9 would most likely come to mind
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Madison said The Constitution was written for a moral and religious people. And as we move away from that permeating society we move away from what was intended for the country's future.

 

[MaxMan]

Hans Frank, Hitlers Justice Minister. He was in charge of Poland. At his trial in Nuremberg he said the following.
At the beginning of our way we did not suspect that our turning away from God could have such disastrous deadly consequences and that we would necessarily become more and more deeply involved in guilt. At that time we could not have known that so much loyalty and willingness to sacrifice on the part of the German people could have been so badly directed by us.
Thus, by turning away from God, we were overthrown and had to perish. It was not because of technical deficiencies and unfortunate circumstances alone that we lost the war, nor was it misfortune and treason. Before all, God pronounced and executed judgment on Hitler and the system which we served with minds far from God. Therefore, may our people too, be called back from the road on which Hitler - and we with him - have led them.
I beg of our people not to continue in this direction, be it even a single step; because Hitler's road was the way without God, the way of turning from Christ and, in the last analysis, the way of political foolishness, the way of disaster and the way of death. His path became more and more that of a frightful adventurer without conscience or honesty, as I know today at the end of this Trial.
We call upoin the German people, whose rulers we were, to return from this road which, according to the law and justice of God, had to lead us and our system into disaster and which will lead everyone into disaster who tries to walk on it, or continue on it, everywhere in the whole world.

 

[Bad Barlow]

I had a friend who suffered a head injury in 1996 and went into a coma. When he woke up after a week or so he had no memory of anything that occurred after 1976, when he was discharged from the Marines. During that time he had married an unpleasant woman and had two kids that were nothing but problems. He also had to deal with the advent of home computers, new style of cars with options not conceived-of in 1976, the microwave oven, cell phones, the space station, televisions with 150 channels available, and a myriad of other common every-day items that blew his mind.

He ended up killing himself, supposedly because he just couldn't adjust to the differences only 20 years made.

I think someone being exposed to the last 400 years of advancements would have to be very open-minded indeed to be able to even survive it.

It was probably the "unpleasant wife" that pushed him over the edge...

 

[Joe Chartreuse]

First and foremost, intense training in sanitation of all types.

 

[Mobuck]

Just in my lifetime things have changed so much.
In less than 6 decades computers have changed from monstrous contraptions requiring external cooling and a huge power source to palm sized.
Crop seed has changed from saving seed from the biggest ears of corn to genetically modifying seed to produce desired traits.
Farm equipment has changed, too. I worked behind a team of horses 65 years ago and plant with a tractor guided by unseen satellites today.

 

[Yaworski]

Just in my lifetime things have changed so much.

I have a stack of old "Smithsonian" magazines from the 80s in my basement. I was flipping through one and article about a promising new medical technology caught my eye. Physicists were all excited about something called "magnetic resonance imaging."

I remember when Christian Barnard did the first successful heart transplant. Now transplants are commonplace.

When I became a diabetic forty one years ago, I was a given an Accu-Chek blood glucose monitor. It was about 6"x4"x1" and a test took two minutes. My current monitor is about the size of a pager and takes five seconds. Now we also have continuous reading monitors that talk to your pump and the system acts like an artificial pancreas.

 

[bobski]

ehhhh, the conn yankee did ok in king arthers court.