3 ms·

What one invention would you introduce ahead of its time?

• pg 18y ago
  Hygiene.
  • robg 18y ago
    How can you make money with that? Purveyor of scented soaps? ;)
    • bprater 18y ago
      One of the commentors at Kotte's mentions that you could sell boiled water as "de-sprited water", good for all menner of medical procedures. Unfortunately, another commentor recognized that firewood would be difficult to access, and cow poo doesn't fire hot enough.
      • time_management 18y ago
        Why would firewood be difficult to find? I could be wrong, but I don't think the European deforestation had set in yet, at that time. Is the wood in most European forests not of sufficient quality?
        • robg 18y ago
          Didn't the ancient Chinese mine coal? Not a bad map to bring with you: surface coal deposits. Still, start global warming 500 years early?
        • inklesspen 18y ago
          It belonged to the nobles.
          • pg 18y ago
            Depends where you were. In feudalized, agricultural bits of Europe, everything did, at least nominally. But especially in 800 there would have been large expanses of uncultivated and mostly depopulated forest.
    • gjm11 18y ago
      There might be reasons for doing it other than making money. For instance, (1) making life more pleasant for yourself and (2) saving a whole lot of lives. Perish the thought that anyone might think either of those more important than making money, of course...
      • robg 18y ago
        /joke/ Still, there's an argument to be made that people can be better convinced of a need if there's something they think they have to buy.
    • pg 18y ago
      You could not die, which would be pretty valuable. But come to think of it, you could also make tons of money. An ordinary educated person today knows way more about medicine than medieval doctors did. So your optimal career goal should probably be to become a court physician. You could become as rich as minor nobility doing this, and (most importantly) without having to take sides in power struggles.
      • robg 18y ago
        SaS = Soaps and Sterilization. Hmmm, interesting, but seems like you'd have to violate your second rule ("no opinions"). Maybe if you could manage to out live most other folks into your late thirties and forties (steering clear of all sorts of bugs - water, food, and transmission-based) the marketing would be your very aliveness. People would have to solicit your counsel rather than you having to actively sell it.
  • deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
• russell 18y ago
  I would introduce the horse collar. It existed in Europe as early as the 10th century but was not widespread until around 1200. It enabled horses to pull plows and was much more efficient. In order to use my much increased grain production, I would introduce distillation and whiskey. Ah the riches.
• bootload 18y ago
  "... What one invention would you introduce ahead of its time? ..." The fireplace chimney as it wasn't introduced before the 13th century and fire smoke is a major cause of lung ailments.