If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?

  • Sir_Simon_Spamalot@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    A laptop with the essential human knowledge, big enough abtteries to power it, and a portable solar generator to charge its batteries.

    Oh, and probably a bunch of gold to hire mercenaries and engineers.

    • cuppaconcrete@aussie.zone
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      8 months ago

      I totally agree! Although I think modern medication would be more useful than gold - pure quantities of modern meds weigh next to nothing. If you save enough lives of the rulers and their families they’ll give you all the wealth and resources you need. They’ll consider stealing the medication from you but they won’t know which medications should be used for which illnesses, until they torture you I guess. I can’t really think of a way of making sure they “be nice” rather than forcing you to give them everything you have. They weren’t afraid of doing the unspeakable in pursuit of power back then.

      • Sir_Simon_Spamalot@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The reason I chose gold is because you can make more of it in that era (e.g. thru banking, trading, pilaging) while modern medicine (assuming you mean with all the synthetic chemicals) would be easily exhaustible, not to mention they can expire.

        On the other hand, since you’d be carrying modern knowledge, you’d be able to setup some make-shift facilities, applying modern concept to what you can get. And you can achieve quite a lot that way. An example would be sterilization. You can also go a long way combining natural material.

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      those are all quite intelligent things to want to have with you in such a scenario, but I think you are overestimating how much can fit into a backpack.

      • RisingSwell@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Honestly aside from. The gold in confident you could fit it all in a normal sized pack. Bigger pack just means more gold

        • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          okay well I am intimately familiar with solar panels and generators and batteries and the only backpack all that’s going to fit in is that comically unrealistically huge red one that “shard” posted below. But being able to lift & carry all that (generator and batteries are no joke heavy) good luck

          • RisingSwell@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            You can buy small foldable solar panels, and it’s a laptop so it’s not like the battery is big or heavy. I’m not sure why you’d need anything massive for a device that sips power, just take a normal laptop instead of a high end gaming one and it’ll draw like 30W.

            • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I’m not talking about the laptop battery. You need a lithium ion battery system and a power inverter for your solar panels. That’s heavy stuff.

              • RisingSwell@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                So how do small foldable solar panels that charge phones and the like work? Because I presume if they can charge a phone they can charge a laptop, given they aren’t really different.

                • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  I’ve never tried those, but I can’t imagine they’d be very effective. Do you know anyone who’s ever tried those?

                  • RisingSwell@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    No, but they seem to be able to charge a phone, or their own internal batteries. As long as the laptop you take is one designed for long battery life I don’t see it being an issue for quite some time.