Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!daemon From: STEINBERG@RED.RUTGERS.EDU Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: time travel Message-ID: <449@rutgers.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Tue, 25-Nov-86 13:51:48 EST Article-I.D.: rutgers.449 Posted: Tue Nov 25 13:51:48 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 25-Nov-86 20:50:55 EST Sender: daemon@rutgers.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 24 From: Louis Steinberg I all this discussion of how an unprepared time traveler could survive and/or make a fortune in the past, there's one point people seem to largely miss. Until quite recently in historical terms, your opportunities in life depended much more strongly on your social rank and connections than they do for us today. Even if you did have the technological knowledge to make a big advance, it would be quite possible that you would not be given the opportunity to put it into practice except in the role of advisor to some powerful personage (guild master, local noble, etc.). You would get few of the profits, have no control, and be in danger of being more or less dumped if your patron thought that you were no longer needed. You would probably find patrons much less excited by possible technological advances than you would expect, and you would find great reluctance of people to get involved in any way with a "stranger", i.e. someone they haven't grown up with and whose family they don't know. There would be some avenues open (e.g. the Church), but not nearly the freedom we would tend to expect. Lou Steinberg uucp: ...{harvard, seismo, ut-sally, sri-iu, ihnp4!packard}!topaz!steinber *** NOTE - NO g ^ arpa: STEINBERG@RUTGERS.EDU.ARPA -------