Respect the Prophet

I would totally kill it if I was transported back to the Medieval era. For one thing, I did an elective on the Middle Ages, so I’d freak them out with my unearthly knowledge. Would probably get myself a cushy job as the castle soothsayer, saying all this cool stuff like “the Magna Carta, it’s going to be great,” and “someday, on the internet, people are going to ask a lot of uncomfortable questions about these Crusades.”

But it’s our modern knowledge of power that would tip the scales in my favour. And look, I’m not some commercial electrician, with all the knowledge of an electrical specialist, but I dabble. I like to learn things, like how a fridge keeps things cool, how a microwave makes them hot…interesting stuff like that. I know more than average, which is still a million times more than the scientists did 700 years ago. I’d just have to casually invent the microprocessor, or the electrical transformer, a few hundred years early.

But then, there’s always the butterfly effect, so who knows what that would do to the electrician scene today. Maybe it would advance things by a few hundred years, so electricians would be working on Dyson Spheres and FTL drives. But what I’m thinking instead is that mankind just wasn’t ready for electricity in the Middle Ages. I’d lose my cushy soothsaying job, people would say it was dark magic and I’d have to high-tail it to Scotland, where people treat each other right.

Maybe this is the golden age of electricity right here, and I shouldn’t be messing with that. The golden age where I can go online with my laptop device to see that I don’t have any money, where there are electricians near Cheltenham who can come and flick the switch in my fuse box, probably restraining the urge to roll their eyes that I didn’t just do it myself.

Fair enough, but…I didn’t say I was an expert. Just expert enough for a medieval peasant.

-Jake