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If a person from 1700 asked you your job, would they understand your answer, and if not, how would you explain it to them? (lemm.ee)

submitted 8 months ago by JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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[–] bluemellophone@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean, this is like seeing the Dutch East India Company or Shakespearean London or the events of Les Mis in Game of Thrones.

In my mind, these are very distinct time periods. One has castles, the other had coffee.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

But also still castles. It's true, people might divide them up now, but I'm not sure how uniformly or accurately.

You gave events over two centuries as an example, but if I was dividing the world up by associations, DEIC goes in with Shakespeare and Columbus, but Le Mis goes in with beam steam engines and sawtooth-roof factories in a later era. That's just me though, obviously it changed continuously in reality.

I guess what I'm asking is, how would medieval be different when it comes to this question? They're still going to understand trade and politics fine, but not most things machine or industry-related.

Edit: Even if I was explaining stuff to a guy like Ea-Nasir from the deep bronze age, I'd mainly have to adjust for metal being less common in their era. A lot of everyday life would be familiar to people from 1700AD.