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submitted 2 months ago by python@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I'd give laser pointers to Neanderthals. Even if they did figure out some useful application for them (maybe hunting?) they'd run out of batteries eventually.

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[-] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 49 points 2 months ago

That singing fish animatronic. Convinced people it’s a god. Wait for the battery to die and the eventual religious crisis.

[-] Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 months ago

They would be deeply concerned as it appears to get slowly possessed by a demon when the batteries are low

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dHchmWsrfUo

[-] Zirconium@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago
[-] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

Hey this might help us out. If Neanderthals learn how to sit for hrs a day we would get that evolutionary advantage.

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[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago

Bicycles. If we could have gotten bicycles a few centuries before cars, I don't think modern cities would be so damn car centric.

[-] pmk@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 2 months ago

If I may ask, where are you from? The city I live in is a nightmare for cars, the roads were made for horses and walking, narrow and winding cobblestone streets and the city tries its best to keep cars out of the center.

[-] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

US. An utter hellscape. Where we ripped out world class trolleys so they wouldn't inconvenience drivers.

[-] 6stringringer@lemmy.zip 26 points 2 months ago

A snow globe from Niagra Falls, a clothes hanger, A Buttplug, a die cast Model of The General Lee, some Tide pods, an assortment of Weeble Wobble’s, The Complete Jane Fonda Workout (large print, hardback edition), A magnifying glass, A bag of Candy Corn.

[-] tlmcleod@lemmy.ml 50 points 2 months ago

You're just listing all the things within arms reach, aren't you?

[-] 6stringringer@lemmy.zip 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

These items are in my go bag.

[-] HowAbt2day@futurology.today 8 points 2 months ago

Arms reach because they’ve all just been pulled out of an ass.

[-] ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

Need justifications

[-] slazer2au@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago

A solar panel with a light attached.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That one would actually make more sense if you'd never seen either part separately, but I like the spirit.

[-] slazer2au@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

My thought process was, this produces light only when there is light outside making it effectively useless.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 months ago

Exactly, although to a cave person that's just an interesting device that redirects sunlight somehow. They'd have to understand it could have been stored up for night or used for something else, in order to feel ripped off.

[-] Olap@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago

Something with gears. Like a cranked egg whisk. Huge amounts of science went into this, but all of it should be replicable in a few generations of experiment with even bronze working. And it should inspire inventors of the age too

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[-] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 23 points 2 months ago

A single glass coca-cola bottle

[-] pokkits@lemmy.wtf 16 points 2 months ago
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[-] Sal@mander.xyz 20 points 2 months ago

I would take a portable CD player, place a CD with Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up on it playing backwards, hook up solar panels, remove the ability to shut it on/off, and set it up a circuit that will:

  • As the device solar charges, keep it off until some voltage threshold is exceeded
  • Once the voltage is high enough, start a random timer (8 - 100 hours), so that it is not immediately obvious that the sun activated the device
  • When the timer ends, turn the music on on repeat mode
  • Sometimes turn the music off at random, and then turn it on again at random after a long delay, so that in some cases you can have turn 'ON' events without the device being exposed to the sun
  • When the voltage drops below a low threshold, turn the device off until it is charged again
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[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 15 points 2 months ago

A large obsidian slab standing perfectly vertically.

[-] showmeyourkizinti@startrek.website 13 points 2 months ago

If you’re looking for the biggest change in our timeline for the littlest work I’d give a hindu-arabic numerals to early Greek mathematicians. Watching those guys try to wrap their heads around zero, that would fuck Pythagoras.

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[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

oh I'd teach 'em modern english, and then dump a truck load of People's Magazine's outside their hut

Going for a hunt today? Can't. Need to know what Janniston said to Branjelo on page 4

[-] BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social 12 points 2 months ago
[-] Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk 13 points 2 months ago

Anything mechanical, even someone in 5000bc would be able to figure out how it works.

[-] bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

I think the problem would be recreation. Can't really make an effective chain out of wood I assume.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You actually can, although I don't know how rugged the result is. You probably could make a heavy, one speed bike out of wood with like, wheels that are just big disks. I'm not sure if it would beat walking, especially before purpose built roads were common. That being said, they might at least think going down a hill at speed is fun, which is what the first bikes were made for.

For a modern-style bike, the wheels are more of an engineering challenge, as is centering the various parts and ensuring a tight fit. Modern machine parts are made with micrometric precision, which involves surprisingly simple tools, but a whole lot of science and technique.

If it was a few thousand years later after horses were introduced, they could copy the concept of tension wheels for their chariots.

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[-] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 months ago

A Nintendo Switch running Animal Crossing. Assume it has some kind of perpetual battery, and they can figure out how to operate it/play the game, and read our modern English.

I'm thinking they figure modern civilisation is about (or back to) fishing and farming... and that animals are intelligent. Like validating TF outta the Egyptian pantheon. You're a human but you have a dog for a neighbor, here's a koala, a gorilla, an eagle... and they all talk and wear clothes.

(Of course, if we wanna blow their minds with a game AND we can assume they can play it, why not just go straight to Cyberpunk?)

[-] anugeshtu@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago
[-] nigh7y@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago

That still trips up some people today. That metal monolith that was propped up in the desert a year or two ago comes to mind.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

One of those 3D printed non-round gear toys. They could immediately appreciate both the impressive technology that went into designing and manufacturing it, and that it has no use whatsoever. Which would be a trip.

[-] DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone 11 points 2 months ago
[-] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 8 points 2 months ago

And for generations people will ask “Magnets, how do they fucking work?”

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[-] PrimarilyPrimate@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Leaf blower. They are loud and the "breath" coming from them is pretty awesome.

[-] BigBenis@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago
[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 2 months ago

Robotic animal recreations were actually very popular in the ancient world.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

The mechanical Furk

[-] Diddlydee@feddit.uk 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

One of those pens from bawdy seaside resorts where you press the button on the end and the lady's clothes disappear. Might as well be magic.

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago
[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 2 months ago
[-] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Flushlights.

Yes, toilet illuminators, what of it?

[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months ago

i would give them nuclear weapons

[-] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yeah finish off human race before it begins

[-] PiraHxCx@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A Roman dodecahedron, it fucks with modern people as well.

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[-] TheGuyTM3@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'd just give a LGM-118A Peacekeeper MIRV to the Aztecs and say nothing more. I wonder if they would eventually manage to do something with it.

[-] swab148@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months ago
[-] daggermoon@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

one of those fleshlight vibrators that suck your dick

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[-] Tramort@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

a slot machine and a battery to keep it running

[-] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A bottle with a highly concentrated solution of polonium, radium, plutonium or anything spicy and ionizing.

Preferably coupled with something that glows nicely, like ZnS. Just pick a suitable fluorescent dye and make it blue or green for bonus points.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 2 months ago

I'm reminded of the real-life Brazilian scavengers that found some medical cesium, and decided to do body paint with their kids. :(

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this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
75 points (94.1% liked)

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