How far back in time could you go with your skills?

I'm not even sure I can survive with my skills now.

Baking bread goes back pretty far. Think I'd rather just jump of a cliff, though.

and be a productive member of society

I just write useless software for a useless company. I'm not a productive member of society today, I wouldn't be one at any point in the past. 🤷‍♂️

I can pick things up and put them down, so as long as there’s things that need picked up and put down I’m good.

As a waitress, probably the 1980's.

As a computer scientist / CS teacher, probably the 1960's... without being outed as a time traveler, anyway.

My skills travel pretty far. But with my gender id not be allowed to use them.

I imagine I'd make a not totally incompetent blacksmith, or some other equivalent allied trade. In fact, I'd probably have a better chance at that 300 or so years ago than now.

Yes, I do already have my own anvil. Jury's out on whether or not I feel like lugging it with me, though. The fucker is heavy.

For all of human history, labor has always been a productive skill.

I can do labor in any era.

i could paint some kick ass cave paintings and field dress a deer.

I can learn new things, so any time in human history.

I could be an excellent prostitute, so checkmate motherfuckers.

My computer skills? Not far. My house painting skills? I guess maybe 200 years, but I’m not excited about the prospect of using lead-based paint and wood ladders. As a jazz-trained musician, I guess to the 1940s.

Yeah I can go pretty damn far back. (username)

As a software engineer, I’d struggle with the limitations of ten years ago.

But on the non-work side, I have no problems with maintenance on my house and hand tools haven’t changed much, so at least 80 years

If you placed me at the beginning of the industrial revolution I could from available materials build a working telegraph and telephone system and do pretty well for myself.

Prior to that I could be a pretty good peasant.

Depends on the skillset in question.

On one hand I work with IT/Clusters and robotics for the geophysical exploration sector. 20 years, probably. Beyond that and it gets dubious apart from this one system that actually runs on MS-DOS to this day (because MS-DOS is surprisingly good at realtime stuff if you want it to do something very simple).

On the other hand I do a lot of digital I/O and automation which would probably be very useful in the 60s, maybe even before if I manage to join the pioneers.

On top of that, I grew up on a dairy farm, and learned a lot of that trade from my dad. I can milk a cow by hand, so if that was all I needed to do, I could go back all the way to Mesopotamia.

I don't even got skills for today

I'm a structural engineer. I might not have all the materials needed, but I could probably still design old masonry structures if needed.

I am a carpenter so I could probably go back and get drinks after work with Lu Ban in 5th century BC China.

If I had access to good quality copper, I could invent electricity and do very well for myself.

So long as I can avoid Ur in the 18th century BC, I could go back pretty far.

Gonna blow Galileo's mind with an equatorial telescope mount. Even more so when I attach a clock to it and make it automatically track the sky. I'm skilled enough to construct one, assuming I can communicate with other laborers to have the parts made

As far as general labor skills go though, I could make a living just about any time with agriculture. Unskilled labor is timeless

I'm pretty good at hunting and gathering. Back before my broken neck and back, I was super into wanting to buy some remote place in the Appalachians and pseudo homestead. I have messed with many of the required skills. I wanted a place in the mountains with a year round creek for a water wheel, building a foundry and forge, along with a manual machine shop. I was into what I could do using junk from pick-a-part type junk yards. People often only think of parts for whatever low end car, but if you actually have a fundamental understanding of cars and the various technologies in different applications, a junk yard gives tremendous access to industrial technology for many types of machines and equipment. Junk yards are not setup for that kind of thing either. A little bit of flattery and flirting with a cashier goes a very long way when none of the collection of parts on your cart have legitimate prices on the menu.

Even with my disability now, I could probably survive in the wild by trapping game and some minor gardening if the population was low enough and I was in a decent location compared to where/when I live now in the era of the 50 year mortgage fuckwit dystopia.

I am very good with hair braiding so could probably get work in a rich lady's house I guess. Good with numbers (I work as an accountant) but the past seems so relentlessly sexist not going to try.

ETA: having considered this, maybe the number and letter literacy literacy would be useful in the same position, (though obviously my reading would be limited with the earlier language, I'm sure that would not draw any attention) I think I'd still angle for work as a lady's lady.

I've been doing computer engineering long enough to do the field in the 80s and still live as comfortably as I do now, if not more so.

I also sail, with a license old enough that I have my own sextant and reduction tables. I'd assume those skills transfer hundreds of years back, but I wouldn't like those survivability odds.

As a support engineer for a proprietary SaaS product I would probably be quite limited. But as I also run a LAMP VM and I think that was way more popular as a skill set requirement a little over a decade ago so that could help. Might even get higher pay...

I can dig a hole in the earth so I'd say my skills apply all the way back to Ur and Sumeria.

There is always a need for dumb labor. I may not be good at it.... yet...

I'm a musician, so my skills have always been in demand, although the wages have always been in dispute for as long as there has been music. People love music, they just don't like to pay for it.

At least as far back as keyboard instruments have been around I could be a musician. Ending up further in time, I'd be a composer; the guy that revolutionised polyphony.

'Palestrina, that's really nice. Now check this out'

I think my knowledge of first aid and basic anatomy would be of some use in any pre-modern time period. I know enough to make a positive difference at least (wash that cut, dont drink water from downstream of your encampment, give the sick plenty of fluids, etc)

Beyond that, i'd be behind everyone else. I can fish, forage, garden, cook, start fires, and build shelter, but so could everyone for most of human history. I could probaby keep up with a hunter-gatherer society, but i'd be the least capable among them.

Hmm. Before the end of the 19th century you're going to run into non-standardised/completely bespoke parts problems. How are you on a lathe, or doing blacksmith work? Hot riveting was a separate trade which you wouldn't have to do, at least.

I'm kinda obsessed with what I call technological bootstrapping, and so I have useful book knowledge about every step along the way. Doing it in practice is another thing, though; the locals are going to run circles around me unless I can invent stuff. (And even the scenario rules aside, not starving or being "disturbed" while I work on whatever project is a thing)

So, I think I have to echo the "it's not going great in 2025" answer.

I put all my skill points in computers so I could go back to the 70's maybe. The computers made before the ibm pc still seem close enough to be usable by me.

I could also go to neolithic era as rock-on-stick-skull-crusher

Grew up hunting, growing, and preserving a good percent of my food. I might need to brush up on specifics but i think i could do okay if i had social supports for my disability (food providers usually do/did)

I feel like the further back I go, the better I would do. Send me to 65,000,000 B.C. I'll out caveman all the neaderthals.

Windows 98 SE

I don't have any skills so I don't think I could get really far back.

I'm a chef, so probably back to when fire started to be a thing people used.

I haven't practised it in a long time but my formation was in a horticulture school, I could go pretty far back.

I'll go way back and wow people with mayonnaise.

The day before yesterday with great confidence.

How long has Excel been around?

Italian Renaissance maybe? I can paint pretty good

maybe somewhere in the greek era where I could be a cynic messing around

With my work skills I won’t be particularly useful before the first high level programming languages started coming in the 60s. But I also gained some handiwork knowledge over time so I won’t be a lost cause if someone sends me further back.

Some of the original plastic reactors still run where I work so 1950's is the oldest operational unit and wasn't modernised. No computer. The corpses of the older stuff remain abandoned and in place. Not much different, just much less production rate and smaller.

1940's I suppose.

I'd be fine in any time period where I could still understand English spoken however. I don't care what I do for a living. Can't remember how far back that would be, Rob Words surely has a video about this.

As a kind of generalist (risk analysis-mitigation, engineering and NGOs), I think I could go back some centuries in time as an advisor or leading teams to improve their quality of life.

So on one side, I have a history degree, so I could probably navigate the world quite well up until about 1500 or 1600. I know that sounds relatively recent, but I would know a lot about my local area.

On the other side, I'm a trans woman, and history in my country is not too kind to gender variants, though that is not a monolith, a lot of people have been burnt alive or hung for gender variancy where I am back then.

About as far back as shops went. I work retail, I could work retail in any year I presume

My day job won't go far, but my fire expertise and leatherworking skills will take me pretty far

Yikes. I've moved from IT tech support to MGMT. I don't really write with a pen, and largely rely on emails/teams. I think if we went back any further than the late 80s I'd be totally screwed.

Given a fresh restart, carpenter or blacksmith 1300s probably. Id loathe the lack of food though

1921.. Did people mess up their Model Ts?

All the way back

Weaving, pottery, gardening, spinning. Yea it'd take a while to adjust to the culture and way of life but I could probably go all the way to Sumer if I wanted and language & diseases weren't a problem.

I'm an electrical design engineer but I have a degree in mechanical engineering, so I reckon I'd fit in during the industrial revolution or even the agricultural revolution

Umm, but what if I'm a science teacher? Like, my specialty is history and presentation of science experimentation. The primary limitation is whether I am allowed to bring the tools of my trade (books), which would help me survive in England or Iceland as far back as 900 AD.

If language isn't an issue I could probably work as an engineer in ancient Egypt or a math teacher in ancient Greece

I could possibly be a scribe? I took Latin classes ages ago - and most of the ancient scribes’ work was just copying an existing copy of the Bible.

I’m decent at philosophy but terrible at Ancient Greek so that’s out.

I’m pretty decent at basic/intermediate chemistry but that’s pretty modern. Same with basic life support.

Not very. Once you get past my birth the technology is so different most everything I know outside the basics like reading, writing, and math are useless. I don't know how to program with punch cards in assembly. I might do alright in a chem or biology lab for awhiles. Pipetting would be a bitch though. EDITED - just have to say outside of skills I really would hate living before indoor plumbing was common so regardless I would not be very happy before ww1 and even then I would have to live in a city where it was the norm.

Considering the Aztecs developed hydroponic technology without other advanced technology, I could probably go back to the beginning of humanity with my knowledge, even if I only get to bring one skillset and not the whole of my knowledge. And boy would things change from there!

I'd have to re-remember a lot of stuff I've forgotten, but late 70s, early 80s.

Unless you count "typing" as a marketable skill, then I could probably go back to 1872?

Give me some stone knives and bear skins and I could construct a mnemonic memory circuit. ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F226oWBHvvI

I'm a locksmith so any time since the invention of the pin tumbler lock 150ish years ago I will be fine. I don't prefer it but I can hand file keys without any electric key cutting machines. Before that the bit and barrel locks that were used I know enough to get by though admittedly I don't know enough history to say roughly how long ago those were invented.

I dont know how my skills might translate. But my ex would find work immediately. I mean, being a whore was a living back then. She could suck and fuck cavemen and probably eat well enough. She would probably try to get double teamed by Neanderthals, because filling 1 hole wasnt enough for her.