Middle Ages Survival Tips

As Jeff Atwood mentioned the other day at Coding Horror often the most amazing writing on his blog “begins where the blog post ends” and the comments begin. Here is another example of this in spades. Tyler Cowen asked his readers:

I wanted to ask for survival tips in case I am unexpectedly transported to a random location in Europe (say for instance current France/Benelux/Germany) in the year 1000 AD (plus or minus 200 years). I assume that such transportation would leave me with what I am wearing, what I know, and nothing else. Any advice would help.

He got a number of thoughtful and funny responses, like this one:

Find someone who will take care of you for a few days or weeks and then look for employment in the local church. Your marginal product is quite low, even once you have learned the local language. You might think that knowing economics, or perhaps quantum mechanics, will do you some good but in reality people won’t even think your jokes are funny. Even if you can prove Euler’s Theorem from memory no one will understand your notation. I hope you have a strong back and an up to date smallpox vaccination.

You got to love the Intertubes.

[Found via Kottke]