What happens if you have technology from 100 millennia in the future today? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by LtDan@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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As in, you have what is considered “alien” technology that’s 100,000 years newer than anything invented or available today. By then, most humans around today are deceased before that’s even invented due to it being beyond our own lifetime. First, it would be studied if anything of that sort is available now or an equivalent but nothing comes close. People may ask questions as to how you acquired such advanced tech.

Governments may force you to mass produce that against your will if the demand is high, but again comes with its own issues: the materials it’s produced from are beyond what we already acknowledge (not yet known until later) but, they may just coerce you to extract such materials and resources. The futuristic technology will look nothing that’s depicted in science fiction, since it’s something we don’t even understand yet.

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[-] Libb@piefed.social 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Very roughly speaking, 100.000 years ago our ancestors were using flint stones to hunt and do stuff, that was rightfully so considered peak tech. What would you think our ancestors would do if they suddenly got their hands on, say, a smartphone or a smart doorbell? Or maybe a ballistic missile or, say, a tiny little stent? Even their most cultured people would not know what it is, or how to use it.

So, what would happen if we suddenly got our own hands on a 100.000 years more advanced tech? Probably not much. We may not even be able to realize there is something worth looking at. And the few that may realize there is something there, say out of some intuition or because they're somehow that smart, would probably be considered crazy ;)

[-] qarbone@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

It'd just be a silvery stone. That you're supposed to operate technopathically. Because all humans get a technopathic link when they are gestated.

Or it's a sword made of bronze. Because we're in the Bronze Ages v7 and the dominant species is humanoid bears.

Or there's nothing because a sieve bomb perfectly deleted any manmade product from the planet, reseting it to a primordial state.

We can't even pretend to guess technology from even 1000 years in the future, let alone 100,000 years. This is just a creative writing prompt with basically no constraints or rules.

[-] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 3 weeks ago

We can’t even pretend to guess technology from even 1000 years in the future, let alone 100,000 years. This is just a creative writing prompt with basically no constraints or rules.

100% but we should also consider 'my' (I certainly do not own it in any way) take on the prompt as another valid way to (try to) answer the OP question.

More than likely, we will not even realize we got handed over some tech wonder gizmo thingy... which we will agree doesn't make for a great story. So, we would need either ... to not be who we are (which kinda invalidates the question), or to be offered a much less advanced tech, something we could realize is worth something. Suffice to observe how UFO theories have always been flirting with our very own most advanced tech, barely a couple steps in front of it (some more joyfully wandering around than others, too), while discarding their previous 'advanced' tech/theories the moment our own reached a similar level. Something that, btw, makes for a perfect business model as one can easily write the same book/documentary, over and over again just changing a few words/gizmo/witnesses here and there. Not saying that's what our UFO experts are doing, obviously not.

That being said, I quite like your humanoids bears with their bronze swords :)

this post was submitted on 25 May 2026

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