Rome? Why Rome? I arrive in China, attempt to ingratiate myself with the Han court. (I would be a white man, but would have full knowledge of Chinese and be an immaculate Confucian scholar. Hopefully that would be enough to get me close to the Imperial court, if just as an oddity.)
Somewhere in AD 2-5, the Yellow River changes course, causing massive suffering and discontent. I will have been predicting this since my arrival, as well as working tirelessly to reduce the damage done when things change. (Probably also betting heavily that it will happen.)
A major plot goes down in AD 3- the regent's son plots against the regent, with the regent winning. Ideally, I can use my foreknowledge of that plot to get a position of influence.
(If I can get there a year or two earlier, it's plausible that I could, by foreknowledge of astronomical and meteorological events, inventions, and knowledge of Confucianism, position myself to be the regent rather than Wang Mang.)
Once power is secured, economic and military technology is next. Rather than Wang Mang's unhelpful reforms, use the best of modern science to push forward the economy in every direction. Create an institute of naval architecture, an...
Let Me Take That Off Your Hands: Arrive in Rhodes. Future emperor Tiberius is there, fleeing his destiny and trying to live a normal life. Tell him that you're a time traveler from the future, and prove it with detailed prophecies of the next few years, including the fact that Caesar's heirs are about to die, leaving him sole heir to the throne. Warn him that when he eventually becomes emperor, he'll be miserable and unpopular, in part because it was clear that he never wanted the job. Persuade him that you're much better qualified, due to your advanced knowledge and ethics. Suggest that, when he's eventually begged to return to Rome, he do so on the condition that he be allowed to name you his heir. Spend the next decade ensconced in Rhodes, avoiding the butterfly effect, reinventing future technology, and translating The Lord of the Rings into Latin. When Tiberius is asked to become emperor, he invites you to join him as his chief advisor. For a few years, you prove your mettle and win popular support with your technology and literature. Tiberius then retires to Rhodes, leaving you in charge as regent. Nobody wants to assassinate you since that would just force Tiberius to come back. When Tiberius dies, you become the emperor in title as you have long been in fact.
Tell him that you're a time traveler from the future, and prove it with detailed prophecies of the next few years, including the fact that Caesar's heirs are about to die, leaving him sole heir to the throne.
While this plan would work in the scenario as specified by Yvain, we should probably disallow these kinds of solutions. We are trying to simulate a situation where a transhuman AI emerges in our own world; and, unlike Yvain's time traveler, such an AI would not have any foreknowledge of the future... Unless, of course, it becomes an oracle of some sort.
Step 1: Purchase a plantation in the Spanish province (A traditional harvesting grounds for recruiting of soldiers. Few citizens, mostly considered 'backwater' at the time.)
Step 2: Introduce the horse-collar, the plow, 'terra preta' (tilling of charcoal), fertilizer (easiest in this case: baked pig manure), insecticide, pennicillin, and wind-mill-powered pumped irrigation. These things together will result in massive harvests at low costs. They will also ensure that my peasants' children don't die, and are well-fed. My wealth will after one or two years of this expand massively. The absence of disease will also enable me to convince the local population that I am favored of the gods.
Step 3a: Utilize newfound wealth and the introduction of the pulley, the A-Frame, and the leaf-spring to build a fleet of Conastoga wagons for transport of crops and local goods at faster rates than anyone else could accomplish. Additionally introduce the water screw and associate it with the aeolipile (already-existing but unutilized historically) for water transport. Introduce distilling for alcohol (another trade good) and also for methalization of olive oil for biodiesel for fuel for simp
Upvoted for detail and thoroughness, but I think you're depending too much on the naivete of the natives. Step 3b is especially problematic; even if your guards are too loyal to sell you out (why?), you can't conceal that you're doing something in secret with a pack of metalsmiths. Just the fact that it's a secret will be enough to get the provincial governor's attention. That's probably not the end: he may well be an incompetent ditherer, or venal enough to take bribes. But as soon as you start training your infantry, the clock starts: the emperor sends an envoy ordering you to turn over your new weapons, you refuse, you're ordered to appear before a Roman court, you refuse, you're declared to be in rebellion, and it's on.
I think your one-year gamble is probably the better strategy for becoming emperor - maybe the best one, or close to it. Certainly the fastest. Surviving the next year would be tricky, though.
I really like your plan from the technological point of view, but I think that it has some flaws in the sociopolitical department.
Right off the bat, you propose buying a plantation, but those things are pretty expensive. Where will you get the money ?
The core of your plan is to develop, and maintain a monopoly on, technological superiority: in agriculture, construction, and warfare. Unfortunately, your technological advances must be incremental, by necessity -- you can't go from zero to digital computers, nor are you trying to do so. But this means that your technologies will be comprehensible to a well-educated Roman. This practically ensures that your competitive advantage will be stolen by your rivals very quickly. You avoid gunpowder for this very reason, but is it really that much harder to steal pulleys ?
You attempt to get around this with your death-watch guards, but who death-watches the death-watchers ? If I told one of your guards, "nine out of ten gods agree, you should allow me to sneak in one of my smiths to talk to one of your smiths, and BTW here's a purse containing MXXIV gold pieces with your name on it", what motivates the guard to refuse ? And what abo...
Do I get points if I seduce an emperor and control him as my puppet or do I have to become acknowledged Empress Regnant?
Second-order problem: You are to be thrown back in time, as Yvain stipulates, along with everyone else who has already posted a plan in this thread. The winner is the one who becomes emperor first. (My bet is on Alicorn.)
Interesting stuff: but I'm going to throw in a few disappointments on technological triumphs, and propose a peaceful takeover by affordable glazed pottery.
Firstly, the printing press: movable type is a great idea but you also need paper. And you'll need the 'killer app' - or rather, the book with a massive pre-existing demand. In 1 AD, that's not the Bible! If you got the authorities interested in the promulgation of official edicts and shool texts, you might be able to scale up the business to kickstart a commercial printing economy - but scaling-up is not the same as starting up, and you'd need a lot of capital just to demonstrate the technology to skeptical officials.
Without official patronage, getting the paper-and-printing economy started will need more capital than you've been given: you'd need a runaway success in some other small startup business or the patronage of someone with a medium-to-large country estate.
Maybe the 'mysterious healing' of some aristocrat's favourite slave and a religious conversion isn't such a bad starting point, after all. It's no less plausible as a way of gaining access to resources to start building a technological power-base.
A guns-and-steel rou...
Fun game!
I would go the Joseph Smith x Christianity route:
I would first spend a bit of time familiarizing myself with the politics and religion of Rome (what gaps do I have in my modern knowledge?).
I would write a holy text claiming to be a divine revelation; it would be written on large tablets of aluminum (aluminum synthesis should be possible, and it is a plausible "unearthly material"; if my awesome knowledge makes it possible to make a metal that would be slightly more impressive or easier to make than aluminum, good). The front face would be readable etchings, but the back face would be usable for printing, so with a simple enough apparatus copies of the text could be easily created.
The text itself would be written in poetic Latin, claiming to be a revelation from a politically acceptable and "plausible" divinity, and saying nice things about the established Roman clergy (the goal isn't to turn them against me), claiming that I am a special seer sent by the Gods. The text would also contain exhortations in various languages (in their own scripts) exhorting Hebrews, Persians, etc. to bow down before the might of the Romain Empire, it's Law, and it's Gods, p...
Imperial Rome was in general extremely tolerant of new religions, of which there were many new mystery cults - as long as they accepted a few ground rules vis-a-vis politics, and even those ground rules were negotiable. For example, the Jews were allowed to break all sorts of rules like not sacrificing to the emperors or ejecting legion standards from the Temple. As far as we can tell given the sources available (which likely skew pro-Roman), the Jewish revolts were not really the Romans' fault.
I hope you have an expensive gold wedding band but otherwise start off by keeping your mouth shut. 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.
I propose a slightly altered scenario, which is (IMO) more suitable for simulating an AI:
About you:
About the setting:
I think we tend to underestimate the extent to which technologies arise out of the times they are found in - in many cases they arise almost as soon as they are practically possible. In many cases I suspect they arise before they are practically possible, and fail, repeatedly, until surrounding technology advances to the point that it's possible to make them work. Steam engines, for example, weren't invented until the 1700's because metals were so bad at the time that pressure vessels were impossible to make safe - early cannon were extremely hazardous for this reason, and operated at low pressures. Early steam engines also couldn't afford large amounts of metal, and were largely made of wood - a highly unsuitable material, and tended to use vacuum rather than pressure to work, as this kept the cylinders in compression, which was safer. They were consequently immensely inefficient, making a horse much more practical unless you happen to have lots of coal lying around.
Without any of the modern suppliers that we are all used to, it will be surprisingly hard to do much better than the Romans themselves did.
On IRC, papermachine mentioned incredulity that horse collars took so long to be invented - a millennia or two to not choke your horses? I commented this had always struck me as pretty bizarre too, and I had long wondered whether there was some unmentioned factor at play (suggesting that either wooden plows didn't put enough weight to choke horses or that the choking only happened after horses were substantially enlarged after centuries of breeding).
He went looking on Wikipedia and indeed found subleties not usually mentioned:
While Lefebvre's experiments clearly demonstrated that the throat and girth design he used rode up on horses and cut off their air, images from ancient art and partial yokes found by archaeologists suggested that with proper placement and the addition of a stiff partial yoke, the breastcollar remained on the chest, and wind was not in fact cut off while pulling.[30][31] Further studies conducted in 1977 by Spruytte and Littauer, followed up by Georges Raepsaet, with more accurately reconstructed ancient designs suggested that horses with ancient harness designs could pull nearly as much as with the more modern horse collar.[32] The primary benefit to the use of the modern horse collar, it is argued, was that it allowed a lower point of attachment and in doing so the increased usability of horses for ploughing.[33]
I think that in general, the thread is underestimating the importance of tribal politics. In particular, you're not going to be appointed emperor unless you can make a compelling case that you're a Roman citizen (a bastard, presumably, since there aren't any records). If you're too black or too blonde or too female to pull that off, you're going to have to win by conquest (see below) or play power-behind-the-throne.
Assuming you have the right looks, I think you want to slow-play it: build up a fortune in business, get adopted by one of the elite families (not the Julians!), marry into another of the elite families (still not the Julians), and transition into a career of able public service. A generalship would be ideal, if you can swing it. At that point I see two options:
A fun thought experiment but I think many are over thinking it. Penicillin alone should be enough to make you the richest person in rome with much influence. From there you'll have quite a few options that don't bear premature optimization for.
modern humans don't have much greater raw intelligence than the Romans,
The Flynn Effect might make this statement false.
The diseases I carry but have immunity to might soon leave me as the only living person in the Empire. Ignoring this:
Demonstrate my knowledge of mathematics to win fame. Demonstrate my superior medical skills to become the Emperor's personal doctor. Further prove my value to the emperor by pointing out locations of underground gold and silver that can be mined. Get the emperor hooked on the most addictive drug I know of. Go on a v...
A friend of mine says that most of the emperors and generals were already addicted to some pretty serious drugs.
You know all human knowledge as of 2012.
My existence obviously invalidates some of my knowledge of how the history of Rome played out, but the broad political strokes remain similar. After fifteen years of backing the winning side in nearly every conflict I should have a phenomenal powerbase; a coup is almost a formality at this point.
After backing the winning side once or twice, things change, and your knowledge of specific details of history will become less and less valuable.
Augustus would quickly capture you if you produced black powder. Tiberius would torture you for the formula and then kill you and nearly everyone who he suspected you might have given the formula to.
See:
In the reign of the emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) a Roman glassmaker demonstrated a remarkable new glass at the imperial court. Unlike ordinary glass, it did not break: it must have seemed almost supernatural. The event was recorded by contemporary writers Pliny and Petronius. They called his glass vitrum flexile (flexible glass). The craftsman displayed a beautiful transparent vase to the emperor and then dashed it to the ground. According to the story, it dented but did not break. Tiberius asked if the glassmaker had told the secret of unbreakable glass to anyone else. When the answer was in the negative, the emperor had the unknown genius put to death and his workshop destroyed fearing that the new material would reduce the value of his imperial gold and silver.
L. Sprague de Camp wrote Lest Darkness Fall, in which a historian took over Rome a few centuries after this. Taking over wasn't his main priority, but rather ensuring that the dark ages got skipped. I'm not going to ROT13 the spoilers because similar ideas are going to be presented here.
Basic strategy was, 'invent' distilled liquor and base 10 arithmetic to gather capital. Use this to produce the printing press and the semaphore. By this point, he was influential, and used his foreknowledge of history to prevent a royal assassination and gain favor with th...
If you like, play with these additional constraints:
1) Your goal is to be maximally calamitous from the perspective of first century humanity's CEV.
2) You can't kill people with disease.
You are intellectually near-perfect.
You could also throw in the Eidetic Memory and Human Calculator perks, in order to simulate an AI with a little more fidelity.
For extra credit, toss out knowledge of specific future events that some solutions are relying on!
What is the most recent time period in which one could be transported to (with full 2012 knowledge), and still have a high chance of taking over the world, or at least a powerful country or nation-state?
I think that given all the powers that are provided, you could take over the world now. Admittedly, most of that power is provided by the immunity to akrasia.
Technology is one part of the victory. The other part is working with people, because you can't take over the world alone (unless you are able to build an invincible battle robot, but first you need to get there). You need strategic skills, business skills, psychology skills, and cult-leadership skills, because you essentially face two types of risks -- one is the risk that your technological and military strategy fails (just like when you would lose in a strategic computer game), other is the risk that generally everything will go successully, until in so...
Fun! I'll post a serious answer when I've more time; for now, some off-the-top observations:
Arrive somewhere with good horses and poor leadership on the edge of the Roman Empire, implement Mongolian horsemanship/mobility/unit-tactics, most of which should be possible with the current day's technology in a horsemanship culture -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_military_tactics_and_organization
Consolidate/build up for a couple decades, then lead an invasion against Rome sometime during one of the low points of Tiberius's reign (between AD 14 to and AD 37) -
Much of Rome's military strength came from it being much better organized then its neighbors and its army having better discipline and courage than its competitors. Your plan wouldn't counter these key advantages.
Plus, even with superior military tech you almost certainly would not be able to convince even a few barbarians to accept your leadership or probably even advice.
Arrive somewhere with good horses and poor leadership on the edge of the Roman Empire, implement Mongolian horsemanship/mobility/unit-tactics, most of which should be possible with the current day's technology in a horsemanship culture -
Is that true? Edward Luttwak in his book on Byzantine strategy remarks that the Mongol's reflex bows were very complex to make and hard to master - the Byzantine cataphracts had to constantly train just to keep their horse archery up to snuff.
It's not an identical scenario, but the obvious book on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lest_Darkness_Fall
If you are getting into a military conflict, the introduction of stirrups would give your cavalry forces a serious edge. I think the most difficult part of this problem is getting an initial powerbase though, once you have that you can implement all of your future tech ideas and go crazy on Rome, but before that you're just a sitting duck.
I'm fairly certain that knowledge of modern engineering, medicine, weaponry, etc, would make it trivial to defeat the Romans, provided you had enough to people helping you. The hard part is figuring out how to gain control of people and I think there's very little we know now that would help. Probably the best bet would be to arrive somewhere there's relatively easy access to gold (provided this doesn't violate your first rule) and simply pay for workers and mercenaries. As it became obvious that you know what you're doing, I think they'd become more liable to follow you too. But even then I think the odds are not great that you could get enough people involved.
General notes, before I actually propose a solution:
Pretty much such a de facto takeover of Egypt (relying on an equivalent of knowledge of the future) is portrayed in the biblical story of Joseph. But it required some improbable events, so no cigar.
I'd appear somewhere that doesn't make a big deal about citizenship, and start a business. I'd find something that doesn't require too much technological capital, like building a printing press, or producing steel. I would take care to have good PR. As I get more money, I'd spend large amounts on R&D to build technology I don't remember or completely understand. After I get a large enough industrial empire, I would sponsor a revolution in some country, and become their leader. Thanks to my advanced technology, it would quickly become a powerful country...
I know plenty of smart people, and I'm intelligent as well. I'd like to believe I'd gain power by cult-godhood, seduction, etc, but I can't see my smart friends succeeding at a high rate in my mental model of how they would behave. That makes me reluctant to believe that I would have any better chance. Some of the comments sound cocky, and require much too many things to go right. If we were properly pessimistic...
That being said, a 21st century timetraveler has a significantly greater chance of winning than an average Roman, just not a good one.
The large number of responses to this post provides a bit of support to the simulation hypothesis.
Some of these plans have made me a little suspicious about Rasputin, who showed up out of nowhere with mysterious medical abilities and used them to take over a great empire.
Assuming my diseases don't automatically kill everyone I come in contact with:
How would you take over Rome?
Sounds dangerous. Having extreme levels of power seems to be a good way to get myself killed. Pretty soon I'd find myself telling my best mates "Et tu Justin" and suchlike!
A recent discussion post has compared the difficulty of an AI destroying modern human civilization to that of a modern human taking over the Roman Empire, with the implication that it is impossible.
The analogy has a few problems: first, modern humans don't have much greater raw intelligence than the Romans, only a bit more knowledge and tools; an AI would have a genuine intelligence advantage. Second, a high-tech civilization like ours offers many more ways for a genius to cause chaos than existed in classical Rome: it's more plausible that you can throw a few existing technologies together to create a superweapon than that Ptolemy could have done likewise, and there's no ancient Roman equivalent to hacking a nuclear launch system.
But taking over ancient Rome might serve as an interesting upper bound on the difficulty of an AI taking over modern civilization. And it's a theme of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality that rationalists should be able to come up with creative solutions to seemingly hard problems. So if Professor Quirrell offered it as an extra credit assignment, how would you take over Rome?
Here are the rules:
- You are thrown back in time to the year 1 AD. You can choose to arrive anywhere in the world, but your method of arrival cannot itself give an advantage (you can't appear in a flash of light in the middle of a religious ritual or anything).
- You do not start with Roman citizenship or any other legal record of your existence.
- You keep your original physical characteristics, including sex, height, and fitness. You will appear in period-appropriate dress of your choosing, and can't carry any artifacts with you. You may start with enough money to live a patrician lifestyle for a year.
- You are intellectually near-perfect. You know all human knowledge as of 2012. You speak fluent Latin (and all other languages of the day) and can orate as eloquently as Cicero or Demosthenes. You are a tactical genius of the order of Caesar and Napoleon. And you have infinite willpower and goal-directedness: aside from human necessities like sleep or food, you need never rest.
- You win if you either become Roman Emperor (and are acknowledged as such by most Romans), or if a state you control conquers the city of Rome. You lose if you die, of old age or otherwise, before completing either goal.