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.
Meth
Give them a 1/2 meter cube of stuff. Tell them its a device that summons god. Only true believers can do the ritual, heretics will die.
I pretend to pray, my partner flies in with the FG 204, 2nd Edition Ver. 2.31, I leave.
Its just a block of plutonium. Trollolol
(Sorry, my evil alter ego took control, I wouldn’t actually do that, that’s so fucking chaotic evil)
Go to that greek dude who invented the steam engine and give him the idea to make a train
Humanity - civilised Greeks or not - didn’t have the metallurgical knowledge to be able to build locomotives and rails out of strong enough materials yet. Ancient Greece basically coincides with the Bronze age.
You’d have to not only bring (knowledge of) steam locomotive tech, but also every single bit of iron tech required to build one. You could skip the requirement for rails by opting for a steam traction engine, not a full locomotive, but those are far closer together in technological ability.
None of this factors in the propensity for steam boilers to explode, which you may or may not consider important.
There’s a reason we were still using beasts of burden (horses, oxen, etc.) for traction until the 19th century.
A copy of Windows Vista
To fuck with? Contraceptives, obviously!
rip
Nuclear bombs
Kite & surfboard plus the appropriate colorful dress.
I’d show them once how it is done, then watch whatever happens.
If we’re including eras where people are able to read and write, a history book. They will see their future and will attempt to change it, for better or for worse.
Steam engines, clockwork and balloons. Hopefully they turn into a steampunk society.
aluminum bars, they won’t be able to work it into things like with iron. even if they do, they can’t make more
Furbies. Just to see if we end up with a furby based religion.
Cool Ranch Doritos
If it’s a civilization that hasn’t yet had a writing system, a writing system.
However, I will teach them a (semi-)featural alphabet, kinda like if the Hangeul jamo were its own alphabet. It’d be fun how long the orthography will diverge from the spoken sounds, and how fossilized the orthography can be–and more interestingly, how they might evolve the writing system.
If it’s a civilization that already is using a writing system, emojis that they can use alongside their writing system. It’d be interesting to see if they’d eventually turn into ideograms for human feelings and thoughts.
Let’s give some ancient peoples a couple books on modern maths and calculus. Really fuck with the development of tech.
Fuck yeah, just give the ancient Greeks hindu-arabic numerals and watch them lose their minds. Teach Zeno calculus and watch him try to prove it wrong.
Pretty sure the greeks knew about the hindu number system, they were neighbours for centuries. They just thought zero was of the devil and geometry was better that algebra and never adopted it.
A polaroid camera so they can steal each other’s soul
