I’m currently in college to go into GIS (Geographic Information Systems/Science) and lemme tell ya if I think more people in 1700 would understand “cartographer” than they would today.
You are correct. People these days are idjits.
Not even really that but people tend to think that others have just outright stopped making maps. “Haven’t we made all the maps already?” Is a common response I get when I tell them. They seem to forget about data analysis and all that.
And, well… They’re not super wrong about how mapped earth is. They just misjudge the sheer, enormous amount of detail we need (which keeps growing with our ability to get more of it), along with the fact that sometimes it changes a bit.
“Haven’t we mapped everything already?” is a bit like saying “Haven’t we born everyone already?”.
GIS also is far more complex than what is visible in a single map. An example for this are the capabilities of satellites observing the earth, IIRC very few to none of them are mere security cameras - most of them have quite interesting spectra to observe green house gas emissions or vegetation (ie. land use changes) for example. GIS can then use this data and gather hidden information, sometimes over large spatial dimensions.
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I’d avoid magic on that one, since modern ideas about how magic works are pretty influenced by technology now. I suspect this would be gibberish to them.
How about “we have machines so complicated that it’s hard to set them, and my job is to try to change the settings on them and usually fail”?
Not sure if the concept of “settings” would be something they can relate to.
I was wondering about that too. I think they had adjustable tools in common use, but I could be wrong. They might have also used a different word when changing the depth “setting” of their horse-drawn plow, although “to set” has got to be a pretty old verb.
We got this sand and tought it to do math. I give the math sand very specific instructions to do a task. There are many people like me, and a good chunk of them are giving the sand instructions to show silly cat pictures.
I’d go by ‘mechanical devices’, there were hardly any machines in our understanding back then.
Well, they did have clocks, even some early portable ones, and “automata” which were a bit like modern animatronics. Power applications like mills, too. I don’t know what word would work best, though.
I’m guessing they’d picture OP running around a giant room filled with clockwork, going at things with a pry bar and wedges. That is a bit like how computers worked in their first decade, albeit electrically rather than mechanically. Later in the 18th century they invented the punchcard loom, so that would be a good point of reference, but we’re all the way back in 1700.
Worth noting that the 1700s are, in fact, the 18th century. The first century was the years from 1-100, the second century from 101-200, etc.
But, yes. It was invented later in the 18th century than our audience came from.
Also a good point. It’s dumb that we’ve zero-indexed centuries and then given them one-indexed names, but that is the standard.
Well, it’s just how math and numbers in English work.
Cardinal numbers, the number of things you have, start with zero because you can have none of something (or less with negatives, but that’s neither here nor there).
Original numbers, Numbers that show which things were in what order (first, second, etc) start at one, because you can’t really have a zeroth something because then it would really be the first one.
So year 1 is 1 because it’s the first year, and it starts the first century. It would have been entirely possible for English to make the names a little nicer, but given that it isn’t, the math means the first set of one hundred years are the years before the one-hundredth year and cetera.
I mean, zeroth would still be zeroth; it’s just based on the cardinal the moment before it arrived rather than after, assuming you start with nothing and add objects. Unfortunately that’s not conventional, probably in any language, and so you get a situation where a positional notation clashes with how we want to talk about the larger divisions of it casually. This sort of thing is exactly why computer science does use zero indexing.
Relatedly, there was also no year 0; it goes straight from 1 BC to 1 AD.
Yeah, something like “We have machines with thousands of switches that can do complicated things depending on how you set the switches. My job is flipping those switches so the machine performs the desired task as best as possible”…?
“what is this ‘switch’ of which thou speakest?”
A lever that influenced the workings of the machine, sir.
Even better: “our clocks in the future are very complex and it’s my job to keep them working”.
That’s the point they burn you at the stake for being a witch.
Well, if they weigh the same as a duck
Folks in 1700 understood what an engineer was. I’d just tell them I design really complicated looms.
Can you get it to draw bewbs? Asking for a friend
They’d understand perfectly. When my employers buy something, it’s my job to check that it arrives in good order and matches what we asked for, and then arrange for the sender to be paid.
Sometimes the thing is a piece of equipment for transmitting real-time video of tumours from one part of the country to another, but I don’t think we need to go into that.
I design and quote Wi-Fi solutions for the hospitality industry, so probably not. I have a rough enough time describing it to my grandmother…
Hmm… Do you work for a company named after the end of a performance
Encore? No, but I know what you’re talking about 😅
I’m somewhere between a scribe and a millwright, only I’m not copying manuscripts and the machines I maintain don’t have anything to do with grain. Instead, they’re simple but very fast mathmatical machines built by the moneychangers to account for every penny that moves.
I take food from the baker and carry it to people’s homes directly in exchange for custom. We call it “being a delivery girl”. The amazing part is what the baker makes, it’s called “pizza”
That’s a challenge.
The job I do didn’t exist when I was in high school, and most of the technology it was built on didn’t exist until the early 1900s.
I suppose I could just call myself a general repairman and leave it at that.
“I make money by typing things in modern typewriter.”
Fuck no, I work in AI automation for computer processes.
So you teach rocks to use lightning to think
No, that’s the chip fabs. That guy just tells the rocks what to think
Sounds like witchcraft to me. Might wanna just say you’re a scholar instead lol.
I tell employers how to prevent their workers from getting killed, and of they don’t listen, I tell the government to make sure the employer can’t work like that.
And most of the workers find me annoying for it.
HR?
Ouch. No, workplace safety
sorry, it was a bit low. Have a good day, safety man!
You absolutely do not have to answer. But do you work for OSHA?
I do workplace safety, just not in the US. So, kind of.
This is actually one of the things that would confuse a 1700 person the most. Why would the government care about the lives of workers?
I am an expert in crops. I have traveled the globe to learn about them. I have created new varieties to plant. Landowners around the globe seek me out for knowledge and seeds.
Weed farmer
Weed guys can’t pay me enough. 😉
That actually is a timeless career. Kudos to you for tracing the footsteps of our founders
I build buildings
why then, are they not called builts when you finish building them?
Why do you of out eat the oven in hot of the food?
is that an AI hallucinating? Hi Gemini!
Close but no banana
Jim Davis really has run out of material, even in 2013
Sorry I construct structures.
If it’s not a one line reply with a designation and a linkedin description, but a conversation over drinks, they’d get everything we explain to them. I presume it’s a smart person. There are many people in today’s time who won’t get it in a one liner.
I don’t doubt that you’d be able to explain it to them, I was just wondering how you’d go about doing it.
