You find yourself in the cretaceous

[SLD]

You can bring some things with you. No tank. But some small arms, AR -15 or so. Maybe some other things. How would you survive. We’ll make it North America so you have to deal with T. rex.

 

[skepticalbip]

I think the handiest thing to have brought with me would be a time machine like the one that sent me there so I could get the hell out of the Cretaceous.

ETA:
But then survival in the Cretaceous wouldn't likely be much different than trying to survive in the Amazon jungles or in the jungles of Sumatra. That is except for trying to find edible vegetables since anything you could recognize did not yet exist.

 

[Wiploc]

You can bring some things with you. No tank. But some small arms, AR -15 or so. Maybe some other things. How would you survive. We’ll make it North America so you have to deal with T. rex.

Well, I'd take a dentist, obviously.

Otherwise, the wait time to get an
appointment would be intolerable.

And MacGyver. I'd definitely take MacGiyver.

 

[DBT]

Depends on how long you were going to be there. A morning spent as a tourist may only need a day pack of supplies and a big game rifle for protection.

 

[untermensche]

If I go back in time where does all the matter existing then go that at a later time is part of me?

 

[steve_bank]

Before I went back the first thing I would do is learn to run very, very fast.

Would an AR15 really do much damage?

 

[Politesse]

You're going back to the Cretaceous and all you can think of is what gun to bring? We are very different people...

I don't imagine I'd want much beyond my normal survival kip and my Nikon.

 

[DBT]

You're going back to the Cretaceous and all you can think of is what gun to bring? We are very different people...

I don't imagine I'd want much beyond my normal survival kip and my Nikon.

That's fine, but you how long before something sees you as a quick snack?

 

[Politesse]

You're going back to the Cretaceous and all you can think of is what gun to bring? We are very different people...

I don't imagine I'd want much beyond my normal survival kip and my Nikon.

That's fine, but you how long before something sees you as a quick snack?

A noisemaker would not go amiss. But if your plan is to face down a pack of Utahraptors with an AR-15 rifle, I must say I'm a bit dubious about your odds of success anyway. I certainly wouldn't be much benefited, I haven't fired a gun of any kind since I was in college, and my aim was never great. In any case, if the only purpose of this trip back in time is to go hunting, I don't think humans should go back in time to begin with. Haven't we done enough damage in our own millennium without colonizing another one and endangering our own timeline?

Most wild spaces are not as dangerous as people think, or at least not for the reasons people think. Personally, I'd really be more worried about the climate and the microbiome than the macrobiome.

 

[DBT]

You're going back to the Cretaceous and all you can think of is what gun to bring? We are very different people...

I don't imagine I'd want much beyond my normal survival kip and my Nikon.

That's fine, but you how long before something sees you as a quick snack?

A noisemaker would not go amiss. But if your plan is to face down a pack of Utahraptors with an AR-15 rifle, I must say I'm a bit dubious about your odds of success anyway. I certainly wouldn't be much benefited, I haven't fired a gun of any kind since I was in college, and my aim was never great.

It's not necessarily the plan to 'face down anything.' A noisemaker may or may not be effective.

The reason to take a firearm into an environment where you could be attacked and eaten is precautionary, to give you some means of self defense. An AR15 would be quite effective against small predators such as raptors, rapid rate fire, adequate caliber for raptor size animals, but not so good for larger predators.

Most wild spaces are not as dangerous as people think, or at least not for the reasons people think. Personally, I'd really be more worried about the climate and the microbiome than the macrobiome.

Isn't better to take precautions even if the risk is moderate? A camera or noisemaker may not a great help in a life or death situation.

 

[Bomb#20]

How would you survive.

 

[barbos]

You can bring some things with you. No tank. But some small arms, AR -15 or so. Maybe some other things. How would you survive. We’ll make it North America so you have to deal with T. rex.

Can I bring some chickens and pigs, along with viruses and bacteria?

 

[DBT]

If time travel was possible, I guess cross contamination between time periods could be a serious issue.

 

[rjh01]

I think one thing to bring with you is about 100 other people. A group of people can win a fight against almost any animal. And bring dogs too. They are very useful animals.
Not sure that we could find what plants we could eat. Maybe some people need to be plant experts.

 

[Politesse]

Gun nuts always think their firearms are going to make them invincible somehow... I assure you, a lot of the morons who manage to die in polar bear country, lion country, etc, do so clutching expensive death toys in their hands. If anything, firearms have a way of attracting bears these days, they're smart and they know there might be a fresh kill nearby when they hear it. At which point you will need the noise makers and the bear spray anyway.

I still don't see any point in going on this time travel adventure in the first place if killing animals is your only objective while there. You wouldn't be accomplishing much given that they are all, by definition, already dead. But messing around with the population balance of a keystone species of an ancient ecosystem could have drastic and unpredictable effects on the present. A time traveler who doesn't want their own species to suddenly blip out of existence should be trying to minimize, not maximize, their impact on the target landscape.

 

[bigfield]

I've been doing some research on emergency supplies, and I'm pretty sure I could survive a few weeks with a pallet-load of two ply toilet paper.

 

[Treedbear]

A flame thrower might be effective as a dinosaur repellant. Maybe even more so with the higher atmospheric oxygen level. Also I'm thinking roast dinosaur would taste like chicken. Bringing a bag of rice for planting would be a good idea. Actually all kinds of seeds. And some asparagus shoots. Pot, pan, and steamer basket. Fork, knife. First aid stuff, mosquito netting, nail clippers. Small traps. Rope and string. Penicillin. Axe, pick and shovel, bucket. 'Cause living in a hole might be the best long term option.

 

[skepticalbip]

Gun nuts always think their firearms are going to make them invincible somehow...

Baseless ad hom assertion.

I assure you, a lot of the morons who manage to die in polar bear country, lion country, etc, do so clutching expensive death toys in their hands.

You got any hard data on that or was it just an assertion?? There are people who were in those areas that survived because they did have guns for protection.

If anything, firearms have a way of attracting bears these days, they're smart and they know there might be a fresh kill nearby when they hear it.

WTF? Who the hell told you such a thing, or did it just pop into your head?

I still don't see any point in going on this time travel adventure in the first place if killing animals is your only objective while there.

Strawman.... I have seen no one in this thread other than you that has suggested it was a hunting safari. I see a suggestion that any weapon would be for protection if being attacked by a predictor.


So much for the derail. Back to survival during the Cretaceous...

I still think bringing a time machine to get back to when there was fast food stores would be damned handy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Gun nuts always think their firearms are going to make them invincible somehow... I assure you, a lot of the morons who manage to die in polar bear country, lion country, etc, do so clutching expensive death toys in their hands. If anything, firearms have a way of attracting bears these days, they're smart and they know there might be a fresh kill nearby when they hear it. At which point you will need the noise makers and the bear spray anyway.

I still don't see any point in going on this time travel adventure in the first place if killing animals is your only objective while there. You wouldn't be accomplishing much given that they are all, by definition, already dead. But messing around with the population balance of a keystone species of an ancient ecosystem could have drastic and unpredictable effects on the present. A time traveler who doesn't want their own species to suddenly blip out of existence should be trying to minimize, not maximize, their impact on the target landscape.

I don't see anyone suggesting it as a hunting trip.

The issue is that there are multiple animals back there that would regard us as prey.

In modern times animals that interact with humans have generally learned not to regard us as prey--the only thing that will readily try to eat a human is a polar bear. Note how little contact polar bears have with humanity, there hasn't been time to evolve a pattern of not eating humans.

Nothing in the cretaceous will have this fear of humans, we will be evaluated only on our size--and that makes us prey to multiple carnivores. We can't run well, if you run into one of those animals and aren't armed you're lunch.

 

[skepticalbip]

I don't see anyone suggesting it as a hunting trip.

The issue is that there are multiple animals back there that would regard us as prey.

In modern times animals that interact with humans have generally learned not to regard us as prey--the only thing that will readily try to eat a human is a polar bear. Note how little contact polar bears have with humanity, there hasn't been time to evolve a pattern of not eating humans.

Nothing in the cretaceous will have this fear of humans, we will be evaluated only on our size--and that makes us prey to multiple carnivores. We can't run well, if you run into one of those animals and aren't armed you're lunch.

All good stuff.

Except there are several predators that will kill and eat a human as a 'target of opportunity'... most of the big cats will. The polar bear is one of the few that will actually stalk humans. Tigers also stalk humans. There are about twenty people per year that are taken by tigers just in the Sundarbans of India and Bangladesh.