sillygoose
Well-known member
Might have also been the mass exodus of people to the west or just the extra spending the west was doing in the east.
Alternate History Ideas and Discussion
- Thread starter AndrewJTalon
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And there's your real answer. For Russian life expectancy to match Western European life expectancy Communism must collapse because that's what it took to bring East German life expectancy into line with West German life expectancy.
And how exactly does one make Communism collapse earlier?
Also, question: What would a surviving Tsarist Russia's attitude towards LGBTQ+ rights have been? I suspect that it would have been similar to Greece since Greece, like Russia, is located outside of the Hajnal Line but also (unlike Russia) actually managed to avoid decades of Communist rule:
Greeks are much less LGBTQ+philic than Western European countries are, apparently.
There would be none. The LGBTQ+ movement is almost entirely the product of Soviet cultural subversion as described by KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov.
Some of it may be artificial hormones in food and artificial estrogen analogues in plastics, but without cultural subversion those get treated as health issues to be treated instead of a minority to be coddled.
You think that Stonewall, et cetera was financed by the Soviet Union?
@raharris1973 Here's a fun AHC:
'AHC: Have the US go to war against even more revanchist regimes than it did in real life'
In real life, the US waged war against these revanchist regimes:
-Nazi Germany during World War II
-Hungary during World War II
-North Korea during the Korean War
-North Vietnam during the Vietnam War
-Iraq during the Gulf War (Kuwait was a part of the same Ottoman province that Basra belonged to, IIRC)
-Serbia/Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav Wars
-(Indirectly/by proxy) Russia during the current Russo-Ukrainian War
An extremely realistic future example of this would, of course, having the US fight China over Taiwan. That said, though, which additional realistic examples of this could there have been?
'AHC: Have the US go to war against even more revanchist regimes than it did in real life'
In real life, the US waged war against these revanchist regimes:
-Nazi Germany during World War II
-Hungary during World War II
-North Korea during the Korean War
-North Vietnam during the Vietnam War
-Iraq during the Gulf War (Kuwait was a part of the same Ottoman province that Basra belonged to, IIRC)
-Serbia/Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav Wars
-(Indirectly/by proxy) Russia during the current Russo-Ukrainian War
An extremely realistic future example of this would, of course, having the US fight China over Taiwan. That said, though, which additional realistic examples of this could there have been?
Stonewall was financed by the Mafia and it made a profit for them. The "news media" personages who made the decisions that made it blow up and become national news sympathetic to the Mafia supporters are where you should look for Soviet influence. Every push beyond overturning sodomy laws is absolutely directed by the Soviet Union, ideologically driven orphaned agents in the interval between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Deng thaw in the PRC, or the PRC. And the sexual education that made a demand for places like Stonewall was developed by Georg Lukacs, Minister of Culture for the Hungarian Soviet Republic as a tool for disrupting religious morality that got in the way of total state control over society.
If you think Lukacs literal fuckery as filtered through Gramsci coming up at the peak of the Cold War wasn't directed by the Soviet Union or "independent" socialists dancing to their tune I have a bridge to sell you over Valles Marineris.
The extra spending in the east was very likely associated with economic improvements in the east, hence my point above.
BTW, do you think that Nappy III could have gotten away with a French purchase of Luxembourg if it was done during the Austro-Prussian War rather than after it?
TheRomanSlayer
Unipolarists are the New Subhumans
"PC: Have the area of what is now the Philippines become an extension of Indochina"
I'm surprised that OTL Philippines had been the center of various Indianized and Sinicized statelets, but the melding of those two kinds of cultures had never taken root because we were colonized by Spain. I could only see OTL Philippines becoming a cultural extension of the wider Indochinese sphere of influence. Most realistically, the dominant Indochinese culture that would be dominant in ATL Philippines would be Vietnamese, although Khmer might also be a potential dominant culture there too.
I'm surprised that OTL Philippines had been the center of various Indianized and Sinicized statelets, but the melding of those two kinds of cultures had never taken root because we were colonized by Spain. I could only see OTL Philippines becoming a cultural extension of the wider Indochinese sphere of influence. Most realistically, the dominant Indochinese culture that would be dominant in ATL Philippines would be Vietnamese, although Khmer might also be a potential dominant culture there too.
Have Indochinese refugees from Communism be settled in the Philippines en masse instead of in the West? Maybe if the West remains much more xenophobic, including towards Asians?
TheRomanSlayer
Unipolarists are the New Subhumans
I was thinking more of a PoD around the Middle Ages or Early Modern Era, when Vietnam was a monarchy.
Oh. Well, unfortunately, I've got nothing there.
BTW, what do you think about this thread?
Demographic reversals
Which cases have there been where a country's or territory's demographics significantly changed only to eventually return to what they previously were? Off the top of my head, I can think of: -German settlement in Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages (Ostsiedlung) and beyond, only to see this...
historum.com
Any alternate history examples to go along with this?
Circle of Willis
Well-known member
I think a wet paper bag with (D) sloppily written on it could've won the 2008 thanks to the Great Recession, the unpopularity of the Iraq War and Bush sinking to an (IIRC) 25% approval rating by November. However Clinton had much more baggage than Obama and is much more unpopular, so her 2008 victory might be less overwhelming than Obama's (she can play the woman card, but as someone who's been a known political quantity on a national scale since the '90s, it would be a lot harder for her to portray herself as the candidate of Change™ than Obama) and I could see the Republicans toppling her in 2012, especially if the economic recovery from said Great Recession remains rather anemic.
FWIW, I was thinking of Hillary running as a Clintonite Dem in both 2008 and 2012 in this TL, rather than as a Woke Obamaite Dem like she did in 2016 in real life. That should be at least somewhat more appealing to American voters, I would think. Wokeness is an electoral loser, to my knowledge.
Anyway:
'AHC: Have Europe experience another revolutionary wave similar to 1848-1849, 1917-1923, and 1989-1991, but without the World Wars ever actually occurring'
@sillygoose What are your thoughts on this article?
www.slowboring.com
He gets FF's plans wrong, but otherwise, it appears to be pretty good, no? Of course, if we're talking about the advantages of a single large economic unit, then in theory there should be a desire on the part of neighboring countries to join this unit, no? That's what happened with German and Italian unification, after all. IMHO, Austria-Hungary would have benefitted by including Serbia, Romania, Poland, and Ukraine within its territories. That's not possible without a major war along the lines of WWI and a CP victory in that war, of course.
The Balkan Federation was another interesting idea:
It would have created an A-H-style union further south of A-H, if implemented, of course. It would have also revived the spirit of the old Byzantine Empire.
The case for the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Habsburg federalism could have worked if not for an assassin's bullet
www.slowboring.com
He gets FF's plans wrong, but otherwise, it appears to be pretty good, no? Of course, if we're talking about the advantages of a single large economic unit, then in theory there should be a desire on the part of neighboring countries to join this unit, no? That's what happened with German and Italian unification, after all. IMHO, Austria-Hungary would have benefitted by including Serbia, Romania, Poland, and Ukraine within its territories. That's not possible without a major war along the lines of WWI and a CP victory in that war, of course.
The Balkan Federation was another interesting idea:
It would have created an A-H-style union further south of A-H, if implemented, of course. It would have also revived the spirit of the old Byzantine Empire.
Circle of Willis
Well-known member
What we understand as 'wokeness' today were a disconnected jumble of total non-issues in 2008. The priorities of the mainstream American left then were 1) gay marriage, 2) the still-ongoing Iraq War and 3) the Great Recession. The cops were also still the people who, in their view, should have all the guns & all the authority rather than mistrusted oppressors of the poor black & brown folx. All the transgender stuff, CRT, reflexive anti-Russian foreign policy, etc. was not even remotely on anyone's radar yet and there is no chance that Clinton (the platonic ideal of the establishment Democrat, who would absolutely play it as safe as possible on the issues in a year where she could rightly assume that she could cruise to victory without rocking the boat) would've taken them up that year.
Also, my understanding is that Clinton was already widely disliked since the '90s. Sure she hasn't been caught up in Benghazi and the email scandal yet, but even in 2008 she's haunted by the failure of Hillarycare, Whitewater, Craig Livingstone's Filegate, her vote in favor of the Iraq War, claiming that she landed under sniper fire in Bosnia, etc. As I said, she's been a known quantity in politics for a while by that point and not only would she not be able to portray herself as nearly as much of a force for change as Obama as a result, but people who became politically aware of the '90s would also recall her polarizing past.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
A bit shoddy with the historical facts, but generally a sympathetic and plausible view of things. It stands out that the author is incapable of grasping other motivations than the "logical" ones, though. Sure, economically, it would make sense for the Italians of Trieste to stay with the Empire. But in practice, close to 100% of them heavily prioritised nationalism (the romantic impulse) over economic benefits (the rational impulse). So what the author think they "should" do is irrelevant here.
An aside: it stands out that people of a libertarian bent often tend to view the Habsburg monarchy in a positive light; Hoppe also cites it as the alternative to the hegemony of nation-states that we got in OTL, and in this he obviously follows Kühnelt-Leddihn.
Regarding the idea of others nations joining the Habsburg monarchy: there were some ideas floated about that, but I doubt it'd go anywhere without some pretty major events moving the process along. I did recently mention the notion of Germany and Austria cmprehensively winning an ATL Great War in which they're allied with Britain. In that scenario (which sees Franz-Ferdinand surviving, as it happens) I have Austria absorb all of Serbia and Romania as autonomous kingdoms within the Empire. I'll post a map for that in the thread where we previously discussed it. (I don't think Austria could plausibly get or keep Ukraine, though.)
Out of curiosity: What kind of immigration policy do you think that a surviving A-H would have? I know that some libertarians are in favor of a presumption in favor of open borders, so I'm wondering if they would actually like whatever immigration policy A-H would have actually had in recent decades.
BTW, the most logical arrangement would be similar to what Europe has right now: A bunch of nation-states, but unified in a supranational union such as the EU. This would allow for free migration not only within A-H, but also throughout most of Europe while still fulfilling most Europeans' wish and desire for national self-determination.