Alternate History Ideas and Discussion
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Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Indeed. @Zyobot typically posts ideas in this thread, which exists for that purpose, rather than cluttering everything up by creating threads for every single one-off idea. I say keep it up!
Regarding this:
You might for instance imagine an ATL where the struggle for independence turns out differently, and Washington gets killed. Then after the war, there isn't really a unifying figure, and populist/radical revolts are worse than in OTL. That prompts centralist-minded military officers to impose a new constitution, which Hamilton basically writes. The radicals swerve to outright Jacobinism, and the 'Hamiltonian' military (with Hamilton as their commander) violently crush the dissidents. The militarist regime is financially backed by Britain.
Afterwards, Hamilton becomes President of a far more oppressive USA that we one we know in OTL. Jeffersonianism is dead, Jefferson himself went in exile in France (but was killed when Napoleon seized power), Tom Paine was hanged for treason, and the anti-federalists mostly occupy unmarked graves.
Regarding this:
Frankly, he made way too many enemies. I don't think it's very easy to have him elected, at least not without drastic PODs that completely alter the nature of the USA.
You might for instance imagine an ATL where the struggle for independence turns out differently, and Washington gets killed. Then after the war, there isn't really a unifying figure, and populist/radical revolts are worse than in OTL. That prompts centralist-minded military officers to impose a new constitution, which Hamilton basically writes. The radicals swerve to outright Jacobinism, and the 'Hamiltonian' military (with Hamilton as their commander) violently crush the dissidents. The militarist regime is financially backed by Britain.
Afterwards, Hamilton becomes President of a far more oppressive USA that we one we know in OTL. Jeffersonianism is dead, Jefferson himself went in exile in France (but was killed when Napoleon seized power), Tom Paine was hanged for treason, and the anti-federalists mostly occupy unmarked graves.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Thanks!
More seriously, Britain's probably kicking back and munching popcorn as they watch the US implode right after gaining its independence. Even if they can't pull a successful 1812, they can still beat their colonies over the head with "That's what you get when you renounce your King!", given how President-for-Life Hamilton is basically the Joseph Stalin to George's Nicholas II (and, perhaps, Washington's Lenin) in this outline.
Fortunately, I doubt even Hamiltonian America would be nearly as nightmarish or totalitarian as the actual USSR was, especially since communism doesn't exist yet in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. More centralized, heavy-handed, and much less culturally dynamic than IOTL, though? Well, that goes without saying to me.
Buba
A total creep
Yeah, this reminds me of how my 8th grade history teacher said (over 15 years ago) that after Reconstruction former slaves were expected to pay for housing, tools, food, et cetera and also often had no education and thus in some regards ended up being worse off than they were before slavery. They could get new employers, but with limited education, their opportunities were limited. Economic opportunities in the Northern US only really opened up for them once mass European immigration stopped in the 1910s due to World War I.
True
Unlike some other members ...
I'll try to do better, if my memory will allow me.
'WI: No Petrograd Soviet Order No. 1'
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
A “weird” one even by ASB standards: ‘Humans Perceive 4D Space’.
Yes, I know we technically experience the fourth dimension (time), but that’s only on a moment-to-moment basis where Time A arrives and passes, giving way to Time B, and so on and so forth. What I’m talking about is humans perceiving it as another direction in space like the other three, to the point where it makes as much “intuitive” sense to us as length, height, and width do.
Yes, I know we technically experience the fourth dimension (time), but that’s only on a moment-to-moment basis where Time A arrives and passes, giving way to Time B, and so on and so forth. What I’m talking about is humans perceiving it as another direction in space like the other three, to the point where it makes as much “intuitive” sense to us as length, height, and width do.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Buba
A total creep
The answer is probably several doctorates' worth ...
Top of mind - men keep on wearing knee-breeches and are calf-conscious. A smooth skinned, supple svelte silk clad calf is SEXY!
The likes of Obelix agonise, while looking over their shoulder at the floor length mirror:
"Do these horizontaly striped stockings make my calves look fat, or I shouldn't had eaten that third wild boar at the feast yesterday?"
u da gratest!!!!111 [friendly waving accompanied by jumping and hollering intensify]By the way, @Buba — inadvertently passed your challenge and went a day without posting AH prompts here. You’re welcome!
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Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
‘Avoid Post-2014 Wokeness In Media And Pop Culture’.
Yes, I'm aware presentism and other more "lefty" tropes have long been conceits in the entertainment world. But even then, I'd say much of the stuff that's been accepted as fait accompli over the last half to full decade would look downright bizarre to your typical 2010 audience, for example.
Yes, I'm aware presentism and other more "lefty" tropes have long been conceits in the entertainment world. But even then, I'd say much of the stuff that's been accepted as fait accompli over the last half to full decade would look downright bizarre to your typical 2010 audience, for example.
Morphic Tide
Well-known member
Perhaps have well-timed moderation scandals result in "mainstream social media" becoming user-stored files forwarded to tagged servers with their own front-ends, then servers spread this data similarly to Usenet newsgroups according to their own settings.
Not too sure on the structural layout to maximize technical challenges to online centralization required for narrative-shaping, but the desired effect is a TL where the Internet is punted squarely to "interpret censorship as damage and route around it" where it was meant to be by shittiness hitting when the "Old Guard" genuinely interested in that was still active.
This would work toward the requirement by making it so that the rest of the media ecosystem cannot be blind to the reality of public opinion like OTL social media enabled with slanted rules and enforcement thereof, as the default use is going around a bunch of different servers for specific content.
Not too sure on the structural layout to maximize technical challenges to online centralization required for narrative-shaping, but the desired effect is a TL where the Internet is punted squarely to "interpret censorship as damage and route around it" where it was meant to be by shittiness hitting when the "Old Guard" genuinely interested in that was still active.
This would work toward the requirement by making it so that the rest of the media ecosystem cannot be blind to the reality of public opinion like OTL social media enabled with slanted rules and enforcement thereof, as the default use is going around a bunch of different servers for specific content.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
*Eyes Obama signing the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act.*
Not ruling out your solution, per se. But upon further reflection, I suspect this POD calls for a more "multi-pronged" series of changes than a slip-up here or last-minute change of heart there that got butterflied IOTL.
Morphic Tide
Well-known member
Essentially, pre-2006, MySpace, Slashdot, and other "prototypical" parts of the ecosystem shit the bed hard enough for attempts at replacements to begin within a few weeks of eachother, that then cooperate to make an "Everything Client" connecting their varied substitutes to make user content unable to be revoked by servers, nor hold discourse "hostage".*Eyes Obama signing the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act.*
Not ruling out your solution, per se. But upon further reflection, I suspect this POD calls for a more "multi-pronged" series of changes than a slip up here or last-minute change of heart there that got butterflied IOTL.
To quote the crypto bros, "you can't legislate math". I do not know the required particulars of the bundle of early Internet divergences or the resulting near-enough uncensorable protocol, but the premise is that the Internet ends up ungovernably decentralized before "The Powers That Be" notice the opportunity for narrative-shaping.
They could go for ISPs and hosting services, but there's no subtlety to that because they don't have fine control. They could go to all the server owners, but it only takes one to start outing it. A lot of how the narrative shaping has worked only functions because of the very limited number of people that need to be "in" on it, where this bloats that hundreds of times over.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
The insane ideas haven't just been conceits in the entertainment world; they've been gestating in academic circles for decades. Basically, the originators of many of these ideas were happily "marching through the institutions". Then their well-indoctrinated students became a new generation of educators, among which generation their way of thinking was overwhelmingly predominant. And then their students (who could hardly escape the trap!) became the "woke generation".
We're looking at the result of a decades-long project.
Here's some books looking at the issue before 2014:
The Closing of the American Mind (Bloom, 1987)
The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (Sowell, 1996)
Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Gross & Levitt, 1997)
Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science (Sokal & Bricmont, 1999)
Black Rednecks and White Liberals (Sowell, 2005)
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Haidt, 2012).
Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate (Lukianoff, 2012)
Then, I can recommend some books written about wokeism upon its emergence onto the public stage, which often also go into its origins:
Freedom from Speech (Lukianoff, 2014)
The Coddling of the American Mind (Haidt & Lukianoff, 2018)
Cynical Theories (Pluckrose & Lindsay, 2020)
Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America (McWhorter, 2021)
Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Praxis (Lindsay, 2022)
Long story short, if you want to truly avert "woke" (or something very much like it, in any case) you pretty much need to go back to the 1960s and implement a POD that counters left-wing infiltration of academia from then on out. I actually think you should go even further back, specifically by avoiding McCarthy blabbing too much about his supposed "list of communist agents". Those agents existed... but his list didn't. If we instead suppose an ATL where hard behind-the-scenes work uncovers extensive communist infiltration throughout the 1950s. This can then lead to thorough legislation countering communist influence in politics, journalism, media and academia.
Basically: hundreds of commies get arrested, the most obvious agents get executed, and from '55 or so onward, if you're a pinko (or worse) you won't ever be able to get a job of any (intellectual) influence ever again. The cultural legacy of this "new direction" then persists, in the same way that the cultural influence of OTL's far-left infiltration has persisted to the present day as well. I'm not sure if it'll escale to forms of extreme radicalism (as the left-wing ideas have in OTL), because left-wing ideas are inherently suited to insane radicalism... but in any case, the probable outcome is a present-day world in which left-wing ideas a fairly comprehensively excluded from mainstream politics, journalism, media and academia.
VictortheMonarch
Victor the Crusader
The 2014 Russian Invasion of Crimea rolls over into a full blown war with Ukraine, and later subjugation of Ukraine as a whole within two years. a few states are annexed and a puppet regime the likes of Belarus are implemented. How does this effect history as we know it.
Buba
A total creep
Very interesting, answering this question is totally over my head though, I'm afraid
My only thought is that 2014 Ukraine may had folded not in two years but two weeks.
This, I admit, is what I thought would happen in II.2022.
Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Well ... quite a POD with some "wholistic" ramifications that go quite far back.
I'd like to discuss this further via PM, if that's okay, but quoting and reply to the bits I can comment on somewhat out of order now:
*Eyes Yuri Bezemenov and his warnings suspiciously.*
Yeah ... have heard about the Hard Left having long held power in the Western institutions before, Critical Theory and the "March through the institutions!" chief among them. Unfortunately, not of this many works documenting it, though some of these authors — Haidt, Lindsay, McWhorter, and Sowell — are figures I'm already familiar with, but haven't had the chance to read the work of.
However, I'd say that your write-up about how to avoid left-wing infiltration of politics, journalism, media, and academia misses one of their most crowning achievements: They've infiltrated the Presidency IOTL, too. Might've been in there multiple times before him, but considering his penchant for Wokescolds and how BLM arose during his second term, I sometimes wonder whether President 44 — first name "Barack", last name "Obama" — was in on Wokeness really going public after 2014, despite the groundwork having been laid long before he (or any of us) was born.
I'd like to discuss this further via PM, if that's okay, but quoting and reply to the bits I can comment on somewhat out of order now:
*Eyes Yuri Bezemenov and his warnings suspiciously.*
Yeah ... have heard about the Hard Left having long held power in the Western institutions before, Critical Theory and the "March through the institutions!" chief among them. Unfortunately, not of this many works documenting it, though some of these authors — Haidt, Lindsay, McWhorter, and Sowell — are figures I'm already familiar with, but haven't had the chance to read the work of.
However, I'd say that your write-up about how to avoid left-wing infiltration of politics, journalism, media, and academia misses one of their most crowning achievements: They've infiltrated the Presidency IOTL, too. Might've been in there multiple times before him, but considering his penchant for Wokescolds and how BLM arose during his second term, I sometimes wonder whether President 44 — first name "Barack", last name "Obama" — was in on Wokeness really going public after 2014, despite the groundwork having been laid long before he (or any of us) was born.