Jump to content

If You Could Change History


GAROVORKIN

Recommended Posts

4 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

The first world war and its aftermath laid  the ground for work for even worse second world war which cost the lives of 55 million people.  

Yes, it did. Point is, you are not going to go from the world of 1913 to the world of 2017 without at least one (and likely more) seismic political upheavals, and even if you could, a world stuck in the geopolitics of 1913 would not be good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

I would urge America and other victorious countries to help Germany rebuild after WW1

And they would ignore you. Why on earth would Britain and France be generous to Germany in 1919? The United States itself had absolutely zero political appetite for Wilson's League of Nations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/27/2017 at 9:03 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And they would ignore you. Why on earth would Britain and France be generous to Germany in 1919? The United States itself had absolutely zero political appetite for Wilson's League of Nations.

 

Had  George Clemenceau died in the Franco Prussian war, he would have rendered France  and the world a far more useful service .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And they would ignore you. Why on earth would Britain and France be generous to Germany in 1919? The United States itself had absolutely zero political appetite for Wilson's League of Nations.

Because it would give the victorious nations more control over how Germany would develop and heal. By the time Gemany would be rebuilt, the winning countries wouldn't just have some useless goodwill, they would have an a valuable new ally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Because it would give the victorious nations more control over how Germany would develop and heal. By the time Gemany would be rebuilt, the winning countries wouldn't just have some useless goodwill, they would have an a valuable new ally.

Except that:

- The Germany of 1919 isn't the Germany of 1945. It isn't being rebuilt from the ground up. The War was fought on French soil, not German soil, and while Willy's gone, the apparatus of government remained.

- Why on earth would either Britain or France see Germany as an ally? It's the enemy - both of them have every incentive to screw the Germans as much as possible, and unlike 1945, they had no way of knowing what the consequences of this screwing would be. The Soviets were hardly a concern either - no-one thought the Reds would last.

Basically, your "try to persuade people at Versailles" thing is rather like people who wonder why Britain, France, and the Soviets didn't steamroll Hitler before 1939. Yes, they could have, on paper. It was simply politically impossible at the time.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Because it would give the victorious nations more control over how Germany would develop and heal. By the time Gemany would be rebuilt, the winning countries wouldn't just have some useless goodwill, they would have an a valuable new ally.

Which would have prevented Hitler and the Nazis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Except that:

- The Germany of 1919 isn't the Germany of 1945. It isn't being rebuilt from the ground up. The War was fought on French soil, not German soil, and while Willy's gone, the apparatus of government remained.

- Why on earth would either Britain or France see Germany as an ally? It's the enemy - both of them have every incentive to screw the Germans as much as possible, and unlike 1945, they had no way of knowing what the consequences of this screwing would be. The Soviets were hardly a concern either.

Basically, your "try to persuade people at Versailles" thing is rather like people who wonder why Britain, France, and the Soviets didn't steamroll Hitler before 1939. Yes, they could have, on paper. It was simply politically impossible at the time.  

Lloyd George wanted Germany's Africa colonies and he did make a pledge to punish Germany. He compared Germany to orange and vowed to squeeze her until the Pips squeak. Clemenceau wanted revenge of the Franco Prussian war and the return of Alsace Loraine  and he too vowed to punish Germany , Vittorio  Orlando of Italy was looking for spoils and Woodrow Wilson naive fool that he was , wanted his League of Nations and end to Kaiser Wilhelm's reign.  The problem is that all men were more interested in what wanted and not what was in the best interest of the world. These four petty and  stupid men and their choices and actions helped  doomed the world to a second world war. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Except that:

- The Germany of 1919 isn't the Germany of 1945. It isn't being rebuilt from the ground up. The War was fought on French soil, not German soil, and while Willy's gone, the apparatus of government remained.

- Why on earth would either Britain or France see Germany as an ally? It's the enemy - both of them have every incentive to screw the Germans as much as possible, and unlike 1945, they had no way of knowing what the consequences of this screwing would be. The Soviets were hardly a concern either - no-one thought the Reds would last.

Basically, your "try to persuade people at Versailles" thing is rather like people who wonder why Britain, France, and the Soviets didn't steamroll Hitler before 1939. Yes, they could have, on paper. It was simply politically impossible at the time.  

Japan after WW2 wasn't rebuilt from the ground up either. Most of the damage in Asia was done to China and Korea.

You misunderstand what I said in regards to a potential ally. I don't mean that they would see Germany as an ally from the start, but would steer them in that direction across the rebuilding period.

The apparatus of the government doesn't really mean much when the economy has taken the hit it has and it creates an opportunity for other countries to take it over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Except that:

- The Germany of 1919 isn't the Germany of 1945. It isn't being rebuilt from the ground up. The War was fought on French soil, not German soil, and while Willy's gone, the apparatus of government remained.

- Why on earth would either Britain or France see Germany as an ally? It's the enemy - both of them have every incentive to screw the Germans as much as possible, and unlike 1945, they had no way of knowing what the consequences of this screwing would be. The Soviets were hardly a concern either - no-one thought the Reds would last.

Basically, your "try to persuade people at Versailles" thing is rather like people who wonder why Britain, France, and the Soviets didn't steamroll Hitler before 1939. Yes, they could have, on paper. It was simply politically impossible at the time.  

 Get creative.

 http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/019/295/e2e.png

 

/You've got a fucking time machine

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, mankytoes said:

I don't know how utopian we're supposed to be with this, but what about universal education and opportunity? I mean how many great advancements came from the top 1%, purely because they were the only ones who had the resources to make them? How many potential Einstein's have been subsistance farmers?

aye im working class from a rural area, definitely for equal opportunities for all despite wealth

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But what exactly would you change?

It's not that most people were not educated mainly because the others were mean and wanted to deprive them of opportunities, it was that in these societies of the past most people had to work in farming etc. to get enough food etc. for everyone and there were only very few people to spare for Einstein-style pursuits (like patent offices and physics papers). And while class and similar differences mattered, I think they are often exaggerated. We know of several ancient philosophers with humble origins (Socrates, Diogenes, Epictetus), the Imperial Chinese examinations for administrative offices were in principle open to everybody (although one needed a sponsor because the preparation took a lot of time when the candidate would not be able to work another job) and in the middle ages and later very bright kids were discovered and given educations and respective options.

True, women were often excluded (althought there were nunneries in the middle ages where women also pursued science). But one still does not get the double number of early scientists, you only increase the pool to pick from but you still need most people to work other jobs for society pre-technology etc. to work. (Those people who could have done science or whatever were usually not playing Bridge instead.)

So I think the best one could hope for with such counterfactual interventions would be a very slight increase (certainly no doubling) in "Einsteins", especially since the 18th century or so. From then on women often received sort of an education but a very biased one and it might be likely that a few more Caroline Herschels or Marquise de Chatelets could have been possible. Instead of playing Bridge or getting involved in Liaisons dangereuses out of ennui.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/27/2017 at 8:59 AM, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Yes, it did. Point is, you are not going to go from the world of 1913 to the world of 2017 without at least one (and likely more) seismic political upheavals, and even if you could, a world stuck in the geopolitics of 1913 would not be good.

Your correct, 1913 geopolitics were very unstable and  sooner or later, there would have been a major blow up in Europe  . Even if  no blow up ever happened  in that  time , 1913 geopolitics in  21st century would be nightmare of biblical proportions.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And they would ignore you. Why on earth would Britain and France be generous to Germany in 1919? The United States itself had absolutely zero political appetite for Wilson's League of Nations.

Yep.  And trying to convince the Senate and the country for the Treaty of Versailles and LoN literally killed Wilson's presidency and basically killed him.  Not see how you're going to change that solely with a time machine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Jo498 said:

But what exactly would you change?

It's not that most people were not educated mainly because the others were mean and wanted to deprive them of opportunities, it was that in these societies of the past most people had to work in farming etc. to get enough food etc. for everyone and there were only very few people to spare for Einstein-style pursuits (like patent offices and physics papers). And while class and similar differences mattered, I think they are often exaggerated. We know of several ancient philosophers with humble origins (Socrates, Diogenes, Epictetus), the Imperial Chinese examinations for administrative offices were in principle open to everybody (although one needed a sponsor because the preparation took a lot of time when the candidate would not be able to work another job) and in the middle ages and later very bright kids were discovered and given educations and respective options.

True, women were often excluded (althought there were nunneries in the middle ages where women also pursued science). But one still does not get the double number of early scientists, you only increase the pool to pick from but you still need most people to work other jobs for society pre-technology etc. to work. (Those people who could have done science or whatever were usually not playing Bridge instead.)

So I think the best one could hope for with such counterfactual interventions would be a very slight increase (certainly no doubling) in "Einsteins", especially since the 18th century or so. From then on women often received sort of an education but a very biased one and it might be likely that a few more Caroline Herschels or Marquise de Chatelets could have been possible. Instead of playing Bridge or getting involved in Liaisons dangereuses out of ennui.

 But in almost every case, people haven't been assigned to farming, science, political rule, etc, by any form of meritocracy, but based on birth. A genius born to subsistance farmers will be a subsistance farmer. A moron born as first son of the king will be king.

As I say, it's obviously extremely utopian, but if you can have some form of fair testing from an early age.

I don't know where you read Socrates was from "humble origins". He was an Athenian citizen, so he didn't have to work a "real job". Aside from that, we don't really know his origins. Diogenes father was a banker, which probably put him in the 1%, if not in Greece then certainly in the world. Epictetus was a slave, so that's one of the very few exceptions, though he's still probably in the 1% of slaves whose masters would allow them to study philosophy.

And these gains would be exponential- by allowing the brightest to advance civilisation, you would see rapid progress, and more resources available to allow more of the brightest to study instead of farm.

The real challenge isn't getting a few of the working class real opportunities to progress, though that is rare enough. It's getting the rich and powerful to not squander the resources on their unexceptional children. I'm not aware of any king saying "my son is most suited to farming" and the son agreeing.

As you've referenced Ancient Greece, if you've read Politics by Plato, he talks about having a "noble myth" where all children are born with gold, silver or iron (I think) inside them, regardless of parentage. So they are assigned positions based on this (but really on merit), no matter their birth.

So I guess I could say my one change would be convincing everyone of that, if that's allowed.

Edit- if you want me to take this totally seriously, I would do nothing. I don't think fucking with the past is a good idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Socrates was supposedly a stonemason and his mother had been a midwife. As the slaves correspond to a working class, he was something like lowest middle class in our terms and frequently jokes about how poor he is.

Your idea is flawed in many respects. Who would do the testing? Where do you get the resources in a world that basically barely gets along with feeding, clothing and defending its citizens? According to which contemporary criteria would they test? How many real world cases were there when "moron princes" squandered something (usually smarter advisors governed in practice). (How many real world cases are there where "meritocratic elites" squander huge amounts of resources through a war or a financial bubble and crisis roughly every decade or two?) In antiquity a master would want to get most out of his slaves, so smart slaves would get some education (or more frequently would already have some education before they were enslaved) and often work as scribes, in administrative functions etc. and could later become freedmen etc.

I don't believe in strict historical determinism or in some ideal optimization, but I think that past societies were overall adapted fairly well to their environment and what we perceive as gross unjustice, inefficiency, flaws or stupidity were often efficient strategies that allowed them to function well. A lot of "improvements" we suggest would not have worked or would have involved risks they could not know would be worth taking (i.e. that would have been irrational to take, except with our 20/20 hindsight). A lot of things need to be in place for (even early) modern science to work its wonders. As with the more specific example of "skipping" the horrible wars and upheavals of the first half of the 20th century it is very doubtful that one can simply "skip ahead"  in historical developments.

(And extrapolating exponential "gains" from a certain period, like the last 2 centuries of industrialization is also doubtful; nothing ever keeps growing exponentially forever in a finite world. You pick the low hanging fruit and soon you are on an S-curve heading for stagnation (or logarithmic, not exponential growth).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Yep.  And trying to convince the Senate and the country for the Treaty of Versailles and LoN literally killed Wilson's presidency and basically killed him.  Not see how you're going to change that solely with a time machine.

Land your time machine directly and forcefully on Henry Cabot Lodge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...