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1019237 No.1019237 [Reply] [Original]

I'm a major history geek, and history geeks love counterfactuals. So, I was talking about the bubonic plague, and a friend brings up the pictured book.

I looked into it, but it's completely ridiculous. The idea that the Scientific Revolution, the colonization of the Americas and so–on are just givens that would have happened at roughly the same time, no matter what the cultural make–up of the world was is just too absurd for me to take.

I love speculative fiction, so long–view novels are something I should love, but I just can't take something that substitutes laziness and relativism for interesting thought about the development of human history.

ITT: Talk about alt–history fiction, focusing on good, lesser known works (read: we all probably know about Turtledove, damn it).

>> No.1019256

>>1019237
soc.history.what-if

Read Lands of Red and Gold

>> No.1019264

>>1019256

Sounds interesting. I find universes that are so different they are hard to imagine to be a lot more difficult to get into, but from the looks of this the author really did his work.

>> No.1019276

>>1019264
Generally, go browse soc.history.what-if.

Try some of mine:
https://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/3bfba34cad916064
https://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/613bf609e1eb35da
https://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/2aee061ddd882f99
https://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/b8e8e64b9151bd68
https://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/94d4c174e3e42195
https://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/e8e442e8ed44874c
https://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/104668409bbac140

>> No.1019283

>The idea that the Scientific Revolution, the colonization of the Americas and so–on are just givens that would have happened at roughly the same time, no matter what the cultural make–up of the world was is just too absurd for me to take.

They did not? Science only agreed on the currently used methodology a bit more than 100 years ago.

>> No.1019289

>>1019283
Feyerabend, you might like to read him on science methodology

>> No.1019301

1632, by Eric Flint. It starts with time-travel as a premise, but dammit, it's fun.

Hillbilly mining town gets sent back in time to 1632 Germany and decide, "Fuck it, we're starting America a couple hundred years early."

>> No.1019555

Bumped for alt–history justice.

>> No.1019616

>>1019237
Your objection is interesting. I'm not familiar with alt-history discourse, or really with the serious study of history at all, but is it really so ridiculous to think that some events might have taken place at rougly the same pace, especially those that are contingent on certain scientific advancements? I don't feel certain that they would, but I have trouble imagining how you could be so certain that they wouldn't...history's not a laboratory where we can try out different conditions to examine the outcome, so how certain can we be with our theories?

>> No.1019891

>>1019616

Because the conditions under which Europe went west over the Atlantic and under which modern science developed were very particular. There are reasons it happened in Europe and not in Asia or Africa.

It's not hard to see what happens if the Europeans get wiped out by the plague; the Mongols don't feint into Europe because they have nothing to fear from that area and roll into Egypt instead (actually, there is no reason Egypt & North Africa, which also suffered from the plague, not to have been wiped out under Robinson's scenario, anyhow, but whatever), fatally knee–capping Islamic civilization. The Ilkhanate and Golden Horde probably don't have pressing reasons to adopt Islam as a result, but maybe the Golden Horde does, anyhow.

The Mongols still take China, the Yuan dynasty still wanes, and the Ming begin in earnest the steady decline of China that was already happening. The Japanese still stay on their island, unable to project effectively into Korea as before. Western tech doesn't happen, so you don't see Japan modernizing under outside pressure as it did in the 19th century (in part because there IS nothing we'd recognize as modernity).

Capitalism, which ended up driving a lot of the economic, technological and scientific advancement never happens because the cultural prerequisites don't' come about on anywhere near the scale they did on our world.

I mean, eventually, yes, some Old World civ is going to find the New World, but other than that, nothing seems very certain, and there is no reason for that to happen in the late 15th c, or even the 20th, perhaps. But you need the alt history to be recognizable, so you can't really radically rethink things, which makes Robinson's experiment somewhat boring.

>> No.1020692

>>1019616
>[I know nothing about history but] is it really so ridiculous to think that some events might have taken place at rougly the same pace
...

>> No.1020719

>>1019891
Thanks for your response.
>>1020692
Not so much for yours.

>> No.1022263

>>1020719
Plausibility is the governing convention.

Ie: according to a major structural understanding of change over time would the postulated "point of divergence" result in the given alternate history? While there are also thought experiments to examine non-plausible PODs or contested understandings of change, these are usually prefaced. Additionally there are more freeform modes where people discuss a CPUSA dominated America circa 1950 with a POD in the 1920s as if it _was_ plausible, usually without requiring a specific POD.

History is about the study of change. Changes have to be explained, the explanation has to be cogent, the findings of what changed and what happened have to be evidenced.

That's your briefing on history.

Time travelling communities of AK armed North Americans are generally considered "fantasy".

>> No.1022278

>The idea that the Scientific Revolution, the colonization of the Americas and so–on are just givens that would have happened at roughly the same time
1) they didn't, they happened much later and differently
look at the long war they had or the theory of relativity and nuclear physics being done much later towards the end of book
2) Why wouldn't they be done by someone else?
>is just too absurd for me to take.
hurf durf