Alternate Histories -- Whatifism run AMOK!

[FishbellykanakaDude]

..give it a shot. It's WAY harder than it seems!

Suggestion: Change one or two small but important "barriers keeping some 'force' in check", and then ponder as many of the consequences of those "small" changes as possible.

[John]

> ..give it a shot. It's WAY harder than it seems!

> Suggestion: Change one or two small but important "barriers
> keeping some 'force' in check", and then ponder as many of the
> consequences of those "small" changes as possible.

I don't believe in alternate histories. Historical events are like
earthquakes, tsunamis and cyclones, forces of nature that can't be
stopped. What's going to happen is going to happen. That's the
reason that "it's way harder than it seems."

[FishbellykanakaDude]

> ..give it a shot. It's WAY harder than it seems!

> Suggestion: Change one or two small but important "barriers
> keeping some 'force' in check", and then ponder as many of the
> consequences of those "small" changes as possible.

I don't believe in alternate histories. Historical events are like
earthquakes, tsunamis and cyclones, forces of nature that can't be
stopped. What's going to happen is going to happen. That's the
reason that "it's way harder than it seems."

Oh, I agree with you entirely. I'm a dedicated "one worlder", meaning the world is as it is because that's the only way that it COULD be.

I'm also of the (seemingly unpopular) camp which holds that the world is the best possible version of what it could possibly be.

In my mind, the "best possible world" choice (above) is the natural and inescapable consequence of the simple fact that if there's only one choice of "world" to "choose" from (the singular possible world), that "choice" may as well be called "the most good/best/optimal/non-evil" version.

..one could certainly also say that it's the "least best" (worst) possible world, but that's just bein' cranky.

BUT,.. I really do like seeing what people can come up with if they change "one (or more) tiny but huge little thing" that would be a "world changer". Things like, the Epstein Drive, AA battery sized Cold Fusion power units, and Politicians with a lick of sense and the power to enforce that sense.

[John]

Well, maybe the world would be a better place if women were easier to understand.

[Heisenberg]

I don't believe in alternate histories. Historical events are like
earthquakes, tsunamis and cyclones, forces of nature that can't be
stopped. What's going to happen is going to happen. That's the
reason that "it's way harder than it seems."

Nonsense! All you need to accept is that "winners" rewrite history and thus true alternate histories have to exist.

Here's a highlight reel of a pretty good speech if you guys haven't seen it:

... the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about

... the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really about the capacity to think but rather about the choice of what to think about. If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to watse time discussing I'd ask you to think about fish and water and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious.

... a closed mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the person doesn't even know he's locked up. ... to be a little less arrogant to have juat a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties because a huge percentage of stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is it turns out totally wrong and deluded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

[FishbellykanakaDude]

Well, maybe the world would be a better place if women were easier to understand.

Nope.

If that were true, they would have "taken over" at the "pre-primate" stage, much the same way that the "bee" species(s) did.

..guys would simply be drones.

Then again,.. maybe that would be nifty. Bring on the Amazons...!!! Make us your pleasure props....


..but seriously,..

What if women WERE more (or completely) "understandable", but that made them invulnerable to argument, meaning they always WIN arguments? (Not that they DON'T in their own minds, but that's not what we're talkin' about right now...)

They're "understandable" because they are utterly, and correctly, logical, and in so being they hold ALL levers of "political power", as they can unerringly bend human society to their will.

What does THAT world look like..!!? Yeehaw...!

..still,.. "pleasure prop" vs "responsible adult",... hmmmmm,.. I'll have to mull that choice over for a while...


Mahaloz my Dude! <chuckle!> <shaka nui loa...!!>

[FishbellykanakaDude]

I don't believe in alternate histories. Historical events are like
earthquakes, tsunamis and cyclones, forces of nature that can't be
stopped. What's going to happen is going to happen. That's the
reason that "it's way harder than it seems."

Nonsense! All you need to accept is that "winners" rewrite history and thus true alternate histories have to exist.

...

There are infinite perspectives, but only one reality.

Alternate Histories are always, and only, fiction. I like fiction.

The "interesting bit" of the genre is seeing how the author, or WHETHER the author, accounts for the "readjustments" to the would-be reality of the story world due to the OTHER, and REAL, forces in the "nearly real" story world.

Such as: OK, now we have the American government (leaders) being "perfectly sensible" and allowing "the South" to slowly ween itself off of "slave labor", such that the government uses military force (and/or "monetary payoffs") to prop up the status quo while the South "evolves".

..What about "the discontents" of every stripe? What are the international consequences? Which societal forces become inflamed, and which mollified?

Accounting for the "normal" human forces IS the story. Getting across the solar system in 12 hours is really cool, but how does that screw up local economies and muck up (or seriously enliven) the follow-character's love life!?

[Tom Mazanec]

Here is my "Furry" alternate history:
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=1465
https://www.deviantart.com/quantumbranc ... 1537421062

[FishbellykanakaDude]

Here is my "Furry" alternate history:
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=1465
https://www.deviantart.com/quantumbranc ... 1537421062

Oh,.. I LOVE GURPS..!

..yay, Steve Jackson!

I may have to dig into this "Aesop" reality-tweak. Hmmmmmm...

Nā mahalo, buckeroo! Aloha nui. <shaka!>

[FishbellykanakaDude]

Here is my "Furry" alternate history:
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=1465
https://www.deviantart.com/quantumbranc ... 1537421062

OK,.. on the "aesop" concept:

There MUST be a way for the aesop domains (AD) to "fade away", as absolute conversion of all land to "AD" status ceases to be "fun" to play.

One "solution" might be a kind of "flipped over creation procedure", where whenever a human AND an aesop dies within the "bounds" of a domain (within a few seconds/minutes of each other), that aesop domain ceases to exist A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF THE TIME.

Now, it would be "difficult" to notice that this "procedure" (or "rite") existed, so it would possibly take quite a bit of time (decades to centuries?) for this to become widely known, but it would eventually become widely known. Or would it?

The ramifications of this are interesting.

* Aesops can always create their domains by "sacrifice" VERY EASILY.
* Humans can always wipe domains by "sacrifice" WITH DIFFICULTY.
* Defending territory becomes VERY important.
* The first humans to notice "the rite" MIGHT want to keep it secret (as long as possible) and "use it" in maximal secrecy so as not to tip off the "opposition".
* The first aesops to notice "the rite" MIGHT want to identify humans who "seem" to know of it's existence and target them, and "their organizations", for assassination.

..and other things I haven't thought of yet.

Perhaps, if the last existing aesop domain is located, and the last existing aesop is "sacrificed" to eliminate it, some OTHER unwanted-by-humans phenomenon happens (such as a great "checkerboard" pattern of NEW aesop domains occurs over the entire planet that only lasts for 10 minutes but converts the entire human population in every-other "square" to aesop-form appropriate for the location, starting the whole process over again).

Yeehaw! <shaka!> Aloha!