9/11
I would’ve wanted to see what America today would become if that hadn’t happened. America had built up a lot of its reputation off the back of WW2 and was seen still as a good ally. George W Bush would not have become president for a second term because of how bad he was in office. American citizens would not be subjected to governmental survelliance to the extent it was after 9/11. And we wouldn’t have a recession that cratered the economy.
America had already spent half a century brutalizing and terrorizing the global South exactly as it did to Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea that they were seen as good is pure revisionism
The US Empire grew to imperial dominance post-WWII. It was seen as a good ally only to the west. 9/11 was the excuse, not the cause of the empire’s genocide in Iraq and subsequent plunder, and the recession wasn’t caused by 9/11 either, but was a natural element of capitalism’s regular boom/bust cycle.
With or without 9/11, the US Empire would still be a gradually dying empire hated by the world.
I’d erase the bronze age collapse, my imagination runs wild thinking about what could have been if the development of civilization had continued unbroken.
Same here the Bronze Age collapse feels like one of those massive reset points. It’s wild to imagine how far civilization might’ve advanced if that momentum hadn’t been lost.
Bill Clinton fully admits to smoking weed in college.
Yeah, the infamous “I didn’t inhale” era hard to imagine that even being controversial today.
When that nun destroyed Archimedes’ math book that had a bunch of pre-calculus stuff in it that wouldn’t be discovered again for centuries.
Imagine if that book had led to the development of calculus, one of the most important tools in science for modeling the universe, much earlier than Newton and Leibniz.
That loss is mind-blowing to think about. If those ideas had survived and been built on, math and science could’ve jumped ahead centuries calculus arriving that early would’ve completely reshaped how we understand the universe.
If we had won the emu war, or it never happened in the first place and we came to a diplomatic solution.
Truly the timeline where humanity proves it can solve even its greatest conflicts peacefully even with emus.
Columbus’ return to Spain.
His failure to return discourages further attempts for a while; and when contact is eventually made, it isn’t Spain in the immediate aftermath of the Reconquista looking to continue its momentum.
Meanwhile, the New World is made aware of Europe and perhaps acquires some resistance to Old World diseases before any larger confrontations.
Interesting point! So basically, if Columbus hadn’t returned successfully, Spain’s push into the New World might’ve slowed down, giving the indigenous peoples more time to get used to European contact and maybe even build some resistance to diseases before major conflicts happened.
That, and Spain (or whoever else) wouldn’t be coming in fresh off the surrender of Granada, with the attitude that all non-Christian states must be conquered as a matter of principle.
Exactly without that post Granada mindset, expansion wouldn’t have been driven by the same “conquest by principle” attitude, which could’ve changed a lot of outcomes.
The collapse of the Soviet Union
Yeah, the collapse of the Soviet Union really reshaped the whole global order.
Failure of the German revolution. Because that has fucked us for 100 years.
a germany under liebknecht and luxemburg… one can dream
Yeah, the German Revolution’s failure really set the stage for a century of chaos.
The time Capitalism was invented by John Capital
There were no individual that invented capitalism. However, the closest individual that likely is the perpetrator to modern stage capitalism is a scottish philosopher Adam Smith.
So, I would say him.
I’d also include Henry Ford, who pushed for the idea of 40 hour work weeks and 5 days a week.
Adam Smith was a political economist examining capitalism (and made several errors along the way that Marx corrected, such as utterly confusing fixed vs. circulating capital). Ford also only “pushed” for 40 hour, 5 day work weeks because worker organizing was fighting for it.
The creation of capitalism wasn’t from an idea about a new system, but from the rise of inventions like the steam engine and industrial production leading to commodity production becoming the basis of production and distribution, as compared to more agrarian production and small manufacturers.
Ah yes, the legendary John Capital strikes again giving the world capitalism, whether we asked for it or not.
There have been many horrible events, but recency bias, I would be interested in what if Hitler never came to power, there was no WWII, and no Holocaust. Would his failure to forge a path to power have prevented many of today’s happenings and not put the US as the top world power for decades, or would we still have ended up here? Israel and Palestine would likely be different, nukes wouldn’t have been dropped, and maybe the Soviet union wouldn’t have collapsed. I’m not a history guy, so maybe all of this is off base. Again, certainly worse things in history that if changed would have reshaped the world, but this is definitely not a small thing affecting us today.
I think we learn from our mistakes , but only for a short time. And then we repeat them again. Seems to take about 70 years or roughly the time period for most of the population to be replaced with people who never saw the reality of that history.
The whole world was moving towards fascism when Hitler came. That’s why he was able to run with it.
If not him, someone else. If not Germany. Somewhere else. Fascism is inevitable when we don’t teach history properly.
Unfortunately the decision makers / lawmakers are a slimy bunch that are good at propaganda.
Definitely an interesting “what if.” Hitler never coming to power would have completely reshaped the 20th century no WWII, no Holocaust, and a very different global power balance. So much of today’s world, from the US as a superpower to Israel- Palestine and nuclear politics, might have played out differently. Hard to say exactly, but it’s definitely one of those pivotal moments in history.
If Trump didn’t have a playbook I wonder if he could have accomplished the same tyranny he has.
I’m in the US Virgin islands at the moment on a trip, and I had a good conversation with a taxi driver. Tourism is way down and they are all just as disgusted and feel just as helpless as the rest of us. It’s still a US territory, but anecdotally his shit is flinging on everyone.
Trump is a symptom of the late-stage imperialist system the US Empire is in, not a unique figure dramatically changing the course of history.
Yeah, even without a playbook it’s wild how much influence he’s had. Sounds rough in the Virgin Islands too crazy how his actions ripple everywhere, even in territories most people barely think about.
It’s unfortunate and I’m embarrassed by my fellow countrymen. The US certainly has not often been on the right side of history, but in the here and now, I’m truly disgusted by it all.
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split really changed the dynamics of the Cold War two communist powers, but not exactly on the same page
The start.
Pretty obvious.In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Yeah, that opening really didn’t win any popularity contests maybe should’ve skipped it.
Yeah, the beginning pretty much set everything in motion hard to miss.
Yeah, it’s clear right from the start nothing more to it.
The Yankees winning their revolutionary war.
Yep, the Yankees somehow pulled it off shook up the whole world in the process.
The evolution of australopithecus. No humans whatsoever.
Yeah, just Australopithecus doing their thing humans weren’t even on the scene yet.
The unification of the Italian peninsula by Rome. Because fuck the Roman Empire and fuck imperialism. (Also most of what you think you hate about Christianity is stuff the early Christians inherited from Roman culture).
Honestly, Rome’s unification caused more harm than good. Imperialism screwed over countless people, and a lot of the “problems” people blame on early Christianity are really just Roman cultural baggage.
