What if X wasn't born?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

OK, it's alternate history month. So here's a question. Do certain brilliant and/or remarkable persons bear crucial significance for the various twists and turns of history, or do they just happen to be the right people showing up at the right time? I mean, if there's a certain set of processes going on in a society, is the emerging of a great leader, or great thinker, or someone else who changes the course of history in a profound way, just an inevitable consequence? Or does it really take an extraordinary combination of genius, a nose for doing the right thing, and the charisma to make lots of people believe you and follow you - to steer events in this direction or the other? Or maybe it's a combination of the two - in that case, what's the ratio?[Poll #1883954][Poll #1883955][Poll #1883956]

Comments

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

It's a mixture of both. I don't know what ratio, it's sometimes purely genius, other times the time is ripe. Depends on the particular case. Take Galileo, he just happened to point a new gadget at the sky and see Jupiter's satellites. Then he connected the dots. What is to say someone else wouldn't have done the same if he wasn't there? Maybe a few years later, but it would've happened eventually. Same with all those sailors who discovered new lands. If it weren't them, someone else would've reached there eventually.

Now, political leaders are a different story. Sure, Hitler happened to be the right (actually: wrong) guy at the time things were ripe for Germany to go nuts and plunge Europe into another war. But what about some guys who did pretty unique things that didn't make any sense at the time, but had a great impact, like Alexander the Great, etc? All I'm saying is that it varies.

I'd say it's more like events happen when the circumstances demand them to happen, but it often takes an extraordinary person to facilitate it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Alexander the Great is actually one of the easiest ones to have never be born and things happen just the same. The reasons are twofold: Philip III launched the invasion and Darius III was not capable of forming the Persian Empire into a coherent military power resisting invasion. So instead of Alexander the Great it'd be Philip the Great and a great many Philippolises instead of Alexandrias.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Wait, we're not sure Jesus Christ even existed.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

A historical Jesus of Nazareth did exist, there is evidence enough for that that the biggest proponent of the Jesus Myth theory recently recanted his views. The figure that founded Christianity, OTOH, did not. Unless we hold that Zombie Apocalypses in Jerusalem would have gone without mentioning.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Same could be said about Moses, by the way.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I voted for Confucius (his not existing butterflies away the ideology of China that held together one of the oldest systems in human history in terms of continuous existence), Euclid (who established forever the right angle to look at things), and Genghis Khan (whose death butterflies away the modern world as we know it. Full-stop).

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The fact that Newton isn't winning the Science poll by a margin of "# of votes cast" makes this engineering geek sad.

[mutive.livejournal.com]

Didn't he basically just steal stuff from Liebniz? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz) (Who didn't even make the poll. OK, sure Newton did give an easier to use nomenclature. Which is of value. But still...I think it's pretty goofy to imagine that calculus and physics wouldn't exist just because Newton had never been born.)

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Why, so far Newton is contesting the #1 spot with Einstein in the science section.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

For some reason, Newton brings to mind the fig.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

People underestimate the "time is ripe" phenomenon. For example, most of the folks in your lists just happened to do something a bit different, not something completely unique. Watt didn't invent the steam engine; he improved on Newcommen's design, which was an improvement on Saverly's. Watt's engines, though, were double the efficiency of Newcommen's, and he created a unique licensing process that got him remembered. Instead of Watt, I would nominate Stephenson, the guy who took all of the steam engine design ideas and created The Rocket, the first practical steam locomotive.

Lavoisier, likewise, simply borrowed (or stole) observations from just about everyone, but had the cash to make very, very precise measurements and experiments. Darwin almost got trumped by Wallace; very time is ripe theory there. Newton and Leibniz bickered over who invented the calculus first.

Edison got more wrong than right, but he explored a lot of ground. I would nominate Tesla instead of Edison simply because he came up with a lot of unique ideas probably no one had ever had (like the ac motor). We have Edison's name all over the place, but still use Tesla's inventions. I doubt anyone reading this is plugged into household direct current wiring.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

It would suck to dump the entire city powergrid through your body to ground because you accidentally used your blow dryer while still wet from the shower.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

I would nominate Tesla instead of Edison

not that i drink much or anything ;) but shoot I'll drink to that. My poor Tesla - what a hard life he had :(

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about Leibniz, my comments below may be moot.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

"Time is like a string. You can go forward and backward, but you can never change anything along the way, or create loops. Time will always find a way to re-adjust itself. What happened, happened."

That's the idea of the Lost series. I'm not saying I necessarily believe it to be true, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

And then, there's this:



That being said, I'm not sure Einstein's discoveries would've happened any time soon if he hadn't connected the dots.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Glad you brought up Lost. That nerdy physicist in the series? He was the only guy who actually knew what was going on right from the onset. The rest of them were mostly occupied with figuring out how to survive. And that says a lot.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I thought others like Lorentz were getting pretty close.

[404.livejournal.com]

It's alternative LJ t_p history also, right? How would talk_politics be different if you weren't born?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you wouldn't be making funny comments then, which would've been such a loss.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Everyone else's lives would be that little bit more grey.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I think most of these people wouldn't change history all that much. Especially the people who discovered a land or a physical property, because had they not, someone else would have. In a lot of cases, even the leaders wouldn't change history all that much, because someone else would have taken the spot. Of course it matters WHO would have taken their spot. Would Nixon have been president still had Kennedy not existed? Would he have chosen to launch nuclear war? Effectively ending civilization would be pretty damn world changing.

If Hitler hadn't been in charge, WWII might still have happened but they might have divided the world between Russia and the Axis powers instead of losing their way through russia and ultimately being defeated for instance.

As far as Christianity, I still don't think, despite what was said up there, Jesus is necessarily proven to have existed. One issue is that it actually was a common name so finding things with Yeshoua or brother of Yeshoua on it isn't uncommon. Other than that, there's a surprising lack of first-hand evidence. Really with Christianity, Paul is probably the more vital one.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

Really with Christianity, Paul is probably the more vital one

very true . . . Paul was the one 'spreading' the gospel....like a wildfire!

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

Ooooooooo, nice post!

I always thought Watson & Crick were to Franklin as Newton was to Leibniz. How could such scenarios not be due to the zeitgeist of that time-period?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I totally got done by your icon :D

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I picked the three most popular it seems, Aristotle, Newton and Ghengis. The first two were really ahead of their time, whereas I think most of the rest's discoveries/philosophies were inevitable outcomes of the zeitgeist. Ghengis changed the genetics of Asia and displaced millions.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I'm also surprised more people picked Jesus than Paul.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

St Paul, Newton, and Constantine the great.

In date order:

St Paul, because with him there is no "Christianity" as we recognise it (unless we're Quakers, of course).

Constantine, because without Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, the world would have a very different religious make-up…and also Rome may not have declined in the same way.

Newton because science physics, innit. In the C17th too.

I can see the arguments for Genghis Khan, Confucius, Muhammed, Marx, Napoleon, Uncles Adolph & Joe, Lenin, and Euclid: but I didn't vote for them despite that.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

My vote is with Cesar, without whom salad would be that much less expensive.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

fun fact: he was of Yaqui descent.

huh, weird how the wiki article doesn't make mention of that (????). yeah, one of my friends was married to a nephew er something.