Anchises
Banned
Whilst I agree that there are certain variables in history that can't be quantified in the same way that the natural sciences might aim to do so, I don't think that makes empiricism any less valid. We might not be able to measure every factor on the basis of its importance, but we can use them to construct an idea of what might have been going on and we do have quantifiable data, such as industrial stats to help with this. If you accept that you're trying to determine the possibility of a certain event then it's important use what you can to reach a conclusion without resigning yourself to the fact that there's no way to formulate an equation and as such there's no point in trying to determine possibility in the first place. If empiricism is inappropriate in AH when the whole question of "What If" has to be dismissed as bunk and although there are some historians who've come to that conclusion we're on a site dedicated to "What If" so we have to work on the basis that it's a question worth answering.
I am not saying that it is not a question worth answering. I just don't think that counterfactuals are something that we should tackle with the same mindset that we would employ when talking about hypothetical scenarios in physics.
I don't feel comfortable with the level of certainty you express in your assessment of alternate WW2s because I have less trust in the available data and in our conclusions. We construct an idea based on loose assumptions and some "hard" (relatively) facts, its not bunk but it is no scientific paper either.
I think we just diverge in our assessment of how accurate the scenarios we construct here are. I am certainly not trying to say that our ideas are bunk. I just think that we overlook a lot of stuff we don't know or forget.
I too think that the USA would likely enter WW2 in the scenario laid out here but there are certainly a lot of ATLs where this wouldn't happen, for some reason we would percieve as freakishly ASB. Just like there are probably ATLs where Germany handily won an Nazi-Anglo Cold War. Assuming that one belives into parallel universes.