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Inspired by two posts in the other thread (which I merge into one quote below), each from Andrel and Sir Isaac Brock, in a discussion about how to make our world better off today...

I think we could agree that the US , Canada , and most of the European states turned out to be just fine in OTL ( or are about to ). These states have a high standard of living and the citizens enjoy many rights.
The same can be said about Australia , New Zeeland and Japan.
Other far-eastern states are also wealthy , though their citizens don't have so much rights as the Americans and Europeans in their own countries.

So , if we want to find a POD that makes the world better , we should find a POD that changes the future of Africa , the Arab world , Central Asia , and , if possible , of Russia , South America and China.

Africa needs to evolve in a way that prevents the "national liberation movements" seizing power when the Europeans leave and starting the cycle of dictatorship and coup. POD could be that the Europeans aren't forced out of the continent, but rather the colonies develop their independence slowly in stages, like Canada did from 1840 to 1982.

The Muslim world needs a healy competition of ideas and a tradition of peaceful transfer of power rather than simply the choice of repressive moarchies, secular dictatorships, or Islamist theocracies. POD could be Arab independence well before the Cold War started (or after it ended) and issues of Soviet - American rivalry and the Arab-Israeli dispute complicated things.

Russia need to avoid communism, or have it fail and be discredited early on, before Stalin started killing millions. A slow transition from Tsarist autocracy to a constitutional parliamentary system would help. But it needs to start
well before 1917!

China is the same as Russia: reforming the old system before it collapses and allows extremists to take over is key.

South America needs go for true democratic revolutions in the mould of the US and France, not shifting power from Spain and Portugal to local elites. OR stay with Spain and Portugal and have a POD where they reform democratically.

The challenge is to find out what PODs that could lead into those chain of events...
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