AHC: Have an equivalent of the Sexual Revolution by 1875
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How far back can the POD be? If silphium survives and is actively cultivated for its presumed contraceptive properties, by the 19th century it might be scientifically possible to analyze, extract, and replicate its properties in medicinal form. Basically a birth control pill (or tincture, maybe). Once women have control over their reproduction a sexual revolution is historically likely, if not inevitable.
I'm thinking the earliest POD date is 1000 BC.
What would be the effects on human history if it survived?
Silphium seems completely overrated in this regards. It isn't like there's other ways to do the same thing that silphium would've done that was available to Europeans.
It certainly wouldn't be something as advanced as the sexual revolution but, if the universal rights are extended to women, during the french revolution, maybe a movement similar to feminism arises in the end of the 19th century?
For one thing, they wouldn't be called LGBTQ
In the late 19th century, the movement would probably be called Tribade-Homosexual-Bisexual-Transsexual or THBT movement.
That would be interesting to see. I don't know if it's true or not but didn't the French have their own Sexual Revolution before the 20th Century? I think there was thread about it a while back, let me get the link.
Antibiotics, birth control, and some equivalent to the CDC. Or it all ends in a fundamentalist backlash.
Earlier penicillin? Wasn't it originally founded by accident?
Silphium survives? (If it had any actually contraceptive powers or did have any Abortifacients in if) any idea how it's survival would effect history minus its role in an earlier sexual revolution?
Silphium did have abortifacient powers, but so did a ton of other herbs and plants known to Europeans. I just don't see how it's some wonder drug when there were plenty of compounds to induce abortions.
You'd need to find a way to reliably cultivate penicillin, and then there's the matter of antibiotic resistance--can penicillin-related drugs be developed earlier?
True, maybe have the powers of the plants realized earlier?
Those are some interesting thoughts.
Maybe under further experimentation one of these 3 (maybe Pasteur) finds that penicillin can be used as an antibiotic.Wikipedia said:
I know it's past the requirement dates (well minus William Roberts finding it, maybe he could find that it's an antibiotic...?) but it's something.
If it's even in the Bible (Numbers 5 references abortifacients), I don't see how traditional abortifacient remedies would spark a sexual revolution in the 19th century. It was all known, just in OTL there was no push to do anything more with them.
Okay then... what about the French Sexual Revolution? I posted a link talking about it earlier in the thread.
Any other ways we could progress Woman's Rights (earlier suffrage? Any other abortive/ contraceptive medicines tat could be used?)
What about LGBT rights? Any way we could progress LGBT rights earlier?
Any other ways we could progress Woman's Rights (earlier suffrage? Any other abortive/ contraceptive medicines tat could be used?)
What about LGBT rights? Any way we could progress LGBT rights earlier?
Well, I'm not religious at all, but I have say it's hard to interpret "holy water with dust from the tabernacle floor" as an "abortifacient." If Numbers had mentioned some more specific herb or whatnot you'd have a better case, there.
"Bitter water", as mentioned multiple times in that chapter, seems to suggest something. I'm not religious either, and I know many Christians hate the idea of that chapter being used to oppose pro-life positions, but there is an interpretation of Numbers 5 as referencing abortion. I don't think it's too hard to imagine pre-modern Christian people thinking of potions made from abortifacient herbs as having a basis in Numbers 5.
Well, yeah- water with tabernacle floor dirt in it. All the references to "bitter water" are to this water. I think. I'm hardly a biblical scholar. Nor can I comment intelligently on the use of asafetida as a floor mat in the bronze-age Levant.
Well, yeah- water with tabernacle floor dirt in it. All the references to "bitter water" are to this water. I think. I'm hardly a biblical scholar. Nor can I comment intelligently on the use of asafetida as a floor mat in the bronze-age Levant.
There are two ways to interpret to it--the ways a Jewish scholar interpreted it (mainly Talmudic interpretations), and the ways a Christian scholar of the 17-19th centuries would interpret it (which filters down into the general populace), which I think it more relevant to this discussion. There are modern scholars which interpret Numbers 5 as being an abortion reference. I don't think it's impossible for premodern scholars to think abortifacient herbs are similar to Numbers 5. And we're not even thinking so much premodern as 19th century here.