Inadvertently, of course. This idea came out of my wondering if Robin Williams death might lead to a more in depth conversation about mental illness which goes on to save many lives. A silver lining.
And i began to wonder if perhaps everything has a silver lining, one that just may be impossible to see. And here is my thinking: Hitler caused a shift in mankinds collective psyche. I've read that before him, the lowest you could insult someone was by comparing them to the Pharoh. We obviously hadn't had "the living embodiment of evil" in living memory. So lets say that the conditions that lead him to power are butterflied away enough that nothing like the Holocaust happens. In fact, there is a relative peace after WWI (the time humanity considers its darkest chapter). What happens if humanity develops the atom bomb in a semi-peaceful world? Yes, there will be tests where people say "this is horrific and never to be used." but not everyone is so concerned about others (See: Hitler). It would be a world were not every child can both define and give examples of genocide.
In OTL, the atom bomb was born during a period of terrible bloodshed. It is used twice and we spend the following decades tettering on nuclear war. I think a large part of why the Cold War never went hot is because we collectively still had the memories of the horrors of the world wars. In a world where those horrors didn't happen, i could see an enormous global arms race that was butterflied by OTL's two superpowers. Perhaps the best thing about the cold war is it allowed the superpowers to say either "you may have a limited nuclear aresenal" or "none at all" and cite the threat of extinction.
In this Hitlerless world, what if the atom bomb is discovered and everyone begins building them? They would be unaware of the true implications. And instead of having most of the world clumped into two umbrella alliances, its the everyman-for-themselves ideals of the early twentieth century. (Look at countries that fought one another. At some point they were friends, as visa versa). There is no global power to tell France, England, China, Japan, so on and on, not to build nukes. And in a world were you basically have to have them to have any real sovereignty, everyone would want them. Proliferation like we cannot imagine.
And without the well publicized atrocities of the second world war, perhaps this world isn't so nauseated by some kind of "tit for tat" nuclear war. A conflict that slowly escalates over time, knocking mankind farther and farther back. With everyone having nukes, the safeguards are much less. Nuclear terrorism would/could become a facet of everyday life. Without someone to be world cop, all the old animosities find themselves in a situation where being wiped off the face of the earth isn't uncommon, and the only way to prevent it is to do it first.
--
I'm not saying "thank god for all the horrible things that happened." I just have wondered if there are perhaps far darker things we avoided. We seem, perhaps unconsciously, to agree on that. All of the timelines where Japan doesn't surrender, the Reich last 40 years, so on and on. Thoughts?
And i began to wonder if perhaps everything has a silver lining, one that just may be impossible to see. And here is my thinking: Hitler caused a shift in mankinds collective psyche. I've read that before him, the lowest you could insult someone was by comparing them to the Pharoh. We obviously hadn't had "the living embodiment of evil" in living memory. So lets say that the conditions that lead him to power are butterflied away enough that nothing like the Holocaust happens. In fact, there is a relative peace after WWI (the time humanity considers its darkest chapter). What happens if humanity develops the atom bomb in a semi-peaceful world? Yes, there will be tests where people say "this is horrific and never to be used." but not everyone is so concerned about others (See: Hitler). It would be a world were not every child can both define and give examples of genocide.
In OTL, the atom bomb was born during a period of terrible bloodshed. It is used twice and we spend the following decades tettering on nuclear war. I think a large part of why the Cold War never went hot is because we collectively still had the memories of the horrors of the world wars. In a world where those horrors didn't happen, i could see an enormous global arms race that was butterflied by OTL's two superpowers. Perhaps the best thing about the cold war is it allowed the superpowers to say either "you may have a limited nuclear aresenal" or "none at all" and cite the threat of extinction.
In this Hitlerless world, what if the atom bomb is discovered and everyone begins building them? They would be unaware of the true implications. And instead of having most of the world clumped into two umbrella alliances, its the everyman-for-themselves ideals of the early twentieth century. (Look at countries that fought one another. At some point they were friends, as visa versa). There is no global power to tell France, England, China, Japan, so on and on, not to build nukes. And in a world were you basically have to have them to have any real sovereignty, everyone would want them. Proliferation like we cannot imagine.
And without the well publicized atrocities of the second world war, perhaps this world isn't so nauseated by some kind of "tit for tat" nuclear war. A conflict that slowly escalates over time, knocking mankind farther and farther back. With everyone having nukes, the safeguards are much less. Nuclear terrorism would/could become a facet of everyday life. Without someone to be world cop, all the old animosities find themselves in a situation where being wiped off the face of the earth isn't uncommon, and the only way to prevent it is to do it first.
--
I'm not saying "thank god for all the horrible things that happened." I just have wondered if there are perhaps far darker things we avoided. We seem, perhaps unconsciously, to agree on that. All of the timelines where Japan doesn't surrender, the Reich last 40 years, so on and on. Thoughts?
