The butterfly effect and human culture

Sven

This is meant to be a light discussion thread.

Culture is a very fluid thing, and is presumably very sensitive to the butterfly effect. But, surely some cultural items are more likely to occur than others. So, there must be some cultural ideas that many divergent timelines will likely converge on.

Below is a list of cultural items. I want to hear everybody's thoughts on how "butterfly-resistant" these items are.

Which of these are likely to reappear independently in many divergent alternate timelines?
Which are likely to not feature in alternate timelines?
What alternate items or ideas might likely have risen to fill the same general roles of these items?
What other cultural ideas or items can you come up with that might either be converged upon or butterflied away in alternate timelines?

the tricorne hat
the chocolate bar
rock music
association football
the bikini
the necktie
the cigar
zombie fiction
 
oshron

oshron

depending on the POD, chocolate and tobacco would probably still exist in recognizable forms. people would want easier ways to eat chocolate and smoke, so they'd probably still develop chocolate bars and rolled tobacco even if they aren't 100% identical

zombie fiction is perhaps less likely, but i can see equivalents appearing in a given TL. the undead have always been a source of horror to people throughout the world, and have been present in folklore and mythology for all of history
 

Elfwine

I don't think most of those things are going to go away if at all just by random butterflies so much as because if things are very different in say the 1950s the development of something in the 1950s won't occur in TTL's 1950s.

But I don't think that having a POD in 1166 means no rock music, for instance - as in, the conditions necessary for it cannot occur after that - just that the precise individuals of OTL and events around them won't.

The bikini is likely to be called something else in an alt-timeline with a POD that far back, but it may well still exist.
 

willbell

Zombie Fiction will stay
However there is a possibility that it would stay in the realm of mysticism and demonic possession than infection and hoards of the undead.
Rock Music will be in a very different form.
Depending on how far back the PoD I think something with stretched strings will eventually appear, and someone will eventually come across a rhythm similar to rock and judging by the popularity of rock, it would be at least interesting to an alt-society.
The bikini will exist as long as we don't end up some religious fundamentalist society unless the PoD is far enough back that humans are confined to warm latitudes or breasts aren't seen as sexual objects (removing the need for a second piece).
Tricorne hats are generic hats, anything is possible.
Football is very delicate, it needs a post-1900 PoD.
Cigars I am completely uncertain.
The neck tie, again I am not sure.
 

Sicarius

With the same basic hat template being used for so long and in so many ways, I'd say the tricorne is a fairly likely occurrence. Same with cigars, it's a simple and straightforward form for the material in question.
 

FDW

Banned
willbell said:
Zombie Fiction will stay
However there is a possibility that it would stay in the realm of mysticism and demonic possession than infection and hoards of the undead.
Rock Music will be in a very different form.
Depending on how far back the PoD I think something with stretched strings will eventually appear, and someone will eventually come across a rhythm similar to rock and judging by the popularity of rock, it would be at least interesting to an alt-society.
The bikini will exist as long as we don't end up some religious fundamentalist society unless the PoD is far enough back that humans are confined to warm latitudes or breasts aren't seen as sexual objects (removing the need for a second piece).
Tricorne hats are generic hats, anything is possible.
Football is very delicate, it needs a post-1900 PoD.
Cigars I am completely uncertain.
The neck tie, again I am not sure.
Click to expand...

Neckties are hard to pin down, they kind of grew out of types of scarves, so while you might see some type of scarf around the neck being considered formal, the specific type of tying that Neckties are known for (which originated in Croatia) could be butterflied.

As for Football, variations of the sport keep turning up in ancient cultures, so while we might not see the exact rules that football is known for, it'll probably still exist in some form.
 

Thespitron 6000

Neckties are almost certain to be butterflied away, since they are the evolution of the cravat, which was introduced to Europe at a very specific time in the 1630s in France by Croatian mercenaries. No Croatian mercenaries brought to France, no cravats, no neckties.
 
Petike

Petike

Sven said:
the tricorne hat
the chocolate bar
rock music
association football
the bikini
the necktie
the cigar
zombie fiction
Click to expand...

Good idea for a thread.

I think cigars, chocolate bars and AF are the most butterfly-resistant.
Tricorne hats, bikinis and rock music are somewhere in between.
Zombie fiction (as we know it) and neckties are the least resistant.

However, this is all very POD-dependant. If the divergence is already during antiquity, you might one day get tetracorne or pentacorne hats instead, as rough equivalents. Same for the rest. As for zombies: I could see zombies getting conflated with the traditional, pre-Stoker folk image of vampires, seen in the Balkans and most Slavic countries. Yes, they were often more zombie-like prior to Stoker and other modern vampire lit that created the modern fantasy stereotype we know today. Rock music will definitely have only loose analogues, but I bet that some music like that will emerge, particularly if euroamerican society goes down a similar path of experience as in OTL.
 
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Elfwine

Thespitron 6000 said:
Neckties are almost certain to be butterflied away, since they are the evolution of the cravat, which was introduced to Europe at a very specific time in the 1630s in France by Croatian mercenaries. No Croatian mercenaries brought to France, no cravats, no neckties.
Click to expand...

But you might - theoretically - have Croatian mercenaries brought somewhere else leading to the same thing.

That'd require an uncannily similar setup at the time they were relevant, though.
 

BoilingBoy

Interesting question. I'd say chocolate bars and cigars would be very butterfly-resistant. Like oshron said, people are going to want easy ways to consume tobacco and chocolate once they find out about them.

Rock music seems fragile to me, given its origins as a confluence of several specific musical traditions of culturally and geographically diverse origin. You need to bring together black West African music and American folk (its own fragile tradition ultimately derived from Western European traditional music), and do it in the right social and economic circumstances for the result to become widespread, and even then there's probably a fair amount of luck, given how strongly the trends of modern music can be influenced by a few notable people. To take a fairly recent PoD, change the circumstances leading up to the migration of black southerners to the industrial cities of the northern US in the mid-twentieth century and suddenly you've got no Chicago blues music, and you're missing a fairly critical influence on the burgeoning rock and roll genre. It seems likely that in a technologically-advanced capitalist culture like ours we'd develop some kind of bouncy fun popular music, but I don't know if it has to sound anything like rock as we would recognise it.

Zombies is another interesting one. This might just be personal bias on my part (I love zombies) but I think it's a natural concept and one that we were bound to develop sooner or later. Just to clarify, I'm talking about the modern pop culture zombie here, not the traditional Vodoun zombie (they don't have much in common except the name). We've had the ingredients for the "Hollywood zombie" -- the undead, devastating plagues etc -- for centuries, and pretty much immediately after it was invented it exploded in popularity and became a fixture of our culture. It seems like a concept that was waiting to happen. The question I've mused on for many hours is why it wasn't invented earlier. My conclusion is that zombies are basically a new flavour of vampire for the modern world. Vampires, like zombies, are revenants that feed on humans and in so doing pass on their condition. But while vampires are intelligent, inclined to self-preservation and consciously evil, zombies are mindless and act only on instinctive aggression, even when it's totally against their interests. Vampires are undead suited to a world governed by sentient forces of good and evil. Zombies are undead suited to an indifferent and chaotic universe with no governance where we might all die tomorrow because the Earth gets hit by a giant rock from space. So basically zombies are vampires: atheist version! and likely to crop up in any society with a heavy scientific/atheist influence.

Man, that all turned out to be a bit heavier (and a lot longer) than I intended. Sorry about that.
 

jycee

It is interesting. As many have pointed out most are likely to show up in a similar but different form in most TLs. Here are my thoughts.


The tricorne hat - Medium low butterfly resistance. Though it could be seen as a generic hat, it does have a a specific design that appeared for only a brief amount of time in OTL, and was somewhat restricted on range. Fashions come and go and at times recycle themselves. You might not get it at the same time (the equivalent of the early modern world) but at some point you might end up with a hat that looks like it.


The chocolate bar - High resistance for chocolate, medium for the bar form. Chocolate was not eaten in the milk bar form that we know until Europeans experimented throughly with cocoa. A chocolate drink that is sweetened with added milk is almost certain to happen - adding coffee and making it mocha just as well - but the bar form takes more effort.


Rock music - Similar to chocolate bar. A modern music genre that arrives as a consequence of mixing many genres that had reached a universal appeal while experimenting with new sounds brought on by electrical instruments is bound to happen. The rock format is harder to define. The division of art and music into genres is somewhat idiosyncratic. It won't be called rock for certain, it might not even be considered a single genre or be lumped with other music we wouldn't consider rock.

Association Football - once again a sport that involves two team kicking around a ball has popped up in many cultures in varios forms. AF as we know is unlikely but a sport like it with mass world wide appeal would. The sport will likely end up being anything between AF and Rugby looking.


The bikini - As it was already pointed out unless we can do with prudishness and not have a need for a top piece, it is something very likely to happen once the sexual revolution occurs, which is a demographic effect and thus much harder to butterfly than one would think. Medium high resistance to butterflies.


The necktie - like the hat. As it was pointed out, the necktie as we know it is a product arriving from Croatia via France. Like the hat this model of an accessory that hangs from ones neck to break the pattern of the shirt and jacket might not appear as we know it in the time that it did. But Croat mercenaries or not, it just seems like it is something that may appear. Medium low resistance to butterflies


The cigar - Very high resistance. People will look for many ways in which to take their drugs - hell, someone in OTL had to arrive at the idea of snorting white coca powder - and unlike the chocolate bar the cigar is a much more direct way for this drug to be taken in. Probably highest resistance of all in the list.

Zombie fiction - I am going to go with also very high resistance. But they won't be called zombies, and same pop-culture rules may not apply (hearts rather than brains may be their preferred diet). The undead are a reliable source of horror, masses of them, only add to the horror. The spread of undeadness through a plague / apocalyptic curse is easy to arrive to and once you have arrived to the idea the mass appeal is likely to happen.
 
9 Fanged Hummingbird

9 Fanged Hummingbird

Cigars I'm sure are butterfly resistant. Not just for the reasons people are stating, but also because they are ancient. They were around in the Pre-Columbian era back thousands of years. Hell, if you're that curious I could probably show you Maya vases and carvings showing people having a cigar.
 

Sven

Obviously, this is a very nuanced question, and it's sensitive to the exact circumstances and timing of the PoD, as well as the exact definition of the cultural item in question.

To take the example of rock music, we could define it as a small-band, guitar-oriented popular music genre with certain characteristics of beat and harmony. Which aspects of rock music are likely to reappear in an ATL? What's so special about the guitar? Was it "destined for greatness," so to speak? Or was it the specific influence of pioneers like Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly that made the guitar the standard sidearm of popular musicians? What would it take to make the banjo, the fiddle, the saxophone or the bagpipes the instrument of choice?
 

Sven

Some cultural items have a functional purpose. For example, the tricorne hat's shape functioned as a rain gutter. The functionality of the tricorne therefore probably ensures its invention (though, obviously not its popularity).

Any functional purpose of the necktie, however, is largely peripheral to its fashion purpose. Throughout history, fashions come and go, so, to me, this seems like a very likely victim of the butterfly effect in an ATL.

So, functionality, to me, might make a cultural item more butterfly-resistant.

9 Fanged Hummingbird also suggested that some items could be considered more butterfly-resistant because of their ancientness. Maybe so, but I would be hesitant in generalizing this, since a PoD from before the invention of the cigar might still butterfly away the cigar.
 
Napoleon53

Napoleon53

First off, fear not for your beloved swimsuit:

images


The Romans had them. ;)

Sven said:
the tricorne hat
the chocolate bar
rock music
association football
the bikini
the necktie
the cigar
zombie fiction
Click to expand...

Tricorne: Sure, hats could easily have remained wide-brimmed, like a "Pilgrim" or "Musketeer" hat. I'd imagine a TL with no Canadian fur hunts taking tricornes out, since beaver fur and such were what tricornes were made of at the beginning.

The chocolate bar: It would still exist. Unless Cocoa doesn't exist, someone will invent it.

Rock music: A TL where everything is much more Puritanical, especially in England (like, say, a Mosley Take Over TL), is very likely to end rock music before it really begins. Everything will sound like Fallout soundtracks. :D Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy would be considered rebellious. :p

Association Football: While I always watch FIFA, I'm not a soccer expert, so I'll pass.

Bikini: Yeah, pretty much Butterfly-proof, unless people don't wear anything when they swim. :eek:

Necktie: Not sure how it'd be butterflied specifically, but I'd say we could wind up wearing cravats. In modern times it becomes more of an ascot type thing.

The cigar: Totally, absolutely, butterfly proof. No way.

Zombie fiction: Like others said, it'd still be around, however watered down or jacked up.
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
A variant of Kaiju fiction will appear, as the idea actually predated sound films IOTL, and King Kong was very big in its day. Not to mention having mythological antecedents going all the way back to Humbaba in the epic of Gilgamesh. Fantasy fiction will still exist without a Tolkien, it'd just be far more reliant on Sword and Sorcery. Much modern fiction is built on foundations old and strong, it would see equivalents to pretty much everything in modern times.

Now, how comic books develop in an ATL without the Comics Code would be fascinating. Superheroes might not be very popular in the ATL USA, certainly not anywhere to the degree they are in US comics. Likewise the Hays Code in Hollywood never happening would lead to a very different and yet very familiar evolution of movies from OTL.

Likewise, it's quite possible to have pop-culture ATLs where various cultural phenomena happen earlier or later. Imagine, for instance, a world where Blade was never released and so the superhero film genre is dead for a long time.....
 

Makemakean

King of Rome said:
I hope to god the bikini would be butterfly-resistant... Not cause I'm a chauvinist or nothing... For history and all...
Click to expand...

If admiring the female body was chauvinistic, then I think it is only fair to assume that Victorian fashion and manners were the most pro-feminist ever to emerge, and that we in the west, seeking more equality between the genders, have a lot of things to learn from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Burka.jpg
 

Elfwine

Makemakean: For some reason, that just makes me dislike the attitude that there's nothing wrong with hoping bikinis aren't butterflied, and I don't know why.

Maybe its the fact that as someone who is comfortably committed to chastity that "liking to look at mostly naked women" in no manner does or could involve anything demeaning comes off as missing something.
 
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