The development of Central Asia without Russian colonialism

You're assuming that the die would even be thrown in the first place.

Or by the same person. Or in a game against the same person.

Or that it would even be in the same location.

I'm not assuming anything to do with quantum mechanics. And probability doesn't "reset" under any circumstance. You are assuming that the exact same circumstance will always happen, when there's no guarantee that the same circumstance would even arise in the first place.
There's nothing that someone being not born in China in 1500 that could then cause a die to not be cast in North America or even Europe or whatever you want to say "it gets thrown" "the people show up" within... 5 days... or at that time period probably effect anything within 6 months or possibly years depending on what the POD is and how important it affects and the distance (and the date, because technology effects how far it can effect events). The problem is you're acting as if making any changes to OTL creates atmospheric and almost instaneous changes to the entire world and people's lives. I'm sorry, once again, and last time I'm debating you- the world doesnt act that way. Neither human interactions nor weather systems. A butterfly flapping its wings in Africa does NOT create hurricanes. At all.
 
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There's nothing that someone being not born in China in 1500 that could then cause a die to not be cast or whatever you want to say "it gets thrown" "the people show up" within... 5 days... or at that time period probably effect anything within 6 months or possibly years depending on what the POD is and how important it affects. The problem is you're acting as if making any changes to OTL creates atmospheric and almost instaneous changes to the entire world and people's lives. I'm sorry, once again, and last time I'm debating you- the world doesnt act that way. Neither human interactions nor weather systems. A butterfly flapping its wings in Africa does NOT create hurricanes. At all.

And you're implying that the work is completely deterministic. Which it isn't.

You seem not to understand the point I was making. For the exact same outcome to occur, then not only must the starting conditions be the same, then every event that occurs subsequently must be exactly the same.

Real life isn't like a row of dominos arranged in a particular pattern. Move one domino slightly, and you get a different result. The chance of an event, say the result of a six-sided dice throw is 1/6*. The change of the die being thrown at all is much, much smaller.

Put it like this. It's 1860, somewhere out west. You want to play dice at the saloon. In timeline (A) you arrive at 6:30pm, and play against "Quick-draw" McGraw. You throw a six, he throws a four, and you win, buy yourself a drink and you go home happy.

In timeline (B), you stop to chat with someone in the street, which you don't do in timeline (B)**. You arrive at 6:34pm, and play against "Snake-eyes" Sampson, because McGraw is playing against someone else. You throw a five, he throws a four, he gets upset and draws his gun, shooting you in the leg.

In timeline (C), you still stop to chat with the same person in the street as in (B). You arrive at 6:37pm. However, everyone who is playing dice is busy, so you buy a drink. Eventually, you go home, having not played any dice, because you have been talking to your old friend, Goldtooth Armstrong, all night.

Same starting point, three entirely different outcomes.




*or near enough. The exact chance depends on the structure of the die, but that is going into a silly number of decimal points. Assume the die is perfectly fair.
**the exact reason doesn't matter.
 
And you're implying that the work is completely deterministic. Which it isn't.

You seem not to understand the point I was making. For the exact same outcome to occur, then not only must the starting conditions be the same, then every event that occurs subsequently must be exactly the same.

Real life isn't like a row of dominos arranged in a particular pattern. Move one domino slightly, and you get a different result. The chance of an event, say the result of a six-sided dice throw is 1/6*. The change of the die being thrown at all is much, much smaller.

Put it like this. It's 1860, somewhere out west. You want to play dice at the saloon. In timeline (A) you arrive at 6:30pm, and play against "Quick-draw" McGraw. You throw a six, he throws a four, and you win, buy yourself a drink and you go home happy.

In timeline (B), you stop to chat with someone in the street, which you don't do in timeline (B)**. You arrive at 6:34pm, and play against "Snake-eyes" Sampson, because McGraw is playing against someone else. You throw a five, he throws a four, he gets upset and draws his gun, shooting you in the leg.

In timeline (C), you still stop to chat with the same person in the street as in (B). You arrive at 6:37pm. However, everyone who is playing dice is busy, so you buy a drink. Eventually, you go home, having not played any dice, because you have been talking to your old friend, Goldtooth Armstrong, all night.

Same starting point, three entirely different outcomes.




*or near enough. The exact chance depends on the structure of the die, but that is going into a silly number of decimal points. Assume the die is perfectly fair.
**the exact reason doesn't matter.

**the exact reason DOES matter. You must show causality from the POD, otherwise that change (meeting someone in the street) IS the POD. Or another one
 
**the exact reason DOES matter. You must show causality from the POD, otherwise that change (meeting someone in the street) IS the POD. Or another one

Why? That person may simply have decided to take a slightly different route, and arrived there after you went by, or was already talking to someone else in timeline (A). The point I'm making is that you are assuming that millions, possibly billions of free agents behave in exactly the same way every single time, no matter what the POD is, nor where it takes place.

You claim that the world is deterministic.

I claim that the world is probabilistic. That is not the same thing. As I said before, the chance of an event happening is not the same as the chance of that event even happening in the first place.

The difference may not have anything to do with the POD at all, but the differences start stacking up right away.

Ok, let's take this example. A person in China doesn't get conceived in 1970, where they did IOTL.

Five days later, in New York City. In OTL it is dry. In Timeline (B), it's raining, but only a little. In Timeline (C) it's raining heavily. In timeline (A) and (B) you arrive at your meeting on time, within a few seconds. In timeline (C), your taxi has to go slower to avoid skidding, because the roads are much wetter, so you arrive ten minutes later. Nothing to do with the POD at all, it's just that the wind blew some clouds a little differently in the three timelines.
 
You are assuming your change takes precedence over all the OTL ripples, that is not true. A small ripple will be drowned out and not go any further because a larger wave or the tide itself. Your POD doesn't create infinitely reproducing butterflies, that form that kind of cone through time. They instead die off, don't reproduce, and your cone can end up a diamond shape, or some weird polygon that comes to a singularity at the end where time has swamped your POD and the world has converged with OTL. You seem to think the world is a lot more connected than it really is, even in 2017. Especially the farther back in time you go the more likely your POD's ripples will die before it gets big enough at a far enough along date in globalization to be meaningful and survive. The further back in time, the more likely for convergence, not divergence. You have things backwards. Trust me.
That is about as far from the truth as possible. Say you travel back in time to the height of the population bottleneck following the Toba Eruption 70,000 years ago, and shoot the first human you see in the face. You stand a decent chance of having killed a decent chunk of humanity's ancestor, enough that by the time civilization arises the basics are all similar because geography is destiny, but not a single OTL figure exists.
 
Explain how Confucius not being born in China causes a woman to switch positions from OTL in the Great Lakes region of North America even as late as 5 or 50 years later. There's no way "little ripples" outweigh the huge ripples already in play from OTL to get there and effect something like that. You're extrapolating way too much out of butterflies. Butterflies fly only as fast as the globalization of the time period and do not EVER go faster.
I agree with that. That's why typically I leave the Americas alone when I make up ATLs with a pre-1492 POD. However, at the same time, we're not talking about minor changes. We're talking about massive, world-altering changes. Unless you think that in a world where Alexander the Great dies in the Battle at the River Granicus, Barack Obama is still elected President of the United States in 2008 :rolleyes:

We're getting off track. The fact of the matter is that no Russian conquest of central asia completely changes the geopolitics of pretty much the entire continent, meaning that the PRC as we know it will. not. happen.
 
I agree with that. That's why typically I leave the Americas alone when I make up ATLs with a pre-1492 POD. However, at the same time, we're not talking about minor changes. We're talking about massive, world-altering changes. Unless you think that in a world where Alexander the Great dies in the Battle at the River Granicus, Barack Obama is still elected President of the United States in 2008 :rolleyes:

We're getting off track. The fact of the matter is that no Russian conquest of central asia completely changes the geopolitics of pretty much the entire continent, meaning that the PRC as we know it will. not. happen.
No it doesnt. Britain and the US will still push for the Open Door Policy, and despite the lack of geographical knowledge shown in this thread Siberia and Far East Asia is not the same as Central Asia and therefore one must assume, until the OP is changed, that this means that Russia simply doesnt have Kazakhstan and the 4 other Central Asian republics (-stans), but still has everything else. There's no reason to assume otherwise until that is changed. Which means Japan still has every reason for the Russo-Japanese war, Sino-Japanese War, and WWII. Central Asia affects little outside of Central Asia. It's freakin' Central Asia for pete's sake in the 1700-1800s, nobody cares except Britain and Russia. Even China is too messed up to care about Central Asia by then.
 
No it doesnt. Britain and the US will still push for the Open Door Policy, and despite the lack of geographical knowledge shown in this thread Siberia and Far East Asia is not the same as Central Asia and therefore one must assume, until the OP is changed, that this means that Russia simply doesnt have Kazakhstan and the 4 other Central Asian republics (-stans), but still has everything else. There's no reason to assume otherwise until that is changed. Which means Japan still has every reason for the Russo-Japanese war, Sino-Japanese War, and WWII. Central Asia affects little outside of Central Asia. It's freakin' Central Asia for pete's sake in the 1700-1800s, nobody cares except Britain and Russia. Even China is too messed up to care about Central Asia by then.
1. you listed the wars out of chronological order
2. since you evidently completely missed it
I agree with everything except that a pre-1600 POD means no PRC, you have to show cause and effect. Russia, I am assuming, still has Siberia, Tannu Tavu, and goes on to have Vladivostok and Alaska. Which means the Russo-Japanese War still happen.
No Russian expansion into Central Asia = Britain not singling Russia out as its primary threat = Britain not helping modernize the Japanese Navy as it has no real use for a check on Russia = no Russo-Japanese War/Russian Victory in the Russo-Japanese War. As a result everything after is too different for things to return to OTL's path.
Russia not surging south to a position where it can be a perceived threat to British India changes quite a bit in terms of British diplomacy in the mid-late 1800s and early 1900s.
 
1. you listed the wars out of chronological order
2. since you evidently completely missed it

Russia not surging south to a position where it can be a perceived threat to British India changes quite a bit in terms of British diplomacy in the mid-late 1800s and early 1900s.
I didn't realize it NEEDED to be in chronological order. Please give me a list of your rules for debating against you so I can make sure to ignore more of them.

No, it really doesn't affect much of the early or mid-1800s. And Britain will perceive Russia as a threat to the Open Door Policy in China regardless. Because Russia still has Siberia and Vladivostok and aims on Manchuria; because those things aren't in Central Asia.
 
No, it really doesn't affect much of the early or mid-1800s. And Britain will perceive Russia as a threat to the Open Door Policy in China regardless. Because Russia still has Siberia and Vladivostok and aims on Manchuria; because those things aren't in Central Asia.

During this period, Britain really cares about potential threats to India. If Russia doesn't border India, Britain will view Russia as less of a threat.

Yes, Russia will still be a potential threat in China. But Britain won't be as threatened by Russia, because of the lack of proximity to India.
 
I didn't realize it NEEDED to be in chronological order. Please give me a list of your rules for debating against you so I can make sure to ignore more of them.
Ok, if you're going to get high and mighty about people not knowing the terminology of arbitrary asian geographic boundaries then you'd better make the rest of your post spotless. Otherwise expect to get called out.

Also I love how you made the effort to say you'd ignore my preferred forum ettiequte when you've already typed out two sentences explicitly addressing it.

No, it really doesn't affect much of the early or mid-1800s. And Britain will perceive Russia as a threat to the Open Door Policy in China regardless. Because Russia still has Siberia and Vladivostok and aims on Manchuria; because those things aren't in Central Asia.
Without a half century of Central Asia related tensions with Russia, the UK isn't going to be nearly as concerned about what Russia plans to do with its handful of cold water pacific ports (the most prominent of which would not even be linked to the rest of Russia by rail until 1916). Without the Great Game in Central Asia Russia will take a back seat to France in Britain's India related paranoia. And as far as the Open Door Policy is concerned, without the great game clouding British judgement it will recognize that Japan is just as much a predatory power as Russia and would probably join in the Triple Intervention. After all in 1895 Japan wasn't just trying to establish a sphere of influence, it was trying to carve off territory.

Also I love how you said "early or mid-1800s" which is absolutely not the time period I specified.
 
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