Almost certainly not, there are formidable technical challenges involved. About the best you could reasonably do is preserving EVs in city roles and have them become mass-available starting in the 2000s instead of the 2010s.
The Fire Never Dies, Part II: The Red Colossus
- Thread starter Meshakhad
- Start date
Historyprofessor99
Banned
EVs were technically invented more than 100 years ago.
Publicly funded research (basically socialized or socialist) accomplished the most.
So I was wondering if we have 300 million EVs or non- ICE vehicles.
additionally question, What is the ASU doing about climate change?
Publicly funded research (basically socialized or socialist) accomplished the most.
So I was wondering if we have 300 million EVs or non- ICE vehicles.
additionally question, What is the ASU doing about climate change?
Historyprofessor99
Banned
Non-related but interesting question.
What do you think are the odds of a socialist gaining the presidency and reforming the country in the next 50 years?
What do you think are the odds of a socialist gaining the presidency and reforming the country in the next 50 years?
In many places, yes. Most decently sized union halls have at least a bar on site, if not a proper restaurant (IOTL, there was a Vietnamese restaurant in the Seattle Labor Temple prior to the pandemic). Many of the larger ones have developed into community centers.
In the short term, nothing. Once scientists become aware of the issue, the ASU is likely take a stronger response. However, they will still have to deal with the interests of the fossil fuel industries, whose delegates to the Chamber will be strong opponents of cutting emissions.
chestanewmitz
Banned
This idea was very much still in formation by the time the revolution happened. Enough propaganda can steer public opinion away.
Yes, which is why I said preserve them in city roles and not introduce them. But they were clearly inferior to ICE vehicles in many respects until recently.
Research takes time to take effect. In this case truly vast advances in a large number of fields, but especially battery chemistry, were needed to make EVs viable alternatives to ICE vehicles. And that kind of research is very difficult to speed up dramatically, it’s about a series of very small steps rather than big leaps.
In formation enough to be a pillar of futurism…but anyway, why would the ASU want to spend a bunch of money convincing people cars are bad? As I also pointed out earlier, the auto industry is strategically important (something which the revolution demonstrated with the use of armored cars), autos solve significant problems with prior transport systems, the auto industry supports a very complex industrial chain that has the potential to employ a great many people, and oil is dirt-cheap. There’s zero reason for the central government to put any effort into making people dislike cars at this time, except that they probably need trucks more, and actually a fair number of reasons for them to go the other way and pump out pro-car propaganda.
chestanewmitz
Banned
Marinetti's manifesto happened in italy nine years before the revolution happened in the usa, and the são paulo modern art week wouldn't happen until 1922 otl, the whims of artists aren't exactly what the masses think, and this isn't the instantaneous information exchange culture of today.
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Historyprofessor99
Banned
That sounds awesome being able to have a beer with the boys from the local sounds fun. I did it one time on a unionization campaign.
Historyprofessor99
Banned
What do you think life is like for university students?
I imagine they might be paid to attend university and are members of the local unions?
I imagine they might be paid to attend university and are members of the local unions?
Historyprofessor99
Banned
Also how do I attach a photo?
I really want to share my communist Sarah Palin image.
I really want to share my communist Sarah Palin image.
There’s probably a lot less people at university - OTL that was definitely the case, and ITTL the various unions probably have their own apprenticeship programs, you’d only need a university education for very specific jobs. Dunno about being paid to go, but I’d say it’s definitely free to do so.
So having a company make EV city buses and taxis would eliminate the tech’s current deficiencies? They’d be in the right position to have charging stations spread out across the cities. No electric vehicle would leave the city limits of whatever city it was purchased in until relatively recently. Though I think a bit sooner than OTL if we have a decent think tank determined to advance the technology.
On that note, I imagine that the main purpose of universities with union apprenticeship programs and all that would be to provide bureaucrats/civil servants for the ASU's bureaucracy and all that.
I mean…debatable. Many countries today, all you need to join the Civil Service is your final school results - OK, to rise really high these days, college degrees are more sought-after, but at the time we’re talking about they wouldn’t have been required for a typical career (unless you were like a really high-flyer I think).
I think where third-level education will definitely be needed is in the sciences - and the new government will likely be encouraging scientific research a lot - in teacher training, and obviously medical training (law not so much - in this era it was still possible to do apprenticeships at law firms rather than having to go to law school). And, of course, studying history and the Classics.
Yes. I'll do a short update on that issue.
Not paid, but it's free. There are student unions.
Indeed. University is seen as a place to develop a specialized career. In many places, the classics have been removed from the standard curriculum, with many opining that it's a bourgeois fetish. Of course, anyone who wants to study the classics may do so. So far, the ASU doesn't have a federal education policy (although there is talk of forming a Commissariat for Education).
That is increasingly the norm, especially given how pay is apportioned in most workplaces. While some coops insist on equal pay for everyone, most do recognize that some workers produce more value than others and deserve a higher pay. An engineer at an aircraft manufacturing coop will usually earn more than a machinist. Many coops are using education as one of the benchmarks for higher pay, but this must be combined with practical experience. As such, it is common for people to go to university after they are well into their careers.
8. ASU Currency
…The American financial system had been completely upended by the Revolution. The US dollar had collapsed in the wake of the sack of Wall Street, which only compounded the Whites’ financial woes. The Reds dealt with the crisis by implementing strict price controls, effectively freezing their domestic market for the duration of the war. However, confidence in the dollar remained at rock bottom even as the war came to an end. Global financiers did not trust the new socialist regime…
…The Treasury Act of 1920, which created the Commissariat of the Treasury, was in part meant to address these concerns. Commissar Fred Hardy negotiated with American coops to keep prices steady even after the removal of price controls. He also involved the Treasury itself in currency exchanges and international trade deals. American coops which had to sell their goods abroad for foreign currency would exchange it with the Treasury, which then used the foreign currency to buy American dollars at reasonable rates, which made foreign firms more willing to trade in dollars…
…Domestically, the Treasury Act would be best remembered for its debate over the design of American currency. While a few radicals in the RSP wanted to introduce an entirely new currency, the majority accepted that the dollar was here to stay. However, the RSP as a whole did push for entirely new designs, replacing the pre-Revolution political figures. This met with backlash from the Progressives and moderates in the SLP. Eventually, a compromise was reached. The face of each ASU treasury note would feature someone associated with either the War of Independence or the Civil War, while the reverse would feature designs from American labor and revolutionary history…
…The coinage was also redesigned. Instead of generic faces, the first ASU coins would display a variety of tools, representing American laborers. The penny now featured a hammer, the nickel a sickle, the dime a shovel, the quarter a pen, the half-dollar a wrench, and the dollar a rifle…
…These designs would change over the 20th century. In 1938, faces were returned to American coinage, displaying the heroes of American labor: Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, Daniel DeLeon, Benjamin Hanford, and Charles Moyer. In 1958, Thomas Jefferson was replaced on the $2 bill by John Adams, given the former being a slaveowner and the latter an abolitionist. 1979, the centennial of Leon Bronstein’s birth, would see him displace Charles Moyer on the dollar coin. In 1995, the “commonwealth quarters” were introduced, with designs representing the different commonwealths. Most recently, in 2013 the Treasury unveiled a new design for the half-dollar, replacing Benjamin Hanford with the late Premier Cesar Chavez[2]…
- From Prosperity for All: An Economic History of the American Socialist Union by Warren Buffett
[1] Replacing Grover Cleveland, who was on the $20 bill IOTL until 1928, when he was replaced by Andrew Jackson.
[2] IOTL, Cesar Chavez was a prominent American labor leader and civil rights activist.
…The Treasury Act of 1920, which created the Commissariat of the Treasury, was in part meant to address these concerns. Commissar Fred Hardy negotiated with American coops to keep prices steady even after the removal of price controls. He also involved the Treasury itself in currency exchanges and international trade deals. American coops which had to sell their goods abroad for foreign currency would exchange it with the Treasury, which then used the foreign currency to buy American dollars at reasonable rates, which made foreign firms more willing to trade in dollars…
…Domestically, the Treasury Act would be best remembered for its debate over the design of American currency. While a few radicals in the RSP wanted to introduce an entirely new currency, the majority accepted that the dollar was here to stay. However, the RSP as a whole did push for entirely new designs, replacing the pre-Revolution political figures. This met with backlash from the Progressives and moderates in the SLP. Eventually, a compromise was reached. The face of each ASU treasury note would feature someone associated with either the War of Independence or the Civil War, while the reverse would feature designs from American labor and revolutionary history…
| Denomination | Portrait | Reverse Motif |
| One dollar | George Washington | Haymarket Affair |
| Two dollars | Thomas Jefferson | Signing of the Declaration of Independence |
| Five dollars | Abraham Lincoln | Abolition of Slavery |
| Ten dollars | Alexander Hamilton | 1919 Constitutional Convention |
| Twenty dollars | John Brown[1] | Manhattan Uprising |
| Fifty dollars | Ulysses S. Grant | Boston Tea Party |
| One hundred dollars | Benjamin Franklin | March Across The Potomac |
…These designs would change over the 20th century. In 1938, faces were returned to American coinage, displaying the heroes of American labor: Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, Daniel DeLeon, Benjamin Hanford, and Charles Moyer. In 1958, Thomas Jefferson was replaced on the $2 bill by John Adams, given the former being a slaveowner and the latter an abolitionist. 1979, the centennial of Leon Bronstein’s birth, would see him displace Charles Moyer on the dollar coin. In 1995, the “commonwealth quarters” were introduced, with designs representing the different commonwealths. Most recently, in 2013 the Treasury unveiled a new design for the half-dollar, replacing Benjamin Hanford with the late Premier Cesar Chavez[2]…
- From Prosperity for All: An Economic History of the American Socialist Union by Warren Buffett
[1] Replacing Grover Cleveland, who was on the $20 bill IOTL until 1928, when he was replaced by Andrew Jackson.
[2] IOTL, Cesar Chavez was a prominent American labor leader and civil rights activist.
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The shape of the education system will depend on field and time period. At this point in the United States secondary education is not yet universal, so I would expect efforts to be focused there and on primary education for disadvantaged groups. Tertiary education will probably be a distinctly secondary concern, except for “normal” (teacher-training) schools. Basically, no one is going to care all that much about how universities run themselves.
As time passes, though, the increasing universality of secondary education and the increasing mechanization and tertiary sector turn of the economy (rather inevitable) will increase the importance of tertiary education and it will become much more universal. In the early phases of this, however, the fields where tertiary education are most important are also the ones where making someone work some other job first makes very little sense—in education, science, medicine, and law, it clearly makes more sense to teach someone first and then put them in an apprenticeship (which indeed is the pattern for all of those in the real world, often directly integrated into the educational process as with teaching, medicine, and science) than to do it the other way around, because they’re not likely to understand or even potentially be capable of doing what they need to do in an apprenticeship without that education. But this will naturally shape the structure of tertiary institutions so that as a wider range of professions start demanding degrees people will probably seek to follow the same path (of going directly from secondary into tertiary education) most of the time.
Plus, there’s the factor that I mentioned above of “if everybody does it, it’s probably hard to do differently”. And the fact that there is a certain biological advantage for younger people being in education as opposed to older ones, as well as a societal/economic one of investing in people who don’t yet have obligations (families, homes, etc.) that prevent them from investing their time or very high economic productivity which is then wasted while they are in school (from experience or education) and will have as long as possible to “pay off” the investment with their newly big-brained labor. Overall, while I expect that the ASU might put more attention into night classes and adult education, the “standard life cycle” probably remains, well, standard, since there are sound reasons for it.
As time passes, though, the increasing universality of secondary education and the increasing mechanization and tertiary sector turn of the economy (rather inevitable) will increase the importance of tertiary education and it will become much more universal. In the early phases of this, however, the fields where tertiary education are most important are also the ones where making someone work some other job first makes very little sense—in education, science, medicine, and law, it clearly makes more sense to teach someone first and then put them in an apprenticeship (which indeed is the pattern for all of those in the real world, often directly integrated into the educational process as with teaching, medicine, and science) than to do it the other way around, because they’re not likely to understand or even potentially be capable of doing what they need to do in an apprenticeship without that education. But this will naturally shape the structure of tertiary institutions so that as a wider range of professions start demanding degrees people will probably seek to follow the same path (of going directly from secondary into tertiary education) most of the time.
Plus, there’s the factor that I mentioned above of “if everybody does it, it’s probably hard to do differently”. And the fact that there is a certain biological advantage for younger people being in education as opposed to older ones, as well as a societal/economic one of investing in people who don’t yet have obligations (families, homes, etc.) that prevent them from investing their time or very high economic productivity which is then wasted while they are in school (from experience or education) and will have as long as possible to “pay off” the investment with their newly big-brained labor. Overall, while I expect that the ASU might put more attention into night classes and adult education, the “standard life cycle” probably remains, well, standard, since there are sound reasons for it.
Why would you need need batteries for buses? Run them using pantographs and overhead wires.
Personally, I think that people are being a tad too deterministic here, in regards to cars and 'carification'. The American Suburb, or rather the low-density-residential-only, car-focused suburb didn't spring up naturally. They require a sufficient prevelence of cars and road (car) infrastructure in order to function. Their creation was heavily subsidised by the GI Bill and the FHA, besides.
Whereas, say, London's Suburbs mostly grew up around the Tube, AKA, around Public Transport.
Suburbinisation and especially Carification weren't, and aren't, inevitable.