The world without AIDS?

King Thomas

Banned
Good things...

-more free love
-less deaths
-not so much homophobia

Bad things

-more overpopulation
-more drug use
-maybe more STDs
 
RCTFI, did you know Somalia actually has one of the LOWEST AIDS infection rates in Africa?

Ach, I never said I was an expert on the area. However, I will stand by my suggestion that in the absence of AIDS Africa would be at least somewhat more developed and less disorderly. That could lead to a less chaotic Somalia, which could lead to...

Alright, I'm being a bit defensive, sorry about that. :eek:

The main point I made was basically that a less chaotic, more stable, Africa would probably result from the absence of AIDS. Somalia was just a thought about what the effects of those changes to Africa would be. I hardly think Somalia could end up any less stable than it OTLy ended up becoming...

Anyways, that's where I was coming from.
 
I had seriously thought about writing a novel or short story using this as the departure point, so I find it pretty interesting in multiple ways:

First off, this graph from wikipedia on life expectancies in Africa is absolutely chilling:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L...e_Southern_African_countries_1958_to_2003.png

Essentially, South Africa, Botswana and Kenya would probably now have first-world life expectancy rates and a huge drain on those economies (not just health care, but supporting orphans, etc.) would be gone. I agree with some of the remarks others have made, and we'd probably see several countries with larger populations because of lower mortality, including some without widely publicized AIDS "problems" (China, especially).

In the United States and western Europe, culture and society would be much different not just because the attitudes of people who are alive now would be different, but because there would be a lot of people who would be alive that aren't. The demographics of Manhattan and San Francisco for instance would be vastly different. Probably there would be a larger out gay population also because the dominant images disseminated in the culture of gay men in the 1980s would not have been what they were.

Finally, if you look at the list wikipedia provides of famous people either living or dead with HIV, it becomes apparent that some of the specific people who died of HIV had social and cultural contributions yet to make.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HIV-positive_people#Writing

Of course, every life lost to the disease has had value and meaning and significance. But for our purposes I want to conclude by pointing to one name, that of Michel Foucault.

He was a genius on a world-historical scale, the twentieth-century sequel to figures like Macchiavelli and Nietzsche. We can point to the lives of many people who are dead (not just from any one disease) and say that but for a few more years, they could have done marvelous things. But Foucault's life and work--what we have of it--is so especially interesting, for all we know this is a man who could have spent his sixties and seventies reinventing western democracy, or drawing insights from the fall of Communism that we would find literally unimaginable.

Even his intellectual sparring partner Jurgen Habermas called Foucault's thought "an arrow pointed at the heart of the present."
 
LA Lakers would have been better in the early 90's since Magic doesn't have to retire. It would also mess up the flow of the draft from that point on causing many players to be on different teams and in recent years maybe not even play or have a different style if you really beleive in butterflies.
 
LA Lakers would have been better in the early 90's since Magic doesn't have to retire. It would also mess up the flow of the draft from that point on causing many players to be on different teams and in recent years maybe not even play or have a different style if you really beleive in butterflies.

I agree, LA Lakers would have been a better team in the early 90's. LA Lakers may return to NBA finals in 1992 if AIDS doesn't exists.
 

NomadicSky

Banned
I seem to think that any bias against male homo- and bisexuality runs a lot deeper than that. Possibly I might put this down to the machismo element in culture which has less of an obvious paallel with women- most straight men seem ingrained to prove that they are "real" men and more masculine than others, and often involves lack of physical contact, displays of affection, which are both more common and accepted in men (in certain cultures more so than others) which might either be easily confused with lesbianism, or makes its appearence more acceptable in certain cultures. And of course there is the influence of Scripture on particularly wastern, Christian-dominated society, where female homoseuality (or same-sex sexual acts) rarely recieves a mention, as compared to male homosexuality or same-sex sexual acts (which, of course, are condemned).

I'm impressed that's a very educated reply.
 
No AIDS would mean much less public health problems in Africa, which of course benefits many. As mentioned, the life expectancy of most African nations dropped like a rock in the 1990s, and AIDS was almost the entire cause of that. By now, South Africa and Kenya would have first-world level life expectancies (South Africa's public health system at the end of apartheid was surprisingly good, and to be fair without AIDS it might not have faced as many problems as it has.) and probably higher birthrates. This would grow both the number of South Africans and how health they are.

Does this benefit the post-apartheid SA economy? Undoubtedly. The hope in 1994 was that the end of apartheid and South Africa's very well developed infrastructure would lead to an economic explosion like Japan and South Korea in the 1960-80s. Change a few decisions by Mandela and Mbeki, and maybe a few of the great fighters live longer (specifically looking at Joe Slovo, who was white) and you could start to see the economic growth hoped for.

The wealthy South Africans put their cards on the table, which kicks growth into second and third gear. From there, foreign direct investment takes over. The proximity to Europe, America and Asia allows SA to become a manufacturing powerhouse, which provides millions of jobs.

By 2008, growth is around the double-digit mark, SA's economy has more than doubled its 1994 level. The whites and blacks who left in the 1980s and 1990s are coming home, and South Africa is being seen as a nation for the 21st Century.

Would be nice. In fact, I'm smelling a TL coming on......:D
 
I'm impressed that's a very educated reply.
Coming from him, that's down right shocking. He has a habit of making extremly uneducated replies, such as posting in every single thread about how "that wouldn't happen because jesus wouldn't let it."
 
negatives other than the usual:

I don't believe the incidences of murders or manslaughter are any different for people that would have died from AIDS so some people that lived today would be alive or uninjuried directly because AIDS removed a possible killer or cause of an accident. that goes double for Africa, who knows what the situation would have been had the "Great Uniter of Africa" been born to a mother that didn't live long enough to have her.

we will never know the exact course that a dammed river wil take, we just know a reservoir will form. more people in Africa means more people that can catch something even nastier that the bug that started AIDS.

/tries not imagine Ebola+ and even greater potential for death.
 
I think this would be a great timeline. Especially thinking in terms of what this would mean for Zimbabwe.

The one thing I would suggest if you are really thinking of a South African romp is to weaken the ANC somehow. Not because they are innately awful (though Mbeki has made some real mistakes) but because if I think of the biggest problem with the politics of South Africa, I think of the fact that basically no party in government functions well without competition or occasional replacement. It's already well on its way to becoming as much of a joke as the pre-Fox PRI in Mexico.

Of course, a booming economy creates a restless middle class, and frequently they turn their backs on the historically dominant, frozen-in-time revolutionary parties.

No AIDS would mean much less public health problems in Africa, which of course benefits many. As mentioned, the life expectancy of most African nations dropped like a rock in the 1990s, and AIDS was almost the entire cause of that. By now, South Africa and Kenya would have first-world level life expectancies (South Africa's public health system at the end of apartheid was surprisingly good, and to be fair without AIDS it might not have faced as many problems as it has.) and probably higher birthrates. This would grow both the number of South Africans and how health they are.

Does this benefit the post-apartheid SA economy? Undoubtedly. The hope in 1994 was that the end of apartheid and South Africa's very well developed infrastructure would lead to an economic explosion like Japan and South Korea in the 1960-80s. Change a few decisions by Mandela and Mbeki, and maybe a few of the great fighters live longer (specifically looking at Joe Slovo, who was white) and you could start to see the economic growth hoped for.

The wealthy South Africans put their cards on the table, which kicks growth into second and third gear. From there, foreign direct investment takes over. The proximity to Europe, America and Asia allows SA to become a manufacturing powerhouse, which provides millions of jobs.

By 2008, growth is around the double-digit mark, SA's economy has more than doubled its 1994 level. The whites and blacks who left in the 1980s and 1990s are coming home, and South Africa is being seen as a nation for the 21st Century.

Would be nice. In fact, I'm smelling a TL coming on......:D
 
One item that might make things in the ATL is the survival of some people. Consider that Makgatho Mandela, the eldest son of Nelson Mandela died in 2005 of AIDS. As such, he was a man who was following in the poltical footsteps of his father, and would have been a possible contender for ANC presidential candidate.

On the other hand Roy Cohn, one of the chief aides to Joseph McCarthy, would still be alive, possibly as a mentor to Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Ugandan dictator Yuweri Museveni's life would certainly look longer than in OTL, considering that according to Free Uganda Now, the leader is AIDS/HIV positive.
 
The economic divergence between a sidaïque TL and non-sidaïque TL in South Africa is rather low for the present unlike the future.

You have to remind that in RZA, the majority of wealth still lies in the hands of white people, whereas the epidemy is among the black people. As of 2000, modern Cape Province had a one-digit percentage of HIV inhabitants while the darkerskinned East is more epidemic and reaches its highest numbers near the borders to Zimbambwe and maybe Mozambique with every third inhabitant infected. That's where the Bantustans were situated during apartheid.

Working class black men couldn't afford higher education due to apartheid and they at best arrived in the factories and houses of segregated townships. And in the light of such an unfortunate life, you're most like to get some "fortune" in the brothels. From the 1960s and 70s onwards, some Southern African men must have been infected and as clients have been ready to infect prostitutes who couldn't have been aware of HIV of course. Those prostitutes therefore infected other clients who in turn came back home and infected their wifes whose children were also infected at birth etc.

Furthermore, many men there believe that they could get rid of a disease like HIV if they had sex with a virgin, which in turn leads to new generations of infected people.

I don't want to say that white men don't go to brothels as well, but firstly social stratification more or less ensured that native Africans didn't infect white men, thought there may of course have been interracial intercourse in the context of prostitution, but not that massive as in the townships, and secondly the whites had other myths, but not the myth of the virgin to get rid from sickness. I'd also say that the average white South African isn't more likely to get infect with AIDS than say the average Russian as long as things don't get interracial. The remnants of the white establishment won't die of AIDS.

What I want to say is that it's not the leaders and the brains that currently vanish due to HIV, but rather the larger workforce who of course should make the substantial part of tommorrow's RZA's elites. The butterflies flap their wings time after time. First, it's agriculture that suffers in OTL compared to TTL, then it's the workforce, e. g. 10 per cent of automotive construction workers (RZA is an important production site for right hand drive vehicles) are HIV positive, and in the end it affects a generation of potential students, lawyers and other white-collar professions.

It's of course hard to say how much native Africans would have progressed after apartheid in an AIDS-free TL, it may be better than OTL, but I don't think that there won't be any improvement at all. The lower your rank, the worse your skank.


One item that might make things in the ATL is the survival of some people. Consider that Makgatho Mandela, the eldest son of Nelson Mandela died in 2005 of AIDS. As such, he was a man who was following in the poltical footsteps of his father, and would have been a possible contender for ANC presidential candidate.

On the other hand Roy Cohn, one of the chief aides to Joseph McCarthy, would still be alive, possibly as a mentor to Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Ugandan dictator Yuweri Museveni's life would certainly look longer than in OTL, considering that according to Free Uganda Now, the leader is AIDS/HIV positive.

Well, he already made a long tenure and Ugunda has a quite effective AIDS prevention program, at least if you compare it with other seriously affected countries. A longer Museveni tenure might be a TL comparable to surviving Lord Byron TL.
 
Well, Dr. Nodelescu, I think you would still see a substantially different fiscal situation. Let's say the money channelled into orphanages and AIDS-related health care, that wouldn't be needed for that purpose in an AIDSless world, goes instead to education, other healthcare, public sanitation and housing.

And taking your own remarkable 10% figure concerning South African auto workers, let's imagine that lost productivity retained and reinvested.

I don't think ridding the world of AIDS solves all South Africa's problems, but it gives the Republic a leg up on its current situation, certainly.

The economic divergence between a sidaïque TL and non-sidaïque TL in South Africa is rather low for the present unlike the future.

You have to remind that in RZA, the majority of wealth still lies in the hands of white people, whereas the epidemy is among the black people. As of 2000, modern Cape Province had a one-digit percentage of HIV inhabitants while the darkerskinned East is more epidemic and reaches its highest numbers near the borders to Zimbambwe and maybe Mozambique with every third inhabitant infected. That's where the Bantustans were situated during apartheid.

Working class black men couldn't afford higher education due to apartheid and they at best arrived in the factories and houses of segregated townships. And in the light of such an unfortunate life, you're most like to get some "fortune" in the brothels. From the 1960s and 70s onwards, some Southern African men must have been infected and as clients have been ready to infect prostitutes who couldn't have been aware of HIV of course. Those prostitutes therefore infected other clients who in turn came back home and infected their wifes whose children were also infected at birth etc.

Furthermore, many men there believe that they could get rid of a disease like HIV if they had sex with a virgin, which in turn leads to new generations of infected people.

I don't want to say that white men don't go to brothels as well, but firstly social stratification more or less ensured that native Africans didn't infect white men, thought there may of course have been interracial intercourse in the context of prostitution, but not that massive as in the townships, and secondly the whites had other myths, but not the myth of the virgin to get rid from sickness. I'd also say that the average white South African isn't more likely to get infect with AIDS than say the average Russian as long as things don't get interracial. The remnants of the white establishment won't die of AIDS.

What I want to say is that it's not the leaders and the brains that currently vanish due to HIV, but rather the larger workforce who of course should make the substantial part of tommorrow's RZA's elites. The butterflies flap their wings time after time. First, it's agriculture that suffers in OTL compared to TTL, then it's the workforce, e. g. 10 per cent of automotive construction workers (RZA is an important production site for right hand drive vehicles) are HIV positive, and in the end it affects a generation of potential students, lawyers and other white-collar professions.

It's of course hard to say how much native Africans would have progressed after apartheid in an AIDS-free TL, it may be better than OTL, but I don't think that there won't be any improvement at all. The lower your rank, the worse your skank.




Well, he already made a long tenure and Ugunda has a quite effective AIDS prevention program, at least if you compare it with other seriously affected countries. A longer Museveni tenure might be a TL comparable to surviving Lord Byron TL.
 
Well, Dr. Nodelescu, I think you would still see a substantially different fiscal situation. Let's say the money channelled into orphanages and AIDS-related health care, that wouldn't be needed for that purpose in an AIDSless world, goes instead to education, other healthcare, public sanitation and housing.

And taking your own remarkable 10% figure concerning South African auto workers, let's imagine that lost productivity retained and reinvested.

I don't think ridding the world of AIDS solves all South Africa's problems, but it gives the Republic a leg up on its current situation, certainly.

Which is about what I am aiming for. The many problems of the RZA to not all relate to apartheid (most do, however) and will not all be stopped by no AIDS, but it will however allow millions to live much longer than they do in OTL - South Africa's death toll from AIDS is in the millions - and the lost productivity from AIDS will now be regained. It takes a couple more butterflies to get the RZA to come out of apartheid with hope of short-term success. But I'm working on that, too. :D
 
I don't think Bowie will abandon his "bisexual" image - although today he pretty much says "I was hetero all along", it certainly helped him sell records, build a movie career etc. He was also the major influence on British music in the early 80s, both in image and career. That will have butterflies on the UK.

Hmmm, I'm not so sure there'd be so much homophobia without HIV/AIDS. My older friends say that the late 70s and early 80s was one giant orgy for gay people, or at least in the UK. This hedonistic sub-culture will rankle on the nerves of the New Right philosophy predominant in the UK and the US and there will still be the religious/political backlash. I think there'd still be a Section 28 in the UK although one that Major would be able to chuck out if he were so inclined.

Princess Diana would miss out on a few good photo opportunities.
 
I suppose a lot of the question is how much AIDS is big because its AIDS, and how much is just Malthusian. No AIDS => bigger famines? more malaria? God help us all, bigger critical masses for Marburg or Dengue or Lassa or Ebola?
 
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