BigDave1967
Banned
I think the sexual promiscuity of the 1970s would have continued right through the 1980s and maybe 1990s and the Gay rights movement probably wouldn't have advanced to the point it is now.
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What if the disease HIV-AIDS never appeared?
- Thread starter BigDave1967
- Start date
Delta Force
Banned
I think HIV/AIDS is the only dangerous STD that can't in some ways be cured (syphilis is deadly, but curable if treated early enough), so it might cause some people to take greater risks than they should. I should point out though that correlation doesn't mean causation, and it's possible that the late 1960s and early 1970s were more promiscuous because of social factors, as well as the fact that contraception, birth control, and abortion all became legal around the same time, and became more socially acceptable to have sex while not married. So the fact that it went down later could be due to all those early events leading to a bump in things, as opposed to people being scared by HIV/AIDS. We have good treatment for HIV/AIDS these days, and teen pregnancy rates remain low (I think they're still decreasing, and have been pretty consistently for years).
I think gay rights might actually be helped by HIV/AIDS occurring later or not at all. Before it became AIDS, it was GRID, gay-related immune deficiency, because so many people found with AIDS early on were gay. That created a huge stigma for people with the disease in the 1980s, and to some extent today.
I think gay rights might actually be helped by HIV/AIDS occurring later or not at all. Before it became AIDS, it was GRID, gay-related immune deficiency, because so many people found with AIDS early on were gay. That created a huge stigma for people with the disease in the 1980s, and to some extent today.
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I also think the gay rights movement might be helped rather than hindered in a world without HIV/AIDS. Historically, the spectre of that disease in particular has been used by the opposition to scare people away from gay rights, to make LGBT people (in particular gay men and trans women) seem filthy and "other". It's completely ludicrous of course (as much then as now), but it's what happened.
Plus, the Stonewall riots (often regarded as the main catalyst for the modern LGBT rights movement) occured in 1969.
Plus, the Stonewall riots (often regarded as the main catalyst for the modern LGBT rights movement) occured in 1969.
Wasn't AIDS called the "gay plague" for a bit? That's not good for equality. What effects would this have on sub-Saharan Africa too? AIDS has been a hugely bad thing there.
I imagine large swathes of it would be far more developed than in OTL, which obviously has huge implications.
1) this is very difficult. HIV crossed into humans from two seperate host species in two parts of Africa. Unless you remove all SIVs, the dislocation of peoples and rural/urban movement WILL eventually bring some variant of HIV into the cities and then to the wider world. You'd have to either stop the vaste majority of the bush meat trade, or keep all of tropical Africa in the 19th century.
2) HIV may be the nastiest uncurable disease, but there are still no cures for LOTS of tropical diseases. Ebola. Nipah. Dengue Fever. Etc. For that matter, a lot of the diseases that used to be cured easily, like malaria, are becoming resistant to the current treatments.
2) HIV may be the nastiest uncurable disease, but there are still no cures for LOTS of tropical diseases. Ebola. Nipah. Dengue Fever. Etc. For that matter, a lot of the diseases that used to be cured easily, like malaria, are becoming resistant to the current treatments.
AIDS has a social impact out of proportion to the numbers of people it kills, though. Something like Ebola, it's awful, but it kills fast. HIV/AIDS creates huge populations of people who are not yet dead, may not even feel sick yet, but who can reasonably expect to die before they're old.
no HIV ?
Freddy Mercury would still sing with Queen
Keith Haring paint skyscraper full with a fresco about 9/11
John Holmes would be now biggest producer of Porno movies in the world
Rock Hudson made his coming out.
Tom Hanks would never planed Philadelphia and never get oscar for it.
Matthew McConaughey also not play in Dallas Buyers Club and never get oscar for it.
and millions of people in Asia and Africa would not died of HIV
countries of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda.
Will suffer of overpopulation and civil war, similar what happened in Burundian Civil War or Rwandan Genocide.
Freddy Mercury would still sing with Queen
Keith Haring paint skyscraper full with a fresco about 9/11
John Holmes would be now biggest producer of Porno movies in the world
Rock Hudson made his coming out.
Tom Hanks would never planed Philadelphia and never get oscar for it.
Matthew McConaughey also not play in Dallas Buyers Club and never get oscar for it.
and millions of people in Asia and Africa would not died of HIV
countries of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda.
Will suffer of overpopulation and civil war, similar what happened in Burundian Civil War or Rwandan Genocide.
There'd be a few things. Less stigma towards homosexuality, which may hasten things a bit, albeit it'd look different. More freedom in sexuality in the 80s; not that people weren't screwing prolifically, but it was less fun and the culture wasn't as sexually permissive as the 60s/70s. A number of famous people would still be alive, which would have huge effects. Healthcare would not have AIDs/HIV as a consideration, which has economical effects. AIDs, along with drugs, also burned out the areas of cities like New York where it got really bad. Drug addicts either overdosed or died of AIDs. So there's that as a social element because there'll only be the overdosing as a factor. That's all I can bring to mind, but it will have huge effects.
I'm with Dathi as far as SIV inevitably crossing over to human populations and becoming HIV at some point.
What made it s/t global is Central Africa's development most importantly the Kinshasa-Mombasa highway that allowed it to go from local nightmare to global menace.
Locals probably never knew what hit them for centuries dying of everything else endemic to the area before AIDS became the obvious cause of death.
Malaria, typhoid, smallpox, cholera, will kill you in even with a functional immune system.
Only when deaths due to other infections became rare thanks to public health advances and immunization and antibiotics would AIDS be clinically noticeable.
It doesn't hurt that molecular biology and autopsies helped identify victims and the responsible agent and etiology.
In the USA, AIDS hit at the perfect time to establish itself as an endemic plague with six years of federal inaction, due to the religious influences on Ronald Reagan considering it God's punishment of sinners instead a public health crisis.
My thought is AIDS gave gay activists a rallying issue and motivation to get recognition and help from the maintream society however they could.
YMMDV but I think it accelerated mainstream acceptance of gays and made it clear that discrimnation killed far too many people we care about and needed to stop pronto.
W/o AIDS to move things along, I see two possibilities:
What made it s/t global is Central Africa's development most importantly the Kinshasa-Mombasa highway that allowed it to go from local nightmare to global menace.
Locals probably never knew what hit them for centuries dying of everything else endemic to the area before AIDS became the obvious cause of death.
Malaria, typhoid, smallpox, cholera, will kill you in even with a functional immune system.
Only when deaths due to other infections became rare thanks to public health advances and immunization and antibiotics would AIDS be clinically noticeable.
It doesn't hurt that molecular biology and autopsies helped identify victims and the responsible agent and etiology.
In the USA, AIDS hit at the perfect time to establish itself as an endemic plague with six years of federal inaction, due to the religious influences on Ronald Reagan considering it God's punishment of sinners instead a public health crisis.
My thought is AIDS gave gay activists a rallying issue and motivation to get recognition and help from the maintream society however they could.
YMMDV but I think it accelerated mainstream acceptance of gays and made it clear that discrimnation killed far too many people we care about and needed to stop pronto.
W/o AIDS to move things along, I see two possibilities:
- Liberal consensus that what consenting adults do is really none of anyone else's business and it becomes about as controversial as conrflakes.
- OR
- In all the OTL hoopla about repudiating the Sexual Revolution, gays stay invisible and out of sight and out of mind. Some court cases might be minor victories frex, allowing gays to keep custody of kids in divorces but discrimination against gays stays evident, ubiquitous, and unquestioned by mainstream society.
IIRC HIV has been identified as having entered humans within the last century. The rough timeline goes that around 1900 the virus first moved into human populations, most likely from a hunter who cut himself while butchering a chimpanzee and exchanged blood, then, around 1920 the virus reached the urban environment of Kinshasa (then Leopoldville) and Brazzaville from which it spread to other locations. Which is where the Kinshasa-Mombasa highway, as well as another one whose name eludes me, comes in. Regardless, HIV is not a disease that has been in human populations for significantly more than a century. For what it is worth I'm getting my information from here: http://www.radiolab.org/story/169885-aids/
I thought it was a fascinating piece both for the AIDS segment and for the idea of Patient Zero in general.
@ Captian Jack
Liked your post and wiki'd the history of AIDS emergence.
A nice article from the CDC re: AIDS and other zoonoses crossing over into infecting humans and factors promting their spread.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/12/04-0789_article.htm
Also from the wiki article is the possibility that unsterile needles used to vaccinate millions of Africans from 1940-1970 may have unintentionally spread SIV, given it a vastly larger reservoir of infected people to allow SIV to become HIV.
Regardless, I argue that HIV was inevitable but it didn't necessarily have to emerge in the 1980's.
As to the sociological effects: I like Emp Norton's take on it.
Liked your post and wiki'd the history of AIDS emergence.
A nice article from the CDC re: AIDS and other zoonoses crossing over into infecting humans and factors promting their spread.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/12/04-0789_article.htm
Also from the wiki article is the possibility that unsterile needles used to vaccinate millions of Africans from 1940-1970 may have unintentionally spread SIV, given it a vastly larger reservoir of infected people to allow SIV to become HIV.
Regardless, I argue that HIV was inevitable but it didn't necessarily have to emerge in the 1980's.
As to the sociological effects: I like Emp Norton's take on it.
A relative who was sexually promiscuous in their youth - in the seventies - has consistently blamed HIV/AIDS for the death of the sexual revolution. Whether or not they're the most credible source on the subject is obviously up to debate, but the logic seems somewhat sound to me.
I'd say, inferring a lot, that there was a perception in the seventies of the lack of long-term consequences from open sexuality, and that HIV/AIDS served as a huge reminder there ARE serious, long-term consequences and it's a big decision. By running sex as a big deal again, it discouraged casual sex and quietly helped the abstinence movement.
I'd say, inferring a lot, that there was a perception in the seventies of the lack of long-term consequences from open sexuality, and that HIV/AIDS served as a huge reminder there ARE serious, long-term consequences and it's a big decision. By running sex as a big deal again, it discouraged casual sex and quietly helped the abstinence movement.
Yes, because the only way blacks deal with crises is murdering and killing each other.
And no AIDS would actually have benfitted these countries, as productive people aren't cut down in their prime, or medical resources have to go to treating young people ill from AIDS or anything.
The casual racism I see on this site sickens me sometimes.
BigDave1967
Banned
Yes, because the only way blacks deal with crises is murdering and killing each other.
And no AIDS would actually have benfitted these countries, as productive people aren't cut down in their prime, or medical resources have to go to treating young people ill from AIDS or anything.
The casual racism I see on this site sickens me sometimes.
Political Correctness is it's own disease.
usertron2020
Donor
HPV will still be a problem, and Herpes may not be a big killer, but being protein encapsulated the chances of a genuine cure as opposed to treatments is unlikely in our lifetimes.
You may not die of herpes, but you will die WITH it.
There is that. Like HPV being transmitted to women, and only killing women.
Yeah, I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies fully expecting to take advantage of the Sexual Revolution when I came of age in 1978. Only to run into herpes, which at that times was not known whether it was a deadly disease or not. Remember that untreated syphilis takes years to kill, and gonorrhea can take decades. By the time that herpes was determined to be a curse rather than an outright killer, AIDS had arrived. So yeah, if you were a very late Boomer or an early Gen-Xer, watching the "Hippie Generation" screwing themselves blind, only to see yourself maturing into a sexual era with the same rules as pre-penicillin (and worse, with HIV/AIDS), was a source of tremendous sexual frustration.
No wonder the porn industry exploded in the late Seventies, even before the arrival of VCRs.
usertron2020
Donor
The problems of Subsaharan Africa are not going to be lessened by lower populations.
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Yes, because the only way blacks deal with crises is murdering and killing each other.
And no AIDS would actually have benfitted these countries, as productive people aren't cut down in their prime, or medical resources have to go to treating young people ill from AIDS or anything.
The casual racism I see on this site sickens me sometimes.
Ian and the mods do a good job of controlling these things.
Remember too that Subsaharan Africa suffers horribly with the legacy of colonialist borders that ignore and sever the ties of racial, tribal, cultural, historical, and even religious communities throughout the continent.
The only real problems the people themselves have to deal with (regarding AIDS) are the two Big Lies (one political, one cultural). The first, that AIDS was developed in a CIA laboratory. The second, that raping virgins cures you of the disease. One is the fault of corrupt governments trying to blame their own failures on the Big Bad, the other one at the local level is the fault of people being unwilling and unable to accept what is happening to them and what should really be done about it.
Political Correctness is it's own disease.
Meh. Depends on the circumstances. PC can be a strong force for good in rooting out evil. The only fault I see in PC is denying its existence.
usertron2020
Donor
BTW? The Gay Revolution and its success was/is inevitable. The only thing I can think of where AIDS had a real major role in putting a Human Face on homosexuality for the more conservative part of America, who could well have continued to reject gays for years to come otherwise, was Rock Hudson.
When you have people as Conservative as Ronald and Nancy Reagan calling up Rock and offering help and their condolences, and Hudson's tearful reaction (he had expected to be totally ostracized), it opened up the floodgates for people everywhere to not just "come out", but for family members and friends to come out with their public acceptance of their gay loved ones.
When you have people as Conservative as Ronald and Nancy Reagan calling up Rock and offering help and their condolences, and Hudson's tearful reaction (he had expected to be totally ostracized), it opened up the floodgates for people everywhere to not just "come out", but for family members and friends to come out with their public acceptance of their gay loved ones.
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Without Malaria:
-The populations of people with heterozygote sickle cell anemia would fall as its use for resistance becomes redundant.
-Civilisation may give rise in central Afrika, though, I'm skeptical because of terrain and other diseases.
-Queer Rights would start early and the AIDs scare of the 1980s would never occur.
-The populations of people with heterozygote sickle cell anemia would fall as its use for resistance becomes redundant.
-Civilisation may give rise in central Afrika, though, I'm skeptical because of terrain and other diseases.
-Queer Rights would start early and the AIDs scare of the 1980s would never occur.
Yes, because the only way blacks deal with crises is murdering and killing each other.
And no AIDS would actually have benfitted these countries, as productive people aren't cut down in their prime, or medical resources have to go to treating young people ill from AIDS or anything.
The casual racism I see on this site sickens me sometimes.
I don't know if it can be considered racism at all. Marius was probably trying to conjure a possible scenario. Besides, we are entering uncharted territories of "what-ifs" so anything might happen (under the realms of plausibility of course)