What modern OTL things would be dismissed as ASB?

Thande

Donor
(by people in other TLs, that is)

We've had this before for events throughout all of OTL history, but this one is just restricted to modern things. What would seem ASB, what in your opinion is objectively staggeringly unlikely, looking just at the world today and not the history leading up to it?

My choices would be 1) North Korea (a state with an ideology of self-sufficiency that's more dependent on outside aid than any other country in the world), 2) French Guiana (I can just imagine someone in an ATL pointing to the decolonisation map and saying 'you forgot to recolour that little bit there!') and 3) African and Middle Eastern borders, just because they were arbitrarily drawn.
 
How about the contrast between north and central/south America; one effectively divided between 2 nations, the other a collection of states. The contrast between the two?
 

ninebucks

Banned
The city of Split, a conurbation that lies almost exactly on the border between the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, but whose name bares no etymological relationship whatsoever with the English verb 'to split'.
 
How about the contrast between north and central/south America; one effectively divided between 2 nations, the other a collection of states. The contrast between the two?

Shouldn't that be one effectively divided between 3 nations, the other by a collection of nations? State and nation are interchangable.

Don't see how anybody with a knowledge of history can consider the differences between the two as ASB.
 

Goldstein

Banned
I think Japan being one of the richest and more advanced countries in the world, would seem ASBish in a lot of (plausible) timelines.
 
A Jewish colony in the Middle East supported by the Western powers, and in fully control of Jerusalem.

Communists ruling Russia, China and half of Europe. Also, the USSR falling in the early 90s without firing a shot while Communist China survives well into the new millennium.

The USA going to the Moon 4 times and never returning or doing something interesting while it was there.
 
A Jewish colony in the Middle East supported by the Western powers, and in fully control of Jerusalem.

Communists ruling Russia, China and half of Europe. Also, the USSR falling in the early 90s without firing a shot while Communist China survives well into the new millennium.

The USA going to the Moon 4 times and never returning or doing something interesting while it was there.

With China being Communist in name only.
 
- Our almost exclusive reliance on non-renewable fossil fuel.
- We have developed/accepted no real world language.
- The Cold War did not turn into a full war.
 
- Our almost exclusive reliance on non-renewable fossil fuel.
- We have developed/accepted no real world language.
- The Cold War did not turn into a full war.

What is ASB about using fossil fuel? The only non-fossil fuel that is remotely efficient is nuclear power.

Why would the non-development of something the world has never had ASB? Besides English is the closest thing to it the World has ever seen

MAD is not ASB.
 
What is ASB about using fossil fuel? The only non-fossil fuel that is remotely efficient is nuclear power.
Depends on what you all remotely efficient. I'd call the loss of all developement of thermoelectricity, things involving the Magnus effect pretty ASBish.

Why would the non-development of something the world has never had ASB? Besides English is the closest thing to it the World has ever seen
Why would only the things that have been developed seem ASB?

MAD is not ASB.
You are right, the concept of mutual assured destruction is not. The Cold War not coming to blows (in part only thanks to the actions of ONE man) is.
 
Clear Crystal Pepsi failing.

I mean, clear drinks are so cool! How could Clear Pepsi have possibly failed?!

If it didn't actually taste like Pepsi? Well, that's ASB! How could you have Pepsi that didn't taste like Pepsi?! Even if it was clear. I mean, they'd make sure it really tasted like Pepsi before they put it out on the market, right?

:D:D:D:D
 
Depends on what you all remotely efficient. I'd call the loss of all developement of thermoelectricity, things involving the Magnus effect pretty ASBish.


Why would only the things that have been developed seem ASB?


You are right, the concept of mutual assured destruction is not. The Cold War not coming to blows (in part only thanks to the actions of ONE man) is.

I call the fact that using solar or wind when fossil fuels and nuclear power is far,far cheaper inefficient.

Not developing something is much easier then developing something. :D

Since when does the most logical consequence of something such as not wanting to blow yourself up by starting a war with someone who is certain to do so if war break out ASB?:rolleyes:
 
A Jewish colony in the Middle East supported by the Western powers, and in fully control of Jerusalem.

Communists ruling Russia, China and half of Europe. Also, the USSR falling in the early 90s without firing a shot while Communist China survives well into the new millennium.

The USA going to the Moon 4 times and never returning or doing something interesting while it was there.

1. Yeah, pretty mad...

2. Yeah, I suppose in a TL where classical liberalism - or social democracy, come to that - spread properly to Russia, this would be considered crazy. Also, you have the whole ideological problem of Russia, in OTL, at the time being one of the least industrially advanced nations of the First World / Western World / whatever you want to call it. Marx assumed that Britain would be the first to go Communist, because it was futhest along theroad in terms of economic/industrial development.

3. Um, I think you'll find it was 6 times... Apollo 11, 12 (not 13), and 14-17. But yeah, the US not establishing a base once they got there seems petty ASBish unless you know the reasoning behind much of the US effort, i.e. "we can't let the Russians get there first."

My own:

As pointed out, various items of modern technology would be dismissed as ASBish by societies only a little less technologically advanced than us. "A phone you can carry around with you? No way!"

Also, we have to consider TLs where technological development is not necessarily not at the same stage as ours, it just followed a different path. To take a fairly classic example on the board, how about an ATL where steam power is still widely used, and in fact has been advanced much further than OTL due to continuing R&D, but due to this other forms of motive power have been ignored, or at best do not attract the same level of research / development / investment as OTL?
In such a TL, modern cars might be considered ASBish.
- "Explain this 'diesel engine' to me again? It doesn't sound likely to me. Why would Britain have given up on steam in the 1950s? That makes no sense..." :D
 
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