Which is worse? POLL.

Which of these scenarios is the worse for man kind?

  • Nazi Germany wins WW2.

    Votes: 78 44.6%
  • British Empire survives to this day.

    Votes: 6 3.4%
  • United States collaspes into many Communist States at the end of the Cold War.

    Votes: 16 9.1%
  • Roman Empire survives till today.

    Votes: 4 2.3%
  • Confederate States wins The Civil War.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Slavery continues in Europe and North America.

    Votes: 10 5.7%
  • Mongolian Empire conquer Europe.

    Votes: 11 6.3%
  • Ottoman Empire expands farther into Europe.

    Votes: 6 3.4%
  • Spanish Inquisition expands to other states and continues to modern day.

    Votes: 12 6.9%
  • The Black Death last longer and spreads to all of Eurasia and Africa.

    Votes: 32 18.3%

  • Total voters
    175
Really? which fascist state was worse than the Stalinist regime?

Nazi Germany. Without one doubt in the world.

As far as I know only Italy hs ever been a fascist state... unless you, like many, think that Germany was one?

Nazism may be bsed upon fascism, but it is diferent.

:rolleyes: And Stalin's Russia wasn't a communist state, it was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist state.
 
To all of you that voted for Nazi Germany...you do all realize that the Mongolians made the Germans look like little kiddies? They basically wiped several empires completely off the face of the earth - killing on the order of 80% of the population in the near east and middle east. On a percent of the worlds population the Kahn's made Hitler and Stalin both look like pikers. They invented the scorched earth, destroying all of the irrigation works when they passed because they could live off land that was not irrigated but their enemies could not.
 
To all of you that voted for Nazi Germany...you do all realize that the Mongolians made the Germans look like little kiddies? They basically wiped several empires completely off the face of the earth - killing on the order of 80% of the population in the near east and middle east. On a percent of the worlds population the Kahn's made Hitler and Stalin both look like pikers. They invented the scorched earth, destroying all of the irrigation works when they passed because they could live off land that was not irrigated but their enemies could not.


Good point.
 
I would say that slavery continues in Europe and America,because I've read once..that if that mind set continues up until modern times..dislike and outright hate toward the blacks could give rise to a legal form of genocide.
 
While several of the options are pretty dystopian I don’t see them being worse than the Black Death being bigger, meaner, and longer. Just imagine what kind of society is going to develop under the constant threat of another wave of the plague I anticipate a very nihilistic leaning one rather than the renaissance of OTL. Not to mention that this plague 2.0 is liable to be a far more devastating impact on the human population then the even what the Nazi’s could ever dream of doing.
 
To all of you that voted for Nazi Germany...you do all realize that the Mongolians made the Germans look like little kiddies? They basically wiped several empires completely off the face of the earth - killing on the order of 80% of the population in the near east and middle east. On a percent of the worlds population the Kahn's made Hitler and Stalin both look like pikers. They invented the scorched earth, destroying all of the irrigation works when they passed because they could live off land that was not irrigated but their enemies could not.


True, but that was early on: the Mongols soon realized it was better to milk a civilian population rather than kill them all and loot the bodies. China under Kublai Khan was a prosperous enough place, and more open to outside ideas than any time since the Tang: I'd argue that given their tolerant attitudes and the immense variety of peoples they ruled over, the Mongol Empire would be _likelier_ to support the sort of flourishing exchange of ideas that might bring an early scientific revolution than a long-surviving Roman one, which probably ends up as a rather intolerant CeasaroPapism, judging from historical trends.

Of course, _how_ you get a long-lasting Mongol Empire is another question: if it unifies because of a common religion among the Mongol/Turkic ruling class, bang, you have intolerance again, if it's Christianity or Islam...perhaps we need a Mongol religion...

Nazis Win WWII, even if it only means a Nazi Europe rather than Nazi-World, probably ends in nuclear WWIII, which will not be good for children or other living things, after the horrendous slaughter of conquered peoples which some members of the Master Race on this board are so quick to shrug off. This is only less than a total disaster if the US manages to pull of a first strike while arsenals are still small enough for civilization to survive.

The US breakup and Commification is clearly meant as a paralell to the OTL Soviet collapse, so I'd assume this is a Communism Wins TL. If they accept the reality of global warming, this might not be much worse than OTL in the medium run - most of the world is probably screwed, but with climate change, new diseases, resource shortages, and the end of a couple decades of "Ponzi Capitalism", the same probably applies to us.

British Empire survives: as an absolute Monarchy? Well, this would seem to require a POD well before the US revolution - and it could be very nasty indeed. (Try Stirling's "Cops and Robbers" in his new short story collection "Ice Iron and Gold", or at http://www.smstirling.com/ ).

Bigger, longer Black death - well, even if it's as deadly to humans as myxomatosis to rabbits, some will survive. And I doubt it's very biologically likely to be that bad- I imagine agricultural civilization will survive, although a lot of larger states may fall apart and some areas regress back to a virtually "tribal" situation, while nomadic and tranhumant lifestyles expand their range. Civilization will rise again - but it may look fairly different than OTL. Some new religions (or new variants on old ones) may well arise, and given that we've probably knocked out the Renaissance, we've also probably knocked out western science, at least as of 2008 AD.

I'm one of those who think humanity is likely to develop science in the long run, whether in Europe or in the Islamic Lands or the far East (fragmented or reunited China, your choice), but it might be centuries or millenia longer than OTL, so I'd rate this as one of the Bad Ones: drastically lowered population densities combined with a possible fear of cities plus apocalyptic religiosity 'a plenty strike me as bad conditions for the emergence of a class of Natural Philosophers.

Confederate States win - really, as messed up as the world is, an existing CSA probably wouldn't make it much worse, unless you posit a real ConfedWank. (OTOH, a US always looking over its shoulder at the Confeds might be a less effective defense against the spread of totalitarianism than it did 1941-1991. Could go several ways).

Slavery continues - we probably have to have a rather nasty and fundamentally _different_ culture than that which exists OTL. Besides that, it's hard to say...

Spanish inquistion expands? Probably requires a rather more successful counter-reformation and the failure of anything like the Enlighnment to develop, if it's still around in 2008. Even the Saudis don't go for burning people alive in public on holidays. Very bad. Europe consists of a bunch of theocratic absolutist monarchies, and Puritan North America makes Saudi Arabia look like a bunch of jolly bohemians.

Ottomans expand further into Europe? Logistics and the inevitable European counter-reaction means the Ottomans are unlikely to make it much further than OTL - perhaps they take Austria and most of Italy, and squash Muscovy in its cradle, but they're not going to be sacking Holland or looting Paris. And perhaps the exposure to renaissance Italy prevents the Ottomans from intellectual stultification in the 17th and 18th centuries - this world might have a larger "first world" than OTL, with Middle Eastern Muslims full participants in a modern world economy.

I'd say that "continued slavery", if we assume a technologically advanced world may edge out Nazis or the Black Death as the worst - probably some humans survive in the Southern Hemisphere in all but the very worst cases of nuclear war and have a chance of eventually rebuilding, and modernity probably arises at _some_ time in the Black Death world, but the "continued slavery" world has a nasty whiff of "boot in the face, forever" for some parts of humanity, and makes one wonder what such people would do with more advanced technology...

Bruce
 

mobius

Banned
On rather living under fascism than communism ... well, wow. Choosing a hardline dictatorship that promotes itself as dictatorship and basks in its tyranny, reactionism and racism over a state which is basically a theory of hyper-democracy which promotes itself as democratic, but was corrupted by Stalinists but has the chance of being put back on the democratic path...well, I think you need to take something to cure the McCarthy effect. You probably wouldn't want to live under either, but c'mon.
An ASB gives you a second to choose between be an average Joe in Mussolini´s Italy or Stalin's URSS. What would you choose?;)
 
An ASB gives you a second to choose between be an average Joe in Mussolini´s Italy or Stalin's URSS. What would you choose?;)

What is this Mussolini stuff? It was a Nazis win TL, making your comparison essentially meaningless - and in such a TL the Italians are lucky if they manage to maintain "toadies to the master race" status...

Bruce
 
To all of you that voted for Nazi Germany...you do all realize that the Mongolians made the Germans look like little kiddies? They basically wiped several empires completely off the face of the earth - killing on the order of 80% of the population in the near east and middle east. On a percent of the worlds population the Kahn's made Hitler and Stalin both look like pikers. They invented the scorched earth, destroying all of the irrigation works when they passed because they could live off land that was not irrigated but their enemies could not.
Oh that's something we can fix. I'm a german married with a mongolian and we have currently one child. :D

Now seriosly. It's true that the mongols were rather ruthless in wartimes but in peacetimes they were really tolerant people. They accepted every religion.

OK, the mongols put a pile of skulls in front of bagdad but the romans nailed 6000 on the cross along the via apia. I think the beheaded ones were the luckier ones.
If it comes to the most ruthless civilsation nobody can beat the romans.

BTW. The mongolian religion is called tengriism.
 
Oh that's something we can fix. I'm a german married with a mongolian and we have currently one child. :D

Now seriosly. It's true that the mongols were rather ruthless in wartimes but in peacetimes they were really tolerant people. They accepted every religion.

OK, the mongols put a pile of skulls in front of bagdad but the romans nailed 6000 on the cross along the via apia. I think the beheaded ones were the luckier ones.
If it comes to the most ruthless civilsation nobody can beat the romans.

BTW. The mongolian religion is called tengriism.

Congratulations...your child is destined to rule the world :eek: :D.

Anyway, I guess I was thinking more of the way the Golden Hoard ruled the Russ extended to the west for long term Mongolian rule rather than Kublai Kahn style in China. Yes in China they settled down and ruled well, in Russia they were a huge and random drain on the country and you can still see traces of the results in the Russian national character (generalizing here folks, I know I am generalizing :D).

B_Munro - Oh I know they are all bad, I am just of the opinion that extending what happened to Russia all the way to the limits of Europe would be a little bit worse that the other alternatives. If only because it happens a bit earlier in history so there is longer for more things to go wrong.
 

boredatwork

Banned
In terms of the relative percentage of the population killed - the expanded black death winds hands down. Depending on how far back it knocked us (as it is described as more virulent, as well as spreading farther), it is easily concievable that between the deaths, societal breakdown, and various fanaticisms unleashed, we would still be at a dark ages or worse level of development world wide.

The Mongols and Romans were vicious buggers, no doubt, but the normally left alone folks who bended knee (or neck) to the conquerors - the black death as described would kill indiscriminately - with no practical means of avoiding it at that time - cities in particular would be decimated - destroying the dominant centers of learning, culture, trade, development, and governance world-wide.
 
Congratulations...your child is destined to rule the world :eek: :D.



Aah, the cute lil' Hun...:D

Anyway, I guess I was thinking more of the way the Golden Hoard ruled the Russ extended to the west for long term Mongolian rule rather than Kublai Kahn style in China. Yes in China they settled down and ruled well, in Russia they were a huge and random drain on the country and you can still see traces of the results in the Russian national character (generalizing here folks, I know I am generalizing :D).

B_Munro - Oh I know they are all bad, I am just of the opinion that extending what happened to Russia all the way to the limits of Europe would be a little bit worse that the other alternatives. If only because it happens a bit earlier in history so there is longer for more things to go wrong.

I suspect the "style of rule" of Russia had quite a bit to do with the environment: living in a Very Cold, flammable wooden Russian village (Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that Russia was pretty rural at this time) with few amenities may not have looked like much of an improvement on living in a tent city on the lower Volga, closer to the trade routes and with the option of picking up and moving away from the horse and sheep poop at intervals. (Their early adoption of Islam also probably promoted a policy of "separatism" from the Russian Christians.) [1]
They also settled down in Iran, and I suspect if they got that far, the populous, commercially developed lands running from N. Italy to the Netherlands might have looked a better place to establish themselves than basing themselves in the Hungarian grasslands.

Bruce

[1] Thought - the Golden Horde convert to Christianity, and like the Bulgars in, well, Bulgaria, are assimilated by the Slavic majority. Does the Russian ruler remain the Khan? With the steppe people as part of the "Russian Community" to start with, does Siberia and Central Asia become Russian much earlier than OTL?
 
Aah, the cute lil' Hun...:D



I suspect the "style of rule" of Russia had quite a bit to do with the environment: living in a Very Cold, flammable wooden Russian village (Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that Russia was pretty rural at this time) with few amenities may not have looked like much of an improvement on living in a tent city on the lower Volga, closer to the trade routes and with the option of picking up and moving away from the horse and sheep poop at intervals. (Their early adoption of Islam also probably promoted a policy of "separatism" from the Russian Christians.) [1]
They also settled down in Iran, and I suspect if they got that far, the populous, commercially developed lands running from N. Italy to the Netherlands might have looked a better place to establish themselves than basing themselves in the Hungarian grasslands.

Couple of things, first yes they might settle down, but that brings me to the second point, they only settled down in Persia after almost depopulating the place and destroying most of the irrigation works. I am not sure that qualifies as "better" than what they did to Russia.

Third, at the time that Russia was invaded southern Russia (Kiev area) was actually a fairly advanced country. The Hoard basically ended that and set Russia back by at least 2-300 years from where they were. So yes Russia was mostly small villages and farming but mostly because of what the Hoard did, it was not that way when they got there.
 
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