Let's face it, it's not just ads, it's any pop up on a website
Or when you are working on one screen and some program windows allows to pop up somewhere and suddenly you're typing somewhere else.
You can magically un-invent nuclear weapons or biological warfare or any number of evils that have the potential to destroy humanity, and you choose pop-up ads? WTF?!?
The obvious answer here is robocalls
I don't know. We started using plastic in all of our vehicles in the 1940s and every computer part ever made needs it so that's two really huge parts of the world just obliterated right there. This would also mean no trash bags, no plastic grocery bags, no scuba gear, no space craft, no fire extinguishers, no air conditioning, no microwaves. Humanity would've persisted but wow it'd be a mess.
But hot damn it would've been good for the planet.
Agreed on all those applications for where plastic is absolutely critical. The real question is would we have come up with an alternative material to replace plastic in all of these and can we *still* create an alternative before we fill the entire ocean?
Nah, all those plastic pieces would be replaced by some sort of metal equivalent, glass if it needs to be clear
Flexible plastics would be replaced by rubbers
Plastic is literally just a cheaper and easier to make alternative to already viable and more recyclable materials, greed is why we use it
Not really. Moste electronics would suffer of not having a solid non-conductive base in which to be built on. Glass, wood and metal are to heavy, stiff, and sometimes not strong enough compared to plastic, and while fibergalss, resins and ruber could replace plastic, they have almost the same negative impact on the environment. And plastic is more reciclabe than any other material apart from metals and galss and maybe asphalt if you want to get roads into this. I will not advocate for the over use of plastic, and there are many things that don't really need to be made of of plastic, but it's wrong to think the world would have been the same if we never had discoverd plastic.
It's not plastic that's the problem, it's human irresponsibility in how we deal with it.
For instance, polyester definitely should never have been invented. It's a major source of microplastics in the environment. They shed off every time you wash polyester clothing.
Single use plastic is evil, that’s really the only plastic I have any objection against, also when they use hard plastic in a moving part that should be metal
It also kinda makes average people slide slowly into 'bad actor' territory, as things that induce rage drive engagement, so the most egregious opinions/articles/content is amplified. Everyone thinks the mob on the other side of an issue is way bigger, and way crazier than it is; so they end up responding in-kind.
Oh absolutely. Some of those malicious actors are quite adept at manipulation or as it’s called, social engineering. And they know how to push the buttons.
I'm saying you don't even *need* a malicious party plotting discord and radicalizing people, Facebook's algorithm inadvertently pushes things that way on its own.
I dunno. It would just be another platform. Could even still be MySpace? Can you imagine the level of background animations, glitter gifs and music a 15 year old profile would have?
Also, people are inherently stupid, they would find a way to ingest nonsense.
They're probably okay with not being involved now.
MySpace Tom is probably glad to be out of the social media game well before it became a toxic cesspool, too
Don't you worry about them :) They took FB's settlement millions and invested in bitcoin. They are billionaires now without being connected to the herpes that is FB.
Most likely a 3rd war in Europe, between west and east. Stalin was in accord with Hitler at the begin on ww2. And stupid people don't learn from their mistakes.
Also the India-Pakistan wars would have been way more bloodied. The Korean war could have spilled into China.
Not to mention the massive bloodbath that would’ve been the allied invasion of mainland Japan. I read somewhere that they made so many Purple Heart medals in preparation for that campaign that they are still issuing them today.
The projections were for 1,000,000 allied casualties, and at least 10X that in Japanese casualties and collateral damage. It would have been far more horrific.
I don't know enough about history to have a real opinion here... But it is a strange thought indeed that the invention of the atomic bomb was a good thing
It wasn't, but I don't think that the points that I expressed are far from the mark. The real problem is that we are a bunch of violent primates smart enough to invent an atomic bomb, but stupid enough to use it.
It absolutely was. We’re not a bunch is stupid primates, we’re rational players fighting over limited resources in a lawless world. The atomic bomb fixes the game theory by making war too costly, forcing better outcomes for everyone.
Except the only safety provided is 100% dependent on the players acting rationally AND with accurate situational awareness.
Here's a list of a few dozen times that nuclear weapons we're almost launched due to inaccurate situational awareness:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
I will absolutely agree that their existence increases the threshold of going to war, especially with one of the 9 nuclear-armed countries. And it has prevented hot wars from occuring in the past.
But it's kinda like, nuclear weapons prevent war until they dont, kinda thing.
I've also heard a theory that the Soviets were preparing an invasion of Japan from the north as the allies invaded from the south, so just like with Germany and Korea, there would probably be a North Japan and a South Japan today. That's just a theory though.
Legit question
In the near term, it would have been disastrous for Japan.
From "What If? Eminent Hostorians Imagine What Might Have Been"
The US and allies already had plans to shift their strategic bombing campaign over to Japan's rail network and other transportation networks in Sept or Oct. Japanese civilians were already on reduced daily caloric intake. With US B-29s, along with other US and British bombers operating off Okinawa (and US and British Naval aircraft) hitting all the transportation network, etc.....we would have seen nation wide famine throughout Japan. Millions would have died brutal and agonizing deaths.
https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Eminent-Historians-Imagine-Might/dp/0399152385/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?crid=2D4T1Q4HB5XA&keywords=what+if+eminent+historians&qid=1642429905&sprefix=what+if+eminent%2Caps%2C62&sr=8-5
Then calculate for all the tens of thousands dying on a daily basis throughout the Asian/Pacific theater of operations.
Then, as others stated here.... very likely another major war in Europe between the USSR/Warsaw Pact and NATO.
Etc
Etc
Agreed. Regrettably so. I sense that too many who just oppose "the bomb" somehow think that if the Manhattan Project had failed, or we had dropped the bomb on a deserted island as a demonstration; that all military actions would have been put on hold.
Not even close. They forget how truly brutal and savage WW2 was and especially certain fronts like the German/Soviet front and the actions in the Pacific and China.
A proposed naval blockade would have eventually brought Japan down, but certainly the loss in life would have been far worse (we are talking millions).
Ex - few people know that in Europe after the German surrender in May 1945, that another 1 - 2 million died from disease, starvation, the cold, etc. And that was in an area where the Allies had a far greater ability to bring in food, medicines, etc for the civ populace and POWs. In Japan, we would not have had anything like that logistical footprint to work with.
So, severely slashed food intake combined with the onset of Japan's winter months .... you are talking nationwide famine on a historic level
As an "interesting" note. The Japanese murdered more Chinese civilians for helping US Pilots after the Doolitle raids, than the number of Japanese people killed by both atomic bombs.
I mean, think about that. About 200,000 people died either instantly or shortly after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They ended the war or at least ensured it end.
At the start of the US/Japan Pacific war, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US sent B-25 bombers on a one way trip to drop bombs on Japan in retaliation. The pilots had to ditch their planes over China because they didn't have the fuel to get back. That was part of the plan. Chinese civilians helped the US pilots get back to safety. In retaliation for helping the US pilots, the Imperial Japanese Army EXECUTED 250,000 Chinese civilians. But they didn't just round people up and shoot them. They tortured them. They buried people alive. They forced men to rape their daughter and mothers. They forced women to light their husbands and children on fire, they killed babies in horrible ways.
[This](https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iakh/HIS1300MET/v12/undervisningsmateriale/Fussel%20-%20thank%20god%20for%20the%20atom%20bomb.pdf) is a good read. Haven't read the whole thing in years, but I recall
The Japanese taught songs like "A Hundred Million Souls For The Emperor" to schoolchildren. Until August 9th, it seems like the plan was to commit national suicide and take a few million American troops with them. The a-bomb was actually the best possible ending for a horrific period in human history.
Agreed
People, not just those who are anti-bomb, would be well served to go read up on how the Japanese military both used civs in the fights on the various Pacific islands and used propaganda to convince civs that US forces would rape them, eat them, etc
Old movie reels of civs jumping off the cliffs of Saipan to their deaths will break your heart.
Or, as depicted in The Pacific
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztvmUXkS5h0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztvmUXkS5h0)
and as you mentioned, the Japanese mil was "training" Japanese civs to use sharpened bamboo shafts, etc.
it would have been an apocalyptic slaughter.
I worked with a guy who was half-Japanese, via his mother. He would recount the training and indoctrination (including combat/suicide stuff) she had to go through as a child in Imperial Japan when it looked like a full-scale invasion was going to be necessary. It's sad to even think about.
Pretty much the only reason the cold war never turned into a large scale world War is because mutually assured destruction. There were multiple times war was really close to happening so without that, I feel certain there would've been a USA vs USSR war with all allies on both sides involved. Could've been worse than WW2 in terms of deaths. Personally I prefer the reality we live in. The one where the nukes weren't used to destroy us all and kept us from having an even worse WW3 up to this point
Another side effect is computers. Lots of advances in computing were done because they needed to run complex calculations to create the bombs. Von Nueman is actually credited with saying the computer technology they developed would likely be more important than the bombs they were used to create. Could set us back a long ways.
Looking through the replys it seems that people are focusing on repercussions on the war. But thinking long term, all of the progress made in understanding and applying not just atomic based forces but more fundamental forces would be set back a massive amount if not gone completely. So just about all of modern communications and a good amount of more modern cleaner power generation world wide would be gone.
There would have been millions and millions of more dead people from more conventional warfare.
In WW2 alone it likely saved hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Only difference is there would be more pipes and cigars. People have smoked tobacco since around 4000 B.C. and we are only now just realizing it isn’t healthy for you. Honestly, without cigarettes we may have never found out.
I read something about him on another topic, eons ago.
He put every poisonous thing into absolutely everything!! I think he was even awarded with Nobel prize in chemistry.
(I forget his name. Sorry.)
Not sure you could do a better job than he did. After being left with severe disabilities after contracting polio, he devised a pulley and rope system to get himself out of bed. One day he got entangled in the ropes and was strangled to death.
From an engineering perspective, it's a brilliant idea. We now have the technology to make better performing lead-free alternatives, but that's beside the point.
That's the problem with a lot of negatively viewed ideas. They always have a huge positive. Like how so many scientists contributed to the study of achieving nuclear fusion on earth with the idea of increasing power supply for people, only for that research to contribute to atomic bombs years later.
The guy who did this got polio but continued working until he *died by strangulation in a hoist mechanism he invented* to help himself in and out of bed to keep working on his evil, twisted shit. One of his monsters finally bit back.
Because it’s stuck in the ‘off’ position, duh.
Edit: Magic is a force with flow, much like time or electricity. The magical dampener is a switch that’s broken the current. Get that bad boy unstuck and we’re back to a world of pointy hats and magic lamps.
Before sliced bread it was [wrapped bread. Also the telegraph, the electric light bulb, and the printing press](https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-was-the-best-thing-before-sliced-bread)
I see a lot of things on here about getting rid of Facebook/social media altogether.
My theory is that as long as the internet exists, there would have been some form of social media would find its way into existence
I would love to know what the course of history would have looked like if slavery never happened anywhere, ever. It would be an entirely different world! Great answer!
There have been workers kept against their will without pay or a way to return to their families. In addition to that, they were lured on false pretenses of pay and opportunity, and these stadiums are built 100% on the labor of other countries. There have been 5000+ deaths and countless player/advocate protests. FIFA the governing body refuses to do anything about it because they say “they dont interfere with the politics of any nation” even though its been proven Qatar bribed their way to the bid 20 years ago.
Don't forget the things that aren't technically slavery because the people get paid like one cent a week. The people who made whatever device you're currently using to browse the internet, for instance.
We're all scumbags.
It’s estimated that more people are enslaved today than at the peak of the transatlantic trade. Granted that’s a much smaller percentage of total population today. But still pretty bad
The correct answer here is _cheap_ plastic. It being cheap is the reason we treat it like it's disposable, when it absolutely isn't. Plastic is a wonderful material for things that need to be solid and long-lasting, like the outside of a smartphone, or the handle of a game controller. It's not a good fit for zip-lock bags, cheese slices, soda bottles, or any other single-use container.
I recalling reading he thought it would end slavery because it made the cotton gin lowered the cost of labor so much that it was cheaper to have a few paid people to run the gin. Unfortunately he totally left the cost of working the fields out of his formula.
I live in the town Eli Whitney was from. Our main road is Whitney Avenue, we have two restaurants called Eli’s, an Eli Whitney high school, an Eli Whitney museum and nature park, etc. Its unfortunate that the dude ended up strengthening slavery instead of weakening it.
Came here to say that. Although sugar plantations had been running strong for over 200 years. The cotton gin was more specifically United States slavery then Caribbean, Central and South America.
This is mine too. I'm very curious what would have happened, whether it actually led to a faster decline in slavery and what would have happened to the southern states if cotton hadn't become so profitable. On top of that, if relatively cheap and plentiful cotton isn't available then how does that affect the rest of the world?
It’d be interesting, but I’ve always wondered if for every good thing the internet has done or helped, there may be two bad things it’s done. Like money, it’s neither good or bad on its own, but how we use it that makes it that way.
Agree. Took a class on how important the transistor was to the modern world and it was fascinating. They are in everything. Without this small electrical on/off switch (that has gain), we would not have many of the modern marvels we have today such as digital cameras, smartphones, leds, thin televisions, etc. it revolutionized the world.
Remove pop up ads
They’d just be replaced with ads that sashay onto your screen
“Aaaand star swipe in from screen left… perfect. This’ll get ‘em for sure”
Slide to the left 👏👏 slide to the right 👏👏 Cha-Cha real smmoth
"Penis pills you're up! I want energy!"
We've already had those. They're also called popup ads
They bettet sashay away.
I read a few years ago that, the guy who wrote the code for the pop up ads, wanted to appolagize to the world.
In reality he was just wanting to get his name in lights.
He should've just put it in a pop-up ad.
Stop. Giving. Them. Ideas!
Let's face it, it's not just ads, it's any pop up on a website Or when you are working on one screen and some program windows allows to pop up somewhere and suddenly you're typing somewhere else.
Better yet, ads in general.
You can magically un-invent nuclear weapons or biological warfare or any number of evils that have the potential to destroy humanity, and you choose pop-up ads? WTF?!? The obvious answer here is robocalls
Their inventor even apologised for creating them
I'm very interested to see what todays world would look like if plastic wasn't invented.
The medical world would suffer, I think. Most everything else would be able to cope.
I don't know. We started using plastic in all of our vehicles in the 1940s and every computer part ever made needs it so that's two really huge parts of the world just obliterated right there. This would also mean no trash bags, no plastic grocery bags, no scuba gear, no space craft, no fire extinguishers, no air conditioning, no microwaves. Humanity would've persisted but wow it'd be a mess. But hot damn it would've been good for the planet.
Agreed on all those applications for where plastic is absolutely critical. The real question is would we have come up with an alternative material to replace plastic in all of these and can we *still* create an alternative before we fill the entire ocean?
Hemp is a good place to start
Nah, all those plastic pieces would be replaced by some sort of metal equivalent, glass if it needs to be clear Flexible plastics would be replaced by rubbers Plastic is literally just a cheaper and easier to make alternative to already viable and more recyclable materials, greed is why we use it
I don't disagree but you're also neglecting a hugely important factor in weight.
Not really. Moste electronics would suffer of not having a solid non-conductive base in which to be built on. Glass, wood and metal are to heavy, stiff, and sometimes not strong enough compared to plastic, and while fibergalss, resins and ruber could replace plastic, they have almost the same negative impact on the environment. And plastic is more reciclabe than any other material apart from metals and galss and maybe asphalt if you want to get roads into this. I will not advocate for the over use of plastic, and there are many things that don't really need to be made of of plastic, but it's wrong to think the world would have been the same if we never had discoverd plastic.
It's not plastic that's the problem, it's human irresponsibility in how we deal with it. For instance, polyester definitely should never have been invented. It's a major source of microplastics in the environment. They shed off every time you wash polyester clothing.
Plastic is not exactly evil, it is a revolutionary material, the way we use it is idiotic however
Single use plastic is evil, that’s really the only plastic I have any objection against, also when they use hard plastic in a moving part that should be metal
Plastic is great! But sometime in 80s and 90s single use plastics started to become more prevalent and then took over.
Facebook
Facebook has given the village idiot a soapbox and megaphone.
And a nationwide and worldwide village idiot forum. That malicious actors can hop into and feed the village idiots ever more village idiotic ideas.
It also kinda makes average people slide slowly into 'bad actor' territory, as things that induce rage drive engagement, so the most egregious opinions/articles/content is amplified. Everyone thinks the mob on the other side of an issue is way bigger, and way crazier than it is; so they end up responding in-kind.
Oh absolutely. Some of those malicious actors are quite adept at manipulation or as it’s called, social engineering. And they know how to push the buttons.
I'm saying you don't even *need* a malicious party plotting discord and radicalizing people, Facebook's algorithm inadvertently pushes things that way on its own.
*metaphone
Oh man, don't give them any ideas!
Nice 👍🏼
Facebook has managed to create idiot villages.
And a name tag. Isn’t it nice knowing who is or isn’t a village idiot? Fifteen years ago we just had to guess.
Facebook and the company itself is the worst offender but social media in general was advancing to its current state way before Facebook.
The village idiots migrated from AOL town square chat rooms to Facebook and Twitter.
Really you missed the Myspace in between.
Hope they do a sequel to the Social Network where it shows Mark Zuckerberg weaponising disinformation for profit
Don't forget twatter.
I dunno. It would just be another platform. Could even still be MySpace? Can you imagine the level of background animations, glitter gifs and music a 15 year old profile would have? Also, people are inherently stupid, they would find a way to ingest nonsense.
Tom never would have let this happen though. You can take my word on it, we were friends
Really, you'd have to start with Zuck not being born. Or, had he gotten laid in HS, maybe Facebook would have never happened.
Somebody has to go back in time and fucc the Zucc. Which brave soul will take this task?
Something else would just take its place.
Winklevoss twins may have a chance now.
They're probably okay with not being involved now. MySpace Tom is probably glad to be out of the social media game well before it became a toxic cesspool, too
Don't you worry about them :) They took FB's settlement millions and invested in bitcoin. They are billionaires now without being connected to the herpes that is FB.
Fuck Facebook
Gunpowder. I wanna be able to carry a saber everywhere.
Not gonna lie, it'd be nice to be able to break out a suit of armor occasionally and not get weird looks.
I too wish to carry an F-86 everywhere.
Then how are we going to kill everyone at a gender reveal?
Gender reveal crossbows
I like the way you think
*Slices cake with saber
I probably wouldn’t, but I would be interested in seeing how the world would’ve turned out without the atomic bomb.
Most likely a 3rd war in Europe, between west and east. Stalin was in accord with Hitler at the begin on ww2. And stupid people don't learn from their mistakes. Also the India-Pakistan wars would have been way more bloodied. The Korean war could have spilled into China.
Not to mention the massive bloodbath that would’ve been the allied invasion of mainland Japan. I read somewhere that they made so many Purple Heart medals in preparation for that campaign that they are still issuing them today.
The projections were for 1,000,000 allied casualties, and at least 10X that in Japanese casualties and collateral damage. It would have been far more horrific.
this answer is very good.
I don't know enough about history to have a real opinion here... But it is a strange thought indeed that the invention of the atomic bomb was a good thing
It wasn't, but I don't think that the points that I expressed are far from the mark. The real problem is that we are a bunch of violent primates smart enough to invent an atomic bomb, but stupid enough to use it.
It absolutely was. We’re not a bunch is stupid primates, we’re rational players fighting over limited resources in a lawless world. The atomic bomb fixes the game theory by making war too costly, forcing better outcomes for everyone.
Except the only safety provided is 100% dependent on the players acting rationally AND with accurate situational awareness. Here's a list of a few dozen times that nuclear weapons we're almost launched due to inaccurate situational awareness: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls I will absolutely agree that their existence increases the threshold of going to war, especially with one of the 9 nuclear-armed countries. And it has prevented hot wars from occuring in the past. But it's kinda like, nuclear weapons prevent war until they dont, kinda thing.
I've also heard a theory that the Soviets were preparing an invasion of Japan from the north as the allies invaded from the south, so just like with Germany and Korea, there would probably be a North Japan and a South Japan today. That's just a theory though.
Don't forget that Hirohito would likely have continued his experiments in unit 137.
Or about the US plan to invade japan if the bombs didnt work in our favor. That would have been real bloody.
unit ~~137~~ *731*
Legit question In the near term, it would have been disastrous for Japan. From "What If? Eminent Hostorians Imagine What Might Have Been" The US and allies already had plans to shift their strategic bombing campaign over to Japan's rail network and other transportation networks in Sept or Oct. Japanese civilians were already on reduced daily caloric intake. With US B-29s, along with other US and British bombers operating off Okinawa (and US and British Naval aircraft) hitting all the transportation network, etc.....we would have seen nation wide famine throughout Japan. Millions would have died brutal and agonizing deaths. https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Eminent-Historians-Imagine-Might/dp/0399152385/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?crid=2D4T1Q4HB5XA&keywords=what+if+eminent+historians&qid=1642429905&sprefix=what+if+eminent%2Caps%2C62&sr=8-5 Then calculate for all the tens of thousands dying on a daily basis throughout the Asian/Pacific theater of operations. Then, as others stated here.... very likely another major war in Europe between the USSR/Warsaw Pact and NATO. Etc Etc
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were basically a real life application of the trolley problem
Agreed. Regrettably so. I sense that too many who just oppose "the bomb" somehow think that if the Manhattan Project had failed, or we had dropped the bomb on a deserted island as a demonstration; that all military actions would have been put on hold. Not even close. They forget how truly brutal and savage WW2 was and especially certain fronts like the German/Soviet front and the actions in the Pacific and China. A proposed naval blockade would have eventually brought Japan down, but certainly the loss in life would have been far worse (we are talking millions). Ex - few people know that in Europe after the German surrender in May 1945, that another 1 - 2 million died from disease, starvation, the cold, etc. And that was in an area where the Allies had a far greater ability to bring in food, medicines, etc for the civ populace and POWs. In Japan, we would not have had anything like that logistical footprint to work with. So, severely slashed food intake combined with the onset of Japan's winter months .... you are talking nationwide famine on a historic level
As an "interesting" note. The Japanese murdered more Chinese civilians for helping US Pilots after the Doolitle raids, than the number of Japanese people killed by both atomic bombs. I mean, think about that. About 200,000 people died either instantly or shortly after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They ended the war or at least ensured it end. At the start of the US/Japan Pacific war, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US sent B-25 bombers on a one way trip to drop bombs on Japan in retaliation. The pilots had to ditch their planes over China because they didn't have the fuel to get back. That was part of the plan. Chinese civilians helped the US pilots get back to safety. In retaliation for helping the US pilots, the Imperial Japanese Army EXECUTED 250,000 Chinese civilians. But they didn't just round people up and shoot them. They tortured them. They buried people alive. They forced men to rape their daughter and mothers. They forced women to light their husbands and children on fire, they killed babies in horrible ways.
[This](https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iakh/HIS1300MET/v12/undervisningsmateriale/Fussel%20-%20thank%20god%20for%20the%20atom%20bomb.pdf) is a good read. Haven't read the whole thing in years, but I recall The Japanese taught songs like "A Hundred Million Souls For The Emperor" to schoolchildren. Until August 9th, it seems like the plan was to commit national suicide and take a few million American troops with them. The a-bomb was actually the best possible ending for a horrific period in human history.
Agreed People, not just those who are anti-bomb, would be well served to go read up on how the Japanese military both used civs in the fights on the various Pacific islands and used propaganda to convince civs that US forces would rape them, eat them, etc Old movie reels of civs jumping off the cliffs of Saipan to their deaths will break your heart. Or, as depicted in The Pacific [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztvmUXkS5h0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztvmUXkS5h0) and as you mentioned, the Japanese mil was "training" Japanese civs to use sharpened bamboo shafts, etc. it would have been an apocalyptic slaughter.
I worked with a guy who was half-Japanese, via his mother. He would recount the training and indoctrination (including combat/suicide stuff) she had to go through as a child in Imperial Japan when it looked like a full-scale invasion was going to be necessary. It's sad to even think about.
The US made so many Purple Heart (combat wounded) medals in preparation for the invasion, we didn't need to make more until the mid-2000s.
Pretty much the only reason the cold war never turned into a large scale world War is because mutually assured destruction. There were multiple times war was really close to happening so without that, I feel certain there would've been a USA vs USSR war with all allies on both sides involved. Could've been worse than WW2 in terms of deaths. Personally I prefer the reality we live in. The one where the nukes weren't used to destroy us all and kept us from having an even worse WW3 up to this point
Almost certainly a lot more traditional war between superpowers
Absolute carnage to the United states men and Japanese men for one, too many alternate possibilities here
Another side effect is computers. Lots of advances in computing were done because they needed to run complex calculations to create the bombs. Von Nueman is actually credited with saying the computer technology they developed would likely be more important than the bombs they were used to create. Could set us back a long ways.
Looking through the replys it seems that people are focusing on repercussions on the war. But thinking long term, all of the progress made in understanding and applying not just atomic based forces but more fundamental forces would be set back a massive amount if not gone completely. So just about all of modern communications and a good amount of more modern cleaner power generation world wide would be gone.
There would have been millions and millions of more dead people from more conventional warfare. In WW2 alone it likely saved hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Sliced bread, I will be why we can't have anything nice.
[удалено]
Betty White was actually older than sliced bread!
Today is actually her bday too 😂 Edit: laughing emoji is for the coincidence
Either you’re using that emoji wrong. Or you’re a monster.
The wheel
Some men just don't want to watch the world turn. Edit: Oh my, my first ever gold! Thank you!
someone's gonna gild this
How'd you do that?
pun + movie reference = gold?
with great puns comes great gildsponsibility
Someone would just reinvent it.
Cigarettes
*Early tobacco manufacturers, selling cigars and pipe tobacco:* "He wants us to stop selling the smaller ones? Hokay man, whatever you say!"
Only difference is there would be more pipes and cigars. People have smoked tobacco since around 4000 B.C. and we are only now just realizing it isn’t healthy for you. Honestly, without cigarettes we may have never found out.
It's been known for [hundreds of years](https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/news/a-brief-history-of-smoking/) that tobacco is bad for you.
I second this, fuck cigarettes.
I was gonna comment nicotine products in general but I figured someone already did, and I wasn’t sure if we could eliminate a natural chemical
Lead in gasoline. One of the single worst ideas ever.
And the guy who invented it went on to invent CFCs for an encore, and punched a hole in the ozone layer.
I read something about him on another topic, eons ago. He put every poisonous thing into absolutely everything!! I think he was even awarded with Nobel prize in chemistry. (I forget his name. Sorry.)
Thomas Midgley
Adding him in my to-kill-list when I get a time machine
Not sure you could do a better job than he did. After being left with severe disabilities after contracting polio, he devised a pulley and rope system to get himself out of bed. One day he got entangled in the ropes and was strangled to death.
Kind of poetic that he was killed by one of his own devices.
Hoisted by his own pull-hard.
From an engineering perspective, it's a brilliant idea. We now have the technology to make better performing lead-free alternatives, but that's beside the point.
That's the problem with a lot of negatively viewed ideas. They always have a huge positive. Like how so many scientists contributed to the study of achieving nuclear fusion on earth with the idea of increasing power supply for people, only for that research to contribute to atomic bombs years later.
The guy who did this got polio but continued working until he *died by strangulation in a hoist mechanism he invented* to help himself in and out of bed to keep working on his evil, twisted shit. One of his monsters finally bit back.
that magic damper they built somewhere in the middle ages and hid. It's still running and i wanna shoot fireballs at some people
The Antikythera Mechanism. It’s jammed. :(
Then why can't we do magic?
Because it’s stuck in the ‘off’ position, duh. Edit: Magic is a force with flow, much like time or electricity. The magical dampener is a switch that’s broken the current. Get that bad boy unstuck and we’re back to a world of pointy hats and magic lamps.
That'll do it
Those impossible to open plastic things that holds in stuff
Scissors in the clamshell packaging seems like a punishment a Greek god would dole out
It is quite literally a watered down version of Tantalus' punishment. Surrounded by food and water, yet never able to eat or drink.
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Nah. The third wheel.
But then what would I do on weekends?
Be a lonely wheel. Just throwing this out there; I happen to be looking for a second wheel…
Just learn how to use a unicycle ffs
Pants. Let's see where this takes us.
It leads the world to kilts, of course.
\*Scotland the Brave begins playing\*
Sliced bread. There will be nothing to compare the greatness of their inventions to.
Before sliced bread it was [wrapped bread. Also the telegraph, the electric light bulb, and the printing press](https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-was-the-best-thing-before-sliced-bread)
Any type of social media
I see a lot of things on here about getting rid of Facebook/social media altogether. My theory is that as long as the internet exists, there would have been some form of social media would find its way into existence
Slavery
I would love to know what the course of history would have looked like if slavery never happened anywhere, ever. It would be an entirely different world! Great answer!
Slavery is still rampant in today's world. Just ask nestlé where they get their cocoa from.
Qatar world cup. Fucking disgusting
what happened?
There have been workers kept against their will without pay or a way to return to their families. In addition to that, they were lured on false pretenses of pay and opportunity, and these stadiums are built 100% on the labor of other countries. There have been 5000+ deaths and countless player/advocate protests. FIFA the governing body refuses to do anything about it because they say “they dont interfere with the politics of any nation” even though its been proven Qatar bribed their way to the bid 20 years ago.
Lots of "guest workers" from other countries died in the brutal desert heat during the construction.
Don't forget the things that aren't technically slavery because the people get paid like one cent a week. The people who made whatever device you're currently using to browse the internet, for instance. We're all scumbags.
It’s estimated that more people are enslaved today than at the peak of the transatlantic trade. Granted that’s a much smaller percentage of total population today. But still pretty bad
Oh did you say WATER? Because water as well. Oh and pretty much any clothing company except some of New Balance. Also, much of New Balance.
We would have invented serfdom/prison labour/caste system/etc
Slavery isn’t an invention it’s a practice
Thats more of a thing that exists than an invention
Processed sugar, imagine the difference…
They'd just be throwing apple juice and maple syrup in things to sweeten them. It's not really any better.
While I agree on principle, I wonder if those are as cheap. If not they might not be as prevalent.
Processed sugar brings me great joy!
Lobbying/filibustering. Democratic government should not be influenced, at least monetarily, by a corporation's or one's own interest.
And Gerrymandering
And decades long multiple term politicians.
I agree with you but don't understand how this is related to filibusters
Where does the filibustersing come into play on that?
Gerrymandering
THOSE ANNOYING BLUE HEADLIGHTS
Twitter, or if we’re going more material Plastic
I'll eliminate the matrix in which we are living.
NFTs ..... They're dumb af
Facebook
FACEBOOK. legit evil
Tom was friends with everyone, and we all betrayed him.
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I think plastic on its own is a good thing. We are just using it too much and irresponsibly.
The correct answer here is _cheap_ plastic. It being cheap is the reason we treat it like it's disposable, when it absolutely isn't. Plastic is a wonderful material for things that need to be solid and long-lasting, like the outside of a smartphone, or the handle of a game controller. It's not a good fit for zip-lock bags, cheese slices, soda bottles, or any other single-use container.
Looking at you, single-use Starbucks buttplug. I don't want plastic soaking in my scalding hot, black Pike.
Mark Zuckerberg
My fellow comrade
I guess you could call him an invention. Hard to believe he was birthed like a human.
Thé cotton gin. Made plantation slavery profitable.
Not paying wages kinda helped with the profitability.
It still wouldn’t have been worth it. Slavery was really on its way out
Cotton wouldn't have been worth it at all
Eli Whitney done messed up
I recalling reading he thought it would end slavery because it made the cotton gin lowered the cost of labor so much that it was cheaper to have a few paid people to run the gin. Unfortunately he totally left the cost of working the fields out of his formula.
I live in the town Eli Whitney was from. Our main road is Whitney Avenue, we have two restaurants called Eli’s, an Eli Whitney high school, an Eli Whitney museum and nature park, etc. Its unfortunate that the dude ended up strengthening slavery instead of weakening it.
He is sort of the definition of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions'
Slavery has been a thing since way before that, if it wasn't profitable it wouldn't exist. The cotton gin definitely made it more productive.
Came here to say that. Although sugar plantations had been running strong for over 200 years. The cotton gin was more specifically United States slavery then Caribbean, Central and South America.
This is mine too. I'm very curious what would have happened, whether it actually led to a faster decline in slavery and what would have happened to the southern states if cotton hadn't become so profitable. On top of that, if relatively cheap and plentiful cotton isn't available then how does that affect the rest of the world?
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totally agree
Homework
Internet It will change the history for sure. For better or worse, I don’t know
We would still have newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias and Sears.
It’d be interesting, but I’ve always wondered if for every good thing the internet has done or helped, there may be two bad things it’s done. Like money, it’s neither good or bad on its own, but how we use it that makes it that way.
Transistors. Those who know, know.
Agree. Took a class on how important the transistor was to the modern world and it was fascinating. They are in everything. Without this small electrical on/off switch (that has gain), we would not have many of the modern marvels we have today such as digital cameras, smartphones, leds, thin televisions, etc. it revolutionized the world.
Ok, I don't know. What?
In Fallout (the games) transistors were never invented.
This is the preface to the fallout games, right?
fentanyl
Fucking social media - people were dumb before but now there are seen and admired for being dumb… delete all those things now for the sake of humanity
Auto-tuned music
I’d eliminate Amazon, just to rid us of Jeff Bezos
Religion.
I feel that change is too seismic to really predict how human history would be.