Okay, Here goes......

*  = Paragraph moved...

Take this general idea - that some events and trends are due to happene no m,atter WHO the President or leader of country or part of the world is. The historical figure or personality might speed up or slow down some trends and cultural things...or lessen OR increase their impact. BUT, these things are DUE to happen anyway.

Now, picture a history class or a history book that human kids are reading sometime  in the Future.  Say, maybe about 11 to 12 centuries from now. (Sorry, WalkerP,  humans STILL around - but we might have moved off the earth and tidied it upa smidgeon)

Now we've all seen and College professors talk about trends in culture and history. History books often separate their sections and chapters that way label decades and parts of canturies with "trend" title.  Some professors even get the names wrong or are absent-minded.

Using that point of view from outside of our current timeframe......

Was the "West"  as in the United Strates and western Europe due for a conflict with either the Arab world or the part of the globe that had extreme Moslem believers??  It just wound up happening in noticeable form between 1979 to 2003


Gay marriages:
 Was the inevitable marriages and legal recognition of Gay Marriage also a shift in cultural trends that was due to jhappen in the eary 21st century? or was it jump-started by other events and would have happened or evolved as a norm more naturally later on.

Space exploration and travel:
Was the slowdown in this activity in the '70s to early 21st century a natural trend or were peope slowing it down for some reason?
(This from the poit of view that the future author commentator lives in a world where many worlds within our own solar system have been colonized to some degree...or even more wondrous things have happened.)


Oh...and even tho this is in Off-Topic, I would love it if a an RPG campaign idea or two could be spun off of the discussion. Just like we did with the "Walkerists" idea after the Global Warming argumewnts and Environmental stuff arguments we had.

- Ed C.



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QuoteWhat was the originally the opening paragraph: Several times I've started the discussion or heard someone else do a variation of : "If Al Gore had won the 2000 election , the World Trade Center would still have been attacked and destroyed."
The grpup planning it had been working on it during the second term of Clinton - it didn't matter WHO the President, they hate America - that includes both Democrats and Republicans, (libertarians too)

But thats NOT going to be the gist of this thread......
At least hope not.

Bad choice of first para if you want to avoid that particular debate dude.

Still, good question.

I'll take conflict of civilisations for a dollar.  I think this was inevitable, largely due to resources issues.  Essentially, the Arab states have oil, the West not so much.  As oil is a finite resource, conflict was inevitable.

Conflict was also inevitable IMO because our cultural product is essentially toxic to authoritarian cultures who can't screen it out, and they can't.  Islam isn't necessarily puritanical, but the Arab world contains authoritarian states who have used puritanical forms as an instrument of social control.  Our cultural output was always going to threaten their authoritarian regimes.

So on that one my money's on conflict being unavoidable, partly due to resource competion and partly because our very existence undermines their authoritarian regimes.

I don't, to be clear, think conflict between Islam and the West is inevitable, rather I think conflict between the authoritarian Middle East states and the West was.

Oh, I think gay marriages were inevitable simply because there is no good argument against them, but is that really a debate you want for this thread?

Quote from: Balbinus;222913Oh, I think gay marriages were inevitable simply because there is no good argument against them, but is that really a debate you want for this thread?

No - not really a debate wanted.

 I also think they are inevitable - just I think the arguments on both sides of ithe concept/issue get too emotional and heated. Its one of those likely things that is going to happen anyway and we can either get to that point in a smooth and friendly way or in a bumpy and rough(violent) way for everyone involved.

Smoother and friendlier would be  much preferrred.

So NOT a debate ...more a discussion is what I was interested in.

That first paragraph? Its the idea I'm talking about as done under a zoomed-in microscope.
I still want to include it as ab example - but I may re-arrange things so as not to hit people's flare buttons when the first read the Opening post.


- Ed C.

Gaming wise this is most interesting in a time travel game I suspect, you're a team trying to prevent the deaths of billions of people in a war held in the 2050s, you have a good idea of the factors that led to the war, and will do anything to prevent it.

But whatever you do, it still seems to keep happening, so you need to go further and further back to make greater and greater changes...

Sounds like a depressing game actually, possibly too much so.

Doesn't have to be "depressing" - could be hopeful and optimistic too.

 Figure out by backtracking how humanity survived to that point in the year 3208 A.D. that there is still things like schools and universities teaching history.

 Now view the time we live in "NOW" as they might or would.

As for the time traveling - what if instead of trying to stop a war from starting the time travellers instead got the space program and exploration back on track. This results in humanity seeing itself as one race instead of many (its happens gradually - but STILL happens) tensions still happen bbut not to full scale devastating war levels.

Also, they wound up with colonies on the moon , Mars, Moons of Jupiter, Saturn's moons,  L-5 type colonies and in the asteroid belt.  Having these places where cooperation was obviously the key to survival helped toi change the outlook of thousands upon thousands. The net trend had a positive ripple effect.  Bursts of violence still happened - but mankind  managed to survive into the 33rd century.


- Ed C.

Some things I think are inevitable:

• Democratization of the workplace
• One world government
• Democratization of China
• Legal recognition of gay marriage
• Secularization of Islam after sustained conflict

Quote from: Koltar;222955Doesn't have to be "depressing" - could be hopeful and optimistic too.

That's why we bounce ideas off each other, I didn't see how, you did.  Win.

Quote from: Koltar;222955As for the time traveling - what if instead of trying to stop a war from starting the time travellers instead got the space program and exploration back on track. This results in humanity seeing itself as one race instead of many (its happens gradually - but STILL happens) tensions still happen bbut not to full scale devastating war levels.

Why would it result in that?  I don't see the connection, unless perhaps we encountered aliens.

Quote from: Koltar;222955Also, they wound up with colonies on the moon , Mars, Moons of Jupiter, Saturn's moons,  L-5 type colonies and in the asteroid belt.  Having these places where cooperation was obviously the key to survival helped toi change the outlook of thousands upon thousands. The net trend had a positive ripple effect.  Bursts of violence still happened - but mankind  managed to survive into the 33rd century.


- Ed C.

That to me is a successful end to the campaign, an outcome, not the campaign itself which surely is about trying to achieve that end.

Quote from: Jackalope;222956Some things I think are inevitable:

• One world government
• Democratization of China

I'll give you the others, but why those two?  The first seems positively unlikely to me, the second far from inevitable.

Quote from: Balbinus;222971That to me is a successful end to the campaign, an outcome, not the campaign itself which surely is about trying to achieve that end.

Wel, maybe not an "end" to a campaign - but definitely possible backstory for the start of one.

Quote from: Koltar;222975Wel, maybe not an "end" to a campaign - but definitely possible backstory for the start of one.

If you start from a bad outcome, and are working for a good then what the PCs do really matters.

If you start from a good outcome, then arguably the best thing time travelling PCs can do is not to time travel so as to avoid messing it up.

The first starting place requires action, the second inaction.  That would be my concern.

Plus there's something heroic about trying to wipe out your own timeline for a better one, trying to ensure the status quo continues is somehow a bit less inspiring.

Quote from: Jackalope;222956Some things I think are inevitable:

• Democratization of the workplace

How in the heck would this work? It sounds...interesting, for someone who isn't a boss, but it's the first time I've heard of it.

Quote from: KoltarTake this general idea - that some events and trends are due to happene no m,atter WHO the President or leader of country or part of the world is. The historical figure or personality might speed up or slow down some trends and cultural things...or lessen OR increase their impact. BUT, these things are DUE to happen anyway.

Now, picture a history class or a history book that human kids are reading sometime  in the Future.  Say, maybe about 11 to 12 centuries from now. (Sorry, WalkerP,  humans STILL around - but we might have moved off the earth and tidied it upa smidgeon)

Let's see... one member of the "class" is literate, and that is the teacher, reading aloud from a book that reads more like scripture than history. He reads aloud the story of the apocalypse, back in the days when mankind had godlike powers.

Back in the day, transhuman fundies started something they couldn't stop, and the rest of humanity was left with the grim task of destroying the earth to prevent the continual spread of the self replicating nanobots. The safest way was to force the sun to go red dwarf prematurely and consume the earth. Humanity moved further out in the inevitably disrupted solar system and got to terraforming. The small fragment of humanity that survived fell apart thanks to war.

QuoteWas the "West"  as in the United Strates and western Europe due for a conflict with either the Arab world or the part of the globe that had extreme Moslem believers??  It just wound up happening in noticeable form between 1979 to 2003

The conflict may have had its start in the cold war. America and the Soviets fighting for influence over the middle east did some stupid shit... like assuming the middle east had any interest in being influenced. This allowed todays reactionaries and fundamentalists to come to power.

It seems silly to say that conflicts between any two groups of humans are "inevitable" as if the humans involved have no responsibility. We started this shit. The only thing debatable is whether we've passed the point where the damage is irreparable, in which case a larger conflict seems likely.

QuoteGay marriages:
 Was the inevitable marriages and legal recognition of Gay Marriage also a shift in cultural trends that was due to jhappen in the eary 21st century? or was it jump-started by other events and would have happened or evolved as a norm more naturally later on.

Legal recognition of gay marriage seems likely. It fits with where we're headed. But again, this is one of those things that you've got to attribute to people. No cultural advancement would happen on its own.

QuoteSpace exploration and travel:
Was the slowdown in this activity in the '70s to early 21st century a natural trend or were peope slowing it down for some reason?
(This from the poit of view that the future author commentator lives in a world where many worlds within our own solar system have been colonized to some degree...or even more wondrous things have happened.)

Again, human decisions. But I'd attribute it to the end of the Cold War and lots of nasty budget problems with the current government. It lost its military potential and doesn't promise a return on the investment. In the short term, it looks a lot like throwing money down a hole.

Quote from: Balbinus;222973I'll give you the others, but why those two?  The first seems positively unlikely to me, the second far from inevitable.

One world government will happen inevitably as the world's economy continues to merge, and as we come to rely more and more on joint military ventures to deal with hot spots.  You can see the beginnings of it in the formation of the European Union, and in trade deals like NAFTA and GATT that weaken traditional concepts of national sovereignty.

We already have the United Nations, it's really just a matter of needing to give the UN greater and greater powers to deal with ever growing crises.  The more we come to rely on the UN, the more power we have to give it, and eventually it will become a government in its own right.  I suspect we'll be voting for UN delegates within the next 50 years.  This process could be GREATLY accelerated if Bill Clinton becomes the next head of the UN, as some people speculate (but I'm not putting money on it yet), as an American lead UN is much more likely to seize up power, since American fear of loss of sovereignty drives much of the subversion of the UN.

China will inevitably democratize for one simple reason:  As China's economy expands, they will develop a growing middle class, an educated class.  It will become harder and harder to keep this educated class from learning about the outside world, which will only help to fuel already active democratic movements within the country.  This will process will be further affected by international attention on China, which has been growing for some time -- just witness the worldwide protests over Tibet.  China has managed to maintain it's authoritarian culture only by clinging to xenophobia, but as modern pressures force China to participate on the global stage, they simply won't be able to fend off Western influences.

Chinese people aren't any different than anyone else.  Give them the smallest taste of democracy, and they will eventually want the whole thing.

China already knows this.  They've already begun to introduce democratic reforms.  They know the dike is ruptured already, and that they can only stick fingers in it so long, but god they are trying to keep it from bursting, aren't they?

I'm increasingly suspecting that historians 1000+ years from now will look back at us in a somewhat similar way to how historians today look back at the Mayans.

RPGPundit