stagnant 20th century

Straha

Banned
Imagine a 20th century that by the mid-80s is on a technological level equal
to OTL late 30s - early 40s. Airplane is invented in the early thirties,
along with the internal combustion engine, radio, and some other late
19th-early 20th centrury inventions.
What about it? How could that come to be? How would that change the way we
live today?
As I see it, you would require multiple factors, among which are the absence
of major conflicts in the early 20th century (i.e. No World War I, or have
it happen much later), and the lack of extensive research and devolpment
carried on by some western countries, like Germany, the UK, France and the
USA. In short, a period of technological semi-stagnation ranging from the
middle part of the 19th century to the early 20th century. This way we would
find early 40s kind of technology by the sixties and seventies. Any
thoughts?
 
two possibles

1)- the GW is more Sciencetifly terrible. there is a massive world wide disgust with science. MIT classes fall by 90%, research fund dry up, after all there are more important social needs. Some technology is invented, but it is by loners, & crackpots. It also takes longer to generate interest once invented.

2)- That British scientest in 1890 [Lord Kelvin?? James Maxell??] Who said that "everything in science has already been discovered, all that is left, is filling in the peices". WI he had been taken seriously [or been rite (ASBs)], with the results of #1
 
A major stumbling block to stagnation is capitalism (which is basicly orderly chaos, if you think about it, not something easily stagnated). R&D by that point had been proven to be a very good investment. You're gonna have to find some way to make it not a good investment.
 
How about combining the great flu epidemic with the Dust Bowl?

If flu was a bit stonger and more recurrent then we have a situation in which the developed world takes a huge population hit, and if this happens at a time when crops are sitting in the field, then we have starvation.

As a result, the survivors (say 75% of the population) determines never to get very far from the land. Throughout America and Europe small towns as agriculatural production areas exist, but the Great population centers stand largely empty.
 
What about more destructive wars during the 19th century? If you could cause enough widespread damage before the industrial revolution that should slow things down.
 
This mirrors some of the other posters, but I like the idea of a significantly more destructive WW1 combined with a more thorough anti-technology/ant-science (probably religiously fundamentalist or "back-to-nature" fascist) reaction throughout Europe and America, which were still the principal centers of scientific and technological innovation in the world. It would be hard to undo the advances which had occurred up to about 1920, but perhaps a series of international conferences are held to artificially "fix" the capabilities of aircraft, motor vehicles, warships, communication technology, etc, as well as define the acceptable legal limits of basic scientific research (no further evolutionary theory, advanced genetics, astronomy/astrophysics, relativistic physics, etc). In some of the more backward nations, there would be mass pogroms against scientific and technological institutions, and people associated with science and technology, while in the more advanced states, universities and instututions would adopt a very closed system and remove any scholars who vary too far from the anti-scientific popular dogma.

Such an environment could probably not last for too long because, as has been suggested, you can't squelch innvovation forever. Eventually, either a "rogue" european/american regime would restart these programs, or a nation like Japan or China might rise up from nowhere and threaten the stagnant west. Heck, maybe even a league of exiled "mad scientists" from their fortress of solitude in middle of darkest Africa!

The opportunities for cool wars with pirate zeppelins are just too many for my little heart to take. "Up Ship, me hearties!"
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Less big wars

It is often said that wars breed technological advances. So, a major POD for this could be something like no American Revolution. Keep all the wars small, and not large, remove the scientific-philosophical impetus of both the American and French revolutions, let alone Napoleon, and have military advances occur only as needed in this world - eg by the later nineteenth century you may still have steam-powered wooden ships of the line. They may be much more advanced in some ways than OTL ships of the 1830s, but have taken that section of naval development to the ultimate extent rather than superseded it. The same with steam locomotion - you can see with developments post-WW2 that there was a long way that steam locomotives could have continued to develop, but OTL they were superseded by diesel and electric ones. So, what if by 1980s what you have in the mainstream is the greatest advance of steam locomotives ? You take a technology and push it as far as it will go while it is still viable, as opposed to supersede it with something else. Hence, the airships of the 1980s would not be the equivalent of the OTL 1930s airships, but would be the development of the airship to the greatest extent possible. Combined with the continued development of other technologies to the greatest extent possible, you avoid the unwanted idea of nuclear-powered airships with laser cannon, because nuclear power was never invented (there's nothing wrong with coal-powered stations so they are just developed more and more advanced), and no one ever developed lasers for similar reasons.

Grey Wolf
 
How about religious revivalism in West that punishes imagination and innovation as being contrary to the bible? (Boy would we be in trouble!)
 
Grey Wolf said:
It is often said that wars breed technological advances. So, a major POD for this could be something like no American Revolution. Keep all the wars small, and not large, remove the scientific-philosophical impetus of both the American and French revolutions, let alone Napoleon, and have military advances occur only as needed in this world - eg by the later nineteenth century you may still have steam-powered wooden ships of the line. They may be much more advanced in some ways than OTL ships of the 1830s, but have taken that section of naval development to the ultimate extent rather than superseded it. The same with steam locomotion - you can see with developments post-WW2 that there was a long way that steam locomotives could have continued to develop, but OTL they were superseded by diesel and electric ones. So, what if by 1980s what you have in the mainstream is the greatest advance of steam locomotives ? You take a technology and push it as far as it will go while it is still viable, as opposed to supersede it with something else. Hence, the airships of the 1980s would not be the equivalent of the OTL 1930s airships, but would be the development of the airship to the greatest extent possible. Combined with the continued development of other technologies to the greatest extent possible, you avoid the unwanted idea of nuclear-powered airships with laser cannon, because nuclear power was never invented (there's nothing wrong with coal-powered stations so they are just developed more and more advanced), and no one ever developed lasers for similar reasons.

Grey Wolf


Sounds good too, Mr. Wolf. We are still aircruising to the colonies on the maiden flight of the RMAS Cornwallis next Tuesday, right? Imagine, flying to New York in 3 days on a magnificent airship nearly half mile long! I hear the Prince of Wales is also on this flight. Anyway, lets plan on a beer at The Flying Bear in Portsmouth before boarding. Long live the British Empire, may the sun never set on the Red Ensign!
 
The Race?

You know, Grey Wolf, your scenario also sounds a little like the systematic and cautious development of technology in among HT's Race.
 

ninebucks

Banned
How about a situation where the social consensus is that a Fukiyaman 'end of history' has occured. I'm thinking a European parallel of what happened in China, where the ruling élite believes that they have achieved everything worth achieving.

The situation where this occurs could be any situation where someone comes to achieve and maintain a total European empire, for the sake of argument, lets say Napoleon. Say he somehow manages to defeat Britain, and then goes on to march eastward, untill eventually a Napoleonic Empire is established with its borders at the Urals and the Bosphorous.

From there, a limited-franchise elected dictatorship is established, starting with a neoclassical republican model, followed by a philosophy of secular ludditism, and then finally a pseudo-Maoist/Khmer Rougist peasant's socialism. Europe's external enemies are negligible, and its internal enemies are easily suppressed via methods as old as time itself (informants, infiltration, propaganda, etc.)

North America (probably a union of the USA and the bits of the British Empire that were lost during the Napoleonic Wars), would follow a path of utopian isolationism. Innovation would not be discouraged, but it would be slow as competition would be lacking.

Modernism would be an alien invasion to Europe from America, and may eventually become the cause of tensions...

(first post, woo!)
 
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