Remove ads

What's the most Cringeworthy Alternate History you've ever read?

Canopus108 said:
Gosh, I think the problem is that the only reason to do a timeline which emphasises the absence of the one child policy is if you're going to overstate the effects - e.g. some sort of "China stays Maoist/impoverished China" story.

It's absence is a background detail in a lot of "Kuomintang won" timelines for example, that give a slightly higher population number, but that's just a general absence and probably not what you're looking for.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The thing is that there are many factors - rather, "One Family - One Child" only worsened it, but its absence would not have changed the dynamics completely. Much more is needed here to at least soften the demographic crisis.

As for China, where (by some miracle) the Kuomintang rules, it should be borne in mind that this is a general trend in the Sinosphere - since the late sixties, Malthusian ideas have been favored in all states of the region (both "red" and "blue", and in Europe and the USA they were still relevant). Everyone was convinced that in order to achieve economic prosperity, it was necessary to limit the birth rate.
 
Comrade Future said:
The thing is that there are many factors - rather, "One Family - One Child" only worsened it, but its absence would not have changed the dynamics completely. Much more is needed here to at least soften the demographic crisis.

As for China, where (by some miracle) the Kuomintang rules, it should be borne in mind that this is a general trend in the Sinosphere - since the late sixties, Malthusian ideas have been favored in all states of the region (both "red" and "blue", and in Europe and the USA they were still relevant). Everyone was convinced that in order to achieve economic prosperity, it was necessary to limit the birth rate.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not sold that KMT family planning would have ever gotten to the point of the One Child Policy, even with all of the real life exceptions. OTL KMT achieved declining birth rates with contraceptives, and without Mao-era subsidies to young families I can't see why more extreme measures would ever be considered on the mainland.

Low birth rates in China are driven primarily by the costs of raising a child, the lack of subsidies, and Household Registration restrictions. Without the one child policy, there would be a lot of happier individuals but no significant aggregate difference. A world where the KMT won could have exactly the same issues, or be completely different, depending on the nature of the victory - let alone a world where the Qing survived or the Beiyang dominated...

For example, did the KMT "win" but as a nation of warlords in a blue sky trenchcoat? Or did they win because Yuan Shikai died in Korea in 1894 and Xinhai went better for the KMT? Those are two very different scenarios for any kind of demographic matter
 
Last edited:
Canopus108 said:
Low birth rates in China are driven primarily by the costs of raising a child, the lack of subsidies, and Household Registration restrictions.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
To clarify - in the village the "One Child" policy was not actually in effect, due to the difficulties of registration and the needs of the rural community. But the birth rate was still low, which confirms your thesis.
 
Comrade Future said:
To clarify - in the village the "One Child" policy was not actually in effect, due to the difficulties of registration and the needs of the rural community. But the birth rate was still low, which confirms your thesis.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm afraid One Child Policy was in effect in villages, as seen is cases such as the forced abortion of Feng Jianmei in the very rural Zhenping County. There are also persistent rumours of, say, villages where officials overreached and forcibly aborted all pregnancies in a year for even first-time parents and while I wouldn't put stock in the specifics it's clear that people understood the one child policy to impact villages. That said there were many exceptions for minorities, daughters, and rural areas in general that did lead to most smaller villages facing fewer restrictions, and on top of that in small towns the person meant to enforce the ban was probably related to you somehow, and willing to drop the matter in exchange for favours or casual bribery. So for a lot of rural villages the policy passed them by as parents cheerfully had 6 or 7 kids and overreach was relatively rare.

There were also a lot of people who just ignored the law. The strictest enforcement was typically for urban members of the CPC - I've met nouveau riche who swallowed the fine to have 2 kids (rarely more, because having children is unpopular even without the policy), but not a lot of second children with parents in government. The only unregistered second children I know of personally with parents in the CPC were born when their parents circumvented the rules by quitting their jobs, moved to America to have boy #2, and then came back to China to teach at an university years later after the government stopped caring. The parents were Christian so I understand it was a religious belief that drove them.

This is part of why there are so many unregistered persons who pop up at age 5 or so when their parents are ready to pay the fine and send them to school. While people often talk about China overcounting it's population, there are also areas with significant undercounting due to unregistered births. That said a lot of these children whose parents can't pay the fine have worse outcomes due to restricted access to education and government services, and they would have gotten out of poverty a lot easier if not for the One Child Policy. This is why I tend to see it as a tragedy for individual families, but not the cause of declining birth rates.
 
Last edited:
Comrade Future said:
Everyone was convinced that in order to achieve economic prosperity, it was necessary to limit the birth rate.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Turns out the birth rate plummets once economic prosperity is reached no matter if you want it to or not. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan have even worse birth rates without any limiting policy.
 
Axslashel said:
Turns out the birth rate plummets once economic prosperity is reached no matter if you want it to or not. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan have even worse birth rates without any limiting policy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
However, in France and Sweden, despite the fact that they also have problems, the birth rate is half as high. While Italy is approximately on the same level as Japan (and now the birth rate is higher in the North, not in the South). That is, yes - women's employment and developed medicine kill the need for three or four births. But at the same time, all the "Asian Tigers" tend to make their employees work overtime, and have almost no social security. I do not think that the world is destined for such a low rate.
 
I think another interesting similar scenario is one where Russia stays a Tsarist regime, or becomes an extremely weak Democracy, due to a different WW1, and without the Soviets stays rural longer and the demographic transition is pushed way back.

400 million East Slavs.

Turkic Central Asia Slavicized.
 
Dab master said:
I think another interesting similar scenario is one where Russia stays a Tsarist regime, or becomes an extremely weak Democracy, due to a different WW1, and without the Soviets stays rural longer and the demographic transition is pushed way back.

400 million East Slavs.

Turkic Central Asia Slavicized.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Russia was already undergoing rapid industrialization when WW1 started though. Part of the reason the Germans were so Gung-Ho about it was because they thought within a couple of years Russia would be able to beat them industrially. If anything WW1, the revolution and everything that happened in the 20s and early 30s backslid their industry.
 
Admiral Halsey said:
If anything WW1, the revolution and everything that happened in the 20s and early 30s backslid their industry.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I agree with your overall point but I wouldn't describe the revolution as the cause for the deterioration of industry. The Civil War was the real problem, if the regime had been able to be removed peacefully there wouldn't have been any kind of reduction.
 
Last edited:
Admiral Halsey said:
Russia was already undergoing rapid industrialization when WW1 started though. Part of the reason the Germans were so Gung-Ho about it was because they thought within a couple of years Russia would be able to beat them industrially. If anything WW1, the revolution and everything that happened in the 20s and early 30s backslid their industry.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
My vague notion was the Entente win WW1 in 1916 and afterwards France stops investing in Russia because of their debts.
 
This is definitely an older topic, but a guy on deviantart has made a really good point. In Anglo American Nazi War, the allies dropped anthrax on several German cities, which were apparently polite enough to stay put and not spread to the rest of continental Europe.
 
I think the reason why, in original AANW, where Berlin and Nuremberg got anthraxed and then nuked is because of the latter's radioactive particles prevented the spread of anthrax spores into the rest of Europe...something that SirYeeHaw conveniently forgets about it.
 
I seem to vaguely recall the biggest issue various countries had with trying to deliver Anthrax via bombs or shells was the explosions generally ended up destroying the anthrax payload so I can't imagine strategic level arial bombing using it would be very successful.
 
Are we deep enough into the 21st century for Victoria to count as cringe alternate history yet; beyond just the book thinking Prussia is still a thing?

(the 2020s have been sufficiently farcical that I'm not 100% ruling out Pickelhaubes somehow coming back into fashion in Kaliningrad at some point, but still)
 
Fourthspartan56 said:
I agree with your overall point but I wouldn't describe the revolution as the cause for the deterioration of industry. The Civil War was the real problem, if the regime had been able to be removed peacefully there wouldn't have been any kind of reduction.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean TBF the October Revolution lead to the civil war and arguably are one and the same in the end. However I do wanna point out I didn't say the revolution was THE cause of industrial deterioration but one of them. Also I was more thinking of the February Revolution than October since they still kept fighting a war they couldn't win and set up the October one.

Dab master said:
My vague notion was the Entente win WW1 in 1916 and afterwards France stops investing in Russia because of their debts.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean IIRC the debt issues of France and Britain didn't actually get bad until 1917 but by than the US got involved and that's when they really went whole hog. Plus a 1916 win means Russia had to be doing significantly better than OTL so while the growth would be reduced there's other things that would offset that in this scenario.
 
Last edited:
If Nicky got killed during the 1905 revolution, would Michael as regent not toss the duma just enough meat to keep that godawful family in power and said regency likely be sufficiently unstable to necessitate leaving Serbia twisting in the wind come the July crisis?
 
Possible. Russian decision to enter the war was made on Nicholas's whim to not appear as weak. Not sure how true the story is, but some people have said that he made decision to mobilize solely because someone told him that "this must be difficult for you" and he took that as an insult, to imply that he was too weak to act.

It's one of those things where history of the world turn, where one persons whim dictates course of history.
 
king of hybrids said:
If Nicky got killed during the 1905 revolution, would Michael as regent not toss the duma just enough meat to keep that godawful family in power and said regency likely be sufficiently unstable to necessitate leaving Serbia twisting in the wind come the July crisis?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The instability would likely come I supect from Alexei's clear health issues given there were other branches of the family. Micheal would likely be a fine nonauthoritarian placeholder regent.

A sickly czar would likely encourage ambitions and if Micheal married a commoner like he did historically any children would be out of the line of succession if the current Czar died.
 
I mean would Michael even be willing to be regent? The man absolutely did not want to be Tzar or in any sort of power at all. He stated that Alexei's birth was one of the happiest days of his life as it meant he was no longer next in line if Nicky died. Part of the reason for the marriage to Natalia was to try and get removed from the line of succession. The only upside is I would imagine he'd be so hands off the Duma might actually be able to do some stuff and start the process of making the Tsar a constitutional monarch.
 
There's a difference between not liking your brother and letting your dipshit cousins or strangers have power over your (potential orphaned) nieces and nephew.

Alexei's health issues would probably be an issue, but odds are he could probably last (even without Rasputin) until his OTL death date, if not a bit longer; so Michael has official cover to do alot (and as I recall, at least some of the Grand Dukes wanted to cut their losses on the 1905 revolution and introduced the minimum required reforms before Nicholas did, so they'd probably go along with them so long as they get to be among the appointed members of the state council afterwards)

As far as the succession goes, while the Vladimirovichs are an issue there's also the issue of the other branches who would look to get to power via Olga and her sisters if Michael were to follow Nicholas in flirting with changing the Pauline rules re Olga's succeeding Alexei (George wasn't born until 1910 so Michael doesn't have that particular conflict of interest yet)

I don't want to glaze any member of the Romanov family overly much, since Dab Master's scenario implies that the Tsarist regime is going to turbo double down on their russification policies on all the Empire's minorities. Which is, you know, bad; and the basis for certain ongoing wars (speaking of which; the Hapsburgs are going to be a thorn on that front simply because they have territories where Polish and Ukrainian isn't banned). And considering virulent anti-semitism was a defining trait of the family, god knows how many pogroms would be launched if the Romanovs don't have a war and last longer.

One additional knock on effect is if the spectacle of 1905 nearly managing to topple the turbo-reactionary Romanovs and requiring genuine reforms (accounting for the fact that the 1905 reforms left alot of power with the Tzar and was quite feeble compared to say Westminster) to hold the throne might encourage other wobbling dynasties like the Qing, Braganzas and Spainish Bourbons to try cut their losses on the "reforms, or else" front before they lose their thrones. they probably lose said thrones for the same reason as OTL, but cutting losses earlier may make them last until the cataclysm of World War.

edit:
Speaking of alternate arrangements to the pre-WWI regimes; considering his incompetence and impulsiveness, how long was Wilhelm II going to last without WWI before the general staff Shogun'd him out of any power?
 
Last edited:
Well... credit for creativity

Jefferson crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1806

In 1806 Kaiser Francis dissolved the Holy Roman Empire and declared himself the Emperor of Austria. The Pope at this time was fed up with Napoleon and wanted a way out of this mess. With the point of divergence being the US declaring war on France in 1798, paint a scenario where the Pope...
www.alternatehistory.com
 
Yeah, credit for creativity though given how huge the founding generation was into the roman republic and idealized Cato does that mean Jefferson would get the Ceasar treatment and get assassinated at a meeting of the Senate?

If so, wonder who would the American Brutus?
 
Last edited:
I'm putting this in cringe because it flitted into my head just now and I morbidly giggled at what a monstrous fuck-up it would be:
FDR: Joe, It's Frank. How's about we apply this idea my Treasury guy just sent me to the entire European continent between the Limeys and you and put an end to their bullshit once and for all?
Stalin: *literally dies of disbelieving laughter*
 
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top