#counterfactuals

[patrickbrianmooney]

I think about all the things we could have done, all the miracles we could have achieved, if we were all just a little bit better than it turns out we are.

James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Falls, ch. 35

[yuriartillery]

with percussion caps becoming common in the mid 19th century, artillery and field guns swapped out fuses and lighters in favour of cords that struck a cap when pulled. the classic and distinct movement of pulling on the cord to fire an artillery piece is actually why the sword was first invented in 1856—jealous infantry and cavalry wanted a status symbol that when swung replicated the motion of pulling on a firing cord.

bayonets were introduced in 1902 for similar reasons, as thrusting your rifle towards an enemy was meant to mimic loading the breech-loading French modèle 1897. Fortunately, there exists little evidence to support that such weapons have ever served any purpose other than to placate the wounded pride of the infantry corps

While this anecdote may seem unbelievable to the layperson, after doing some digging Lottie was actually able to find sources for all of the claims Vivi has made above (here, here, and here) with that last source being a very enlightening piece about the function of ceremonial swords in heavily militarized societies after the industrial revolution.

[worstjourney]

Rescuing the Polar Party

My dear Anon, I am sorry to have to disappoint you here, but your ask touches on a bigger question in polar fandom and I’m going to turn it around to say something completely different.

Since Day One, the ‘ifs’ of this story have attracted speculation, and people who are interested in it get drawn to counterfactuals like iron filings to a magnet.  I totally get it!  It’s fascinating!  It’s fraught with possibilities!  We all want to rescue the Polar Party!  But there are buckets and buckets of counterfactuals out there; there is no end of speculation on what would have been different if, who might have been saved if, what wouldn’t have gone wrong if – so if that’s the game you want to play, by all means, go out and explore.

For my own part, one of my first reactions upon hearing the radio play was feeling I had been previously cheated out of a great story.  All I had known of the story prior to that was exactly this forensic approach to the final days of the Polar Party – but look, there was SO MUCH ELSE, and it was SO GOOD, and it was never talked about!  It’s as if all anyone remembered of Hamlet was the duel at the end, and only discussed it in terms of strategy.  Focusing on the end of the story, and reducing it to mechanistic movements of pieces on a chessboard, is an interesting academic pursuit, but it ignores what are, for me, the much more important things about it: who these people were, as people, and how they played out what actually did happen.  All the talk of ‘ifs’ misses the big ‘if’ their story asks us to consider: If you were facing your doom, how would you behave?  The Polar Party give us an example of comradeship and fortitude that we really need, especially since ‘character’ has gone out of fashion, and that is what I want to talk about.

P.S. Morbid questions always welcome – it is a story about horrible frozen death, after all! – I just needed to make a point here.

[geekofchaos]

Alternate History is kind of having a moment - not a big one, but a moment nonetheless. We had Man in the High Castle for a while, now there’s the Plot Against America, For All Mankind, and now Hollywood. Noughts and Crosses too.

First off, I’m glad to see that For All Mankind and Hollywood are taking alt-history in a direction that’s very popular in the alt-history communities but not so much in the mainstream - mainly the idea that alternate history doesn’t necessarily have to be a worse nazi-infested timeline. For the love of god, enough Nazi ruled worlds in alternate history. I’m done, I’m tired, please. I’m not even saying your alt-world can’t be worse than ours, but can you at least pick something up other than the Nazis?

But more specifically, For All Mankind and Hollywood, in two different ways are picking up the torch and saying “here’s what we could have been and what we still can if we just try.” For my money, I personally prefer For All Mankind as Hollywood got a little too schamltzy too fast and really stretched my suspension of disbelief - but I suppose if you’re going to be wish fulfilment the way Hollywood was, then be wish fulfilment. I still very much enjoyed it to be clear.

The Plot Against America, of course, has the opposite message “this is what we could have been and what we still could be if we’re not careful.” And absolutely, I’m not saying that all alternate history timelines have to be noticably better now but we could cool it on Nazi-ruled Americas for a while.

Noughts and Crosses to my eyes is also interesting in that it really appeals to the worldbuilder in me (maybe less so there just being one giant supercontinent called Aprica but oh well) with its designs and it’s little things that you don’t even notice in the real world. It, of course, has a hugely important message about racism but unlike the other pieces of current alternate history, it doesn’t present the timeline as being necessarily worse or better than the one we live in. If you’re white, of course, your life will be noticably worse. If you’re black, noticably better. If you’re Asian - actually, I don’t know what we’re up to in the world of Noughts and Crosses. Feel free to tell me - I haven’t watched the entire show. But at the end of the day, it just is. It’s another path we could have taken.

I’d love to see some medieval alt-historical sometime soon - like William the Conqueror failing to invade England, Richard III defeating Henry Tudor, maybe John the Posthumous surviving his infancy or Francis and Mary having a child that could change the world...but these would be much more expensive and would probably fall under the “not necessarily better or worse - they just are,” timelines. But we could have some really fun stuff. It might not be immediately relevant in the way more recent alt-historicals are but any decent writer can still make it say something on our current world.

Or if we really want to go out there...pick up some of the more out there alt-history novels and adapt them. World War would probably be too out there and since I just complained about Nazis (but ugh, lizards from space! Invading in World War 2!) and I’m not sure it’d be right for this political climate. But 1632, Time Spike, The Alexander Inheritance, or Island in a Sea of Time. None of these are perfect but they’re just ripe for an adaptation that could knock the kinks out of them.

Okay, I’m done. But I’m just hoping that maybe alt-history will be the next big thing.

[thesociologicalcinema]

Counterfactuals - A counterfactual is a statement that follows this form: "If Joseph Swan had not invented the modern incandescent light bulb, then someone else would have invented it anyway." People use counterfactuals every day; however, its analysis is not so clear. Swan, after all, did invent the modern incandescent light bulb, so how can the statement be true, if it is impossible to examine its correspondence to reality? Similar statements have the form, “If you don’t eat your meat, then you can’t have any pudding.” This is another clear if-then statement, which is not verifiable (assuming the addressee did eat his/her meat). Two proposed analyses have resulted from this question. First, some philosophers assert that background information is assumed when stating and interpreting counterfactual conditionals. In the case of the Swan statement, certain trends in the history of technology, the utility of artificial light, and the discovery of electricity may all provide evidence for a logically sound argument. However, other philosophers assert that a modal “possible world” theory offers a more accurate description of counterfactual conditionals. According to this analysis, in the Swan example one would consider the closest possible world to the real world in which Swan did not create the modern incandescent light bulb. When a counterfactual is used as an argument to justify an illegal act, it is known as the dirty hands argument. For example, “if I didn’t sell him drugs then someone else would have, and those drugs might not have been cut or more harmful.”

[eka-mark]

Whatever the proper analysis of the contrafactual conditional may be, we may be sure in advance that it cannot be truth-functional; for, obviously ordinary usage demands that some contrafactual conditionals with false antecedents and false consequents be true and that other contrafactual conditionals with false antecedents and false consequents be false. Any adequate analysis of the contrafactual conditional must go beyond mere truth values and consider causal connections, or kindred relationships, between matters spoken of in the antecedent of the conditional and matters spoken of in the consequent.

W.V.O. Quine, Methods of Logic

[aswithasunbeam]

I saw a Ham post somewhere on here a while back, and it had me thinking, how differently would his family's lives had gone if he hadn't died essentially young (sure he was like, early 40s? Hard 1757 believer here) with his children and Eliza who now wouldn't have spent 50 years dedicating to him, also if Philip had lived, do you think he'd be hard on himself to have a important image to essentially "make his parents proud" in sense of worrying himself to death about public view of himself?

I’m with you on the 1757 date, which makes him 47 years old in 1804, so right about middle aged. So much of Hamilton’s legacy is tied to his tragic ending, that had he gone on to live a quiet life with Eliza and his children, I do wonder whether he’d be as well remembered today. Eliza would have had a much happier, contented life, of course, though I’m sure she still would have been a fairly active member of the New York Orphan Asylum (her connection with the Widow and Orphan society began during Hamilton’s lifetime). However, with Hamilton’s poor and ever declining health, I also wonder if he really would have lived that much longer had he not been killed in the duel. In that case, I think Eliza and the children would have done much of the same work to try to preserve his legacy.

As for Philip, I absolutely think he was under tremendous pressure to live up to his father’s expectations. Hamilton described Philip to Benjamin Rush in his letter dated 29 March 1802 as the “highest and eldest hope of my family”. Philip seemed to be bearing up to that pressure well–Robert Troup described Philip to Rufus King on 5 December 1804: “Young Hamilton was very promising in genius and acquirements, and Hamilton formed high expectations of his future greatness!”. Sadly, worrying himself to death over his public reputation is exactly what Philip did–as I’ve pointed out before, the duel was about Philip’s honor, not Alexander’s. Had Philip lived, I wonder if he may have ended up resembling LMM’s version of Aaron Burr–ambitious, eager to accomplish something great to live up to a family legacy, yet so worried about making a misstep that opportunities began to pass him by.

[descartes-before-the-horse]

Me reading David K. Lewis’ On the Plurality of Worlds