What If?

[undrneath1]

Just imagine how different the world would be if certain events in history had a different outcome...Hitler conquers Russia, Reagan died of the assassination attempt in 1981, etc

What event in the past do you think could have had the most effect on the world we live in now if the result had been the opposite?

All opinions are naturally encouraged

I'll start off by saying how different this country might have been if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated.

Let's hear your views!

[DownUnder007]

How different the world might have been:


If...Jesus and Mohammed had never been born...


If...the atom had never been split...

If...The printing press had never been invented...

If...Britain had defeated the American Colonialists in 1776/7...

If...The computer had never been created...

If...Hitler had invaded Britain in 1940...

If...Gunpowder had never been discovered...

If...Antibiotics had never been discovered...

If...Napoleon had won at Waterloo in 1815...

If...The Old Testament had never been written...


If....

John had never created MDFF...:D

[jim2004291277]

What if the great library of Alexandria hadn't been burned to the ground circa 400 A.D. ? At the time it was the repository of virtually all the literature and learning there was - and many of the scrolls within were the only copies in the world. All that knowledge was lost and had to be re-learned - had this not been the case humanity could conceivably be hundreds of years more advanced now.

[Deep Throat Diva]

What about Honest Abe??

Declaration of Independence - John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman,

The Berlin Wall coming down.


Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna

Too many things to name and discuss.

I think we should all agree on one thing, and discuss it, than move on to the next.

This could be fun.

[undrneath1]

I think we should all agree on one thing, and discuss it, than move on to the next.

I agree...that was my intention till that nasty Australian moderator guy did what he did....:D

what should the first topic be?

Mira you pick one...

[Deep Throat Diva]

My personal would be The Declaration of Independence, but not everyone lives in America.

How about something we can all relate too?

Let me look at 007's list...................OK

I choose: Antibiotics had never been discovered


I hear they're poison.

I believe in them, and use them when needed, but soo many people tell me, taking antibiotics, only weakens my immune system.


Drop Science (NY's expression for....let's discuss)

[thelantern]

DTD, please don't take this the wrong way... but I'm kind of suprised that you're taking an interest in discussing something not flame-related.

:)

As for 'What If's' -- I like the idea, thanks for bringing some serious discussion onto the forums UN1.

[Deep Throat Diva]

What people have to understand is....I can debate/discuss.

I'm not brilliant, but I'm a smart cookie.

I have a great job, and make good money.

I'm corporate from 9-5 daily.

But it's not often I come online to discuss or "think".

I have other venues for that. I rather read, and educate myself, than discuss on a fetish site.

So when I'm here...I prefer to hang loose, let it all hang out, out "flame". It's so much simpler that way.

You think I want to waste valuable time arguing over ARSE vs ASS?

Hell no! I rather just call people names and cut and paste. Less stress that way. lol

Unfortunately, when you do that enough, people just assume that's all your value and worth amounts too.

Wrong.

(now I don't want to flood this thread with my recent comments above. Wanna know more about me.....email me)

[thelantern]

Just a question undrneath1. How detailed do you want the discussion? I mean, something like this I can get pretty damn detailed about. After all, it's what I majored in.

[Deep Throat Diva]

Drop it like it's hot.

Let's drop science.

[DownUnder007]

How about we discuss - whatever topic - from a social impact point of view....?

I'm interested in how people work - imagining how life, or a country, or a society, may have taken a different turn - looked different - is different - and how - if such-and-such had happened/not happened....I'm less interested in the minutiae of technical know-how, if you see what I mean...?

(No offence, lantern, if you have a technical speciality)...

[undrneath1]

How about we discuss - whatever topic - from a social impact point of view....?

that was my point since most people could probably feel comfortable and knowledgeable enough to contribute from the social point of view but as mentioned before...contribute your views from whatever perspective you wish.

[Deep Throat Diva]

I would love to share views on Antibiotics. I’m interesting to know what everyone thinks of them, and if they are effective.

[thelantern]

Originally posted by Deep Throat Diva
I would love to share views on Antibiotics. I’m interesting to know what everyone thinks of them, and if they are effective. Right, let's discuss Antibiotics. You start DTD. :)

[Deep Throat Diva]

i already did.

Antibiotics


I hear they're poison.

I believe in them, and use them when needed, but soo many people tell me, taking antibiotics, only weakens my immune system.


Drop Science (NY's expression for....let's discuss)

[editor]

I wonder what would have become of the United States if John F.Kennedy was not shot and killed.
I would say we would never had the idiot like Bush jr.as President.
I always say in all sincere: The day John F.Kennedy was killed was the day America lost it's innocence.

[Rennoch]

well, for everything i have seen, i would say... my what if, for most world-altering event/person/confluence of probabvilities is...

what if gaius scipio africanus had failed to defeat and conquer the carthaginians back in the early days of the Senatus Populusque Quirites Romanus (senate and citizen peoples of rome, A.K.A "the republic"). seeing as that single man drove the legions to learn to be soldiers instead of warriors (warriors fight. soldiers fight, dig, build, learn, etc etc etc...), helped standardize the early equipment, along with polybius, literally wrote the first roman treatise on military deployment (now lost.), and in the process of crushing the carthaginians, built the seaborne and overseas early Republican colonies and vassal/client states almost single handedly.

remove this one man from history, and so much changes.

without him,

- rome would not have been placed in a position of being forced to govern non-italian territories, and never gained early access to spanish wealth.
- never have organized the non-phalangite (phalanx) structures that would evolve into the polybian legionary system, used to conquer almost half the (*then) known world
- would never have built the grand navy of the republic - the second most powerful tool rome ever had, and literally the only way the romans could FEED their peoples
- caeser wouldn't have had the availability of both late republican and early imperial legionaries - the former a result of marius' work in the reforms, the latter a result of caeser's own frustrations, yet without G. scipio africanus' conquest of carthage, and subsequent NEED to develop different strategies and logistics, the "legion" would have remained largely a phalangite manner of fighting.
- many of the "soldiering" tasks that history dismisses must remind people of the singularly inescapable fact: soldiers dig, and build. warriors don't. no "warrior army" would have gone out into the world and taken the time to connect everything, I.E. bring strategic logistics to ALL corners of the empire.

now... given how MUCH of the entire western world, and the middle eastern and even some bits of the far east were affected by the rise of rome, it's legions, it's roads and aquaducts, culture and language, trades and technologies... where would the world be if there was only a rome of the middle of italia, and it never expanded beyond that?

be a damned different world. and all of the history, can be laid at the feet, not of augustus, or of gaius julius caeser, or even of commodus or trajan, but squarely on the shoulders of scipio africanus, and his insistence that rome must never surrender to her enemies.

he didn't just break an enemy army, like emporers or other generals. he laid the foundations of empire.

[murki]

Wow! This topic pretty much covers everything out there to discuss. Nothing can be fully “off-topic”.

About the “Antibiotics” --- the more specific name of this should be “anti- bacterial” which means --- this medicine kills bacteria. As a matter of fact it also kills any microorganisms (such as bacteria, fungi or viruses). Yes! To many of us it sounds like it kills the invading “bad” and harmful bacteria and thus saves our lives; however there are certain “good” bacteria that we need in our body that also get killed in the same process. Doctors know about it for a long time but relatively only recently started talking about it. The problem is --- antibiotics save more lives, so any harm it may inflict as a side effect is shadowed behind.

The people who take this medicine as a “rare” occasion after a serious medical problem are usually doing the right thing as long as they take it on time and finish the whole course. If someone start taking it but doesn’t finish its full course, they can cause more damage to their body than any good.
It is like you are sending soldiers in your body and they fights for you against entities (bad bacteria) that invade your body and make you sick. Just because a person starts to feel better doesn’t mean the entity is totally destroyed. It only means the entity is retreating. So at this time if someone stops the course they actually stop sending in new troops to handle those retreating entity. As a result the entity learns the weakness of that antibiotic and become clever. So the next time they emerge they come back as stronger enemy and those antibiotic are not affective to fight them anymore. In other words they grow resistance to those antibiotics. Therefore, completing a “full course” is so essential. It is the only way to eradicate those unwanted harmful bacteria once and for all. If a new breed happens to attack the body again they can still be susceptible to those same antibiotics.

However, the relatively new problem the doctors are realizing is that --- these antibiotics also kills some good bacteria that contribute towards breaking down the food we eat and so on. And since the antibiotics cannot distinguish between the “good” and the “bad” they kill them all. Hence, we can have a problem.
This is why we shouldn’t take antibiotic every time we have a cold or sore throat. We should ONLY take it for 1) serious infections and 2) as a preventive measure after operations.
And when we do take this drug and it does help us to get better --- later we need to try and replace those good bacteria that we lost in the process. One good way is to eat stuff like yogurt.

People with chronic diseases who cannot live without antibiotics need to weigh in the good aspects with the bad ones. Their scenario is usually different because it is a life and death situation for them.

Every medicine has some side effects. Some has more than the other.


A little off-topic: We can talk about the history as regards to the topic “what if?” forever and ever. I agree if certain things happened differently in the past the world would have been different today. BUT the bottom line is ---we cannot change the history. So I am thinking about some “what ifs” that can affect our future… for example…

What if?….. The aliens came over and took control of the world.
What if? …. We solve the energy and hunger problems.
What if?…. We have peace in the whole world.
What if?…. We invent teleporting devices. And travel to work, other countries even other planets in a second.
What if? … We break the DNA code to its fullest and eradicate all diseases.
And What if? …MDFF could be taken to a different level from a ‘website” to a “hologram site” where we can actually mentally experience the “experiences’ of some of its members. How about virtual reality??
Wow! That is something to think about!!! Will it really happen some day???

Special Note:
A lot of my observations are quite controversial; everyone is entitled to his own conclusions.

[HerOttoman]

Great topic! I am kind of agreeing with Jim(lotsanmbers)-- the whole "dark ages" thing might not have happened, and wow, what a world we'd live in now...

Which relates to scientific thinking, and therefore science, and one of the greatest discoveries of all time: Antibiotics. We just passed 6.5 billion people on the planet, whereas around the time of Christ, we had 200 million. And the life span of "developed" countries has more than doubled in the past century. Now, humans have been reproducing for a long time; what is different now? Well, science. Real science, as in test this theory, if it works, test it again, if not, throw it out. Germ theory and as a result, antibiotics, have saved more peoples' lives than any other thing in history. So obviously, I think they are a good thing. If you take them everytime you get the sniffles, you will biuld up a resistance to them, and they won't be effective; but the infuenza epidemic in the late 1910's killed 20 million people, and when is the last time anyone died from that? Or polio? Or consumption? We live in a remarkable, wonderful world, despite what the media seems to be telling you.