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Thread: Alternative World - no Newton

  1. 2014-01-26, 02:57 PM (ISO 8601) - Top - End - #12
    AgentofHellfire
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    Default Re: Alternative World - no Newton

    Quote Originally Posted by tensai_oni View Post
    Nothing changes.

    A brilliant mind does not cause great breakthroughs out of nothing. Science doesn't work like that. Humanity doesn't work like that. Scientists take past knowledge into consideration and work with it as a base - a base that either supports their ideas, or is supposed to be overthrown. If one person does not come to a conclusion, then another one eventually does. The difference between a genius and someone less brilliant is simply that the former does it faster.
    "Doesn't cause breakthroughs out of nothing"=/="isn't a relevant component". The geniuses of the world can all have differing opinions even if they're all equally intelligent, and slight errors can matter--and on top of even that, the less intelligent people aren't even necessarily going to be interested enough to take the time to solve all that. If you remove all the people who'll have the proper opinions, and replace them with less brilliant ones, then the improper opinions would just be listened to because no one would contest them.

    It's like with historical tyrants. Killing one wouldn't change anything - they are a product of their own society, even if one of them was gone or removed from power the society would find a different one soon enough.
    If someone like Stalin came to power in post-WWI Germany, it would not have been the same as when Hitler controlled it. Stalin wouldn't have carried on the war in Russia the way Hitler did--and there were lots of different people in power in Russia in real life as well, although not in the highest position--all with different attitudes. So someone like Stalin (although probably a better speechmaker) coming to power there wouldn't be impossible. For one example of why that's not true.

    (As for why I say that someone like Stalin wouldn't...well...Stalin couldn't imagine that Hitler would.
    Last edited by AgentofHellfire; 2014-01-26 at 05:47 PM.
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