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RE: What if? - 8/13/2006 8:49:13 PM

HarryVanWinkle

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What if Thomas is stoned?

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RE: What if? - 8/13/2006 11:29:18 PM

meatcleaver

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quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

There'd be a U.S. if there was no British Empire.
We'd simply be speaking Dutch instead of English.

There would have been a Dutch colony around what is now New York but would they have expanded down the east coast? The Dutch were not as open to immigration in their colonies as the British and were more concerned with trade. I understand you are of Irish decent popeye so it is doubtful any of your ancestors would have been allowed to emigrate to the Americas. Also the American democracy was highly influenced by Britain where the founding fathers originated from and who were steeped in the British Parliamentary tradition.

There would have been no Seven Years war in Canada so the chances are the French would have expanded through the central belt of north America and probably conquered the Dutch colony of New York (New Amsterdam). That would have put paid to any democracy in N America. Not one French colony has ended up democratic (Quebec ended up democratic because of the British) and neither has any Dutch colony. N America would not cease to exist of course but it would have been an entirely different animal than it is today.

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RE: What if? - 8/13/2006 11:39:15 PM

popeye1250

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Meat, yes, I suppose that's possable as well.
But if there were no British Empire they probably wouldn't have been comming to America in the first place.
Maybe we'd be speaking Portugese?

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RE: What if? - 8/13/2006 11:48:26 PM

FangsNfeet

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The big What If question.

What if, what if, what if?

What if we never had slavery in the U.S.? Would that have caused less racism stared more people off with equal rights? What if my mom never remarried? What if I never joined collarme. What if I never meet so and so?

Anyhow, there's not point to think What If. It's only a waist of time. What's done is done and we can only move one. So why care about the what if? It's the What Now that's most important.

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RE: What if? - 8/13/2006 11:57:05 PM

meatcleaver

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Level

I enjoy the what ifs too (good idea, Meatcleaver). What if Hitler hadn't attacked the Soviets as soon as he did, and instead concentrated on Britain?

Contrary to popular belief, at the opening of WWII Britain had the most sophisticated air defence system in the world and it saw off the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. That would have still happened. Dennis Healy a well known British politician who was a major at the D-Day landings said, just witnessing the amount of hardware and effort it took to create a beach head in France, it was obvious the Germans were never capable of mounting a successful invasion of Britain. This is generally the thought of many historians. The British had control of the air and the Luftwaffe said it couldn't defend a concentrated German naval landing on the British coast, while the German navy said a landing that would be spread along the coast would not have enough punching power and would be picked off. It is for these reasons a serious invasion was never attempted.

The British navy wasn't in the best condition having been neglected after WWI but it was superior the German navy and though the navy war was very costly, the U-boat threat was the biggest posed by the Germans, the British had cracked the Enigma code and had developed sonar and depth charges and had started to inflict severe damage on the U-boat fleet by the time the US entered the war.

Continental Europe would have been German territory and remained so for sure. Britain and Germany would have uneasily had to co-exist. It would have been debatable as to whether Germany could have prevented insurections. Germany had gambled on a quick war and was ill equiped for a long war which favoured Britian with its colonies. However, it is doubtful that Russia could have resisted attacking Germany at some point and this would have given Germany's enemies a chance to hit back.

Then there is always the possibility that......hmm, interesting.

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RE: What if? - 8/14/2006 3:50:37 AM

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Yes, Stalin was too blood-thirsty to not have attacked the Germans, sooner or later. He and Hitler were two peas in a pod as far as that.

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RE: What if? - 8/14/2006 4:00:05 AM

philosophy

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what if Adam had said 'nawwww, i don't fancy an apple'............

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RE: What if? - 8/14/2006 4:41:42 AM

meatcleaver

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quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

what if Adam had said 'nawwww, i don't fancy an apple'............

Come on Philosophy, it takes less than an apple for a man to say yes to what Eve was offering Adam.

But then again......what if Adam was gay? Now that would have been a divine miscalculation.

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RE: What if? - 8/14/2006 9:05:07 AM

LotusSong

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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

Ever here of a show called Sliders? It was a science fiction tv show that focused on these questions by focusing on parallel universes. My son and I used to watch it all the time when he was small.

Nova has a program on once in awhile about the String Theory and parallel universes and 11 dimentions!!!

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