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Alternate History General Discussion

Burton K Wheeler said:
Do not speak poorly of 2 Fast 2 Furious. John Singleton, in my mind, is the most consistently underrated director of recent decades. How does a guy tasked with making a sequel to a moderately popular movie about the late 90's import tuner fad at a point that fad was mostly dated turn it into one of the most enduring action fantasy franchises in film without being a man of true genius?
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Because culture is dead?
 
Burton K Wheeler said:
If you don't appreciate a well-crafted action film or fantasy book or video game or whatever kind of trash for what it is, you don't understand culture.
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I get what they're trying to be, I just don't think that series is good even for what it wants to do.
 
A pretty interesting alternate history to write would be one in which the two mainstream poles of Western politics would be 1) religious Christians who believe in converting all of mankind and equality between classes etc. and 2) secular liberals who are diehard believers in Darwin, “survival of the fittest”, support eugenics, oppression of what they think are “inferior races” etc. Don’t know how I would write such a story nor do I know enough about Western political history to really do anything but that’s an idea. “Secular nationalists vs religious internationalists” was/is an actual distinction that exists, mainly in Muslim countries, fwiw so imagining a western version of it shouldn’t be too difficult.
 
lerk said:
A pretty interesting alternate history to write would be one in which the two mainstream poles of Western politics would be 1) religious Christians who believe in converting all of mankind and equality between classes etc. and 2) secular liberals who are diehard believers in Darwin, “survival of the fittest”, support eugenics, oppression of what they think are “inferior races” etc. Don’t know how I would write such a story nor do I know enough about Western political history to really do anything but that’s an idea. “Secular nationalists vs religious internationalists” was/is an actual distinction that exists, mainly in Muslim countries, fwiw so imagining a western version of it shouldn’t be too difficult.
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William Jennings Bryan-world.
 
lerk said:
A pretty interesting alternate history to write would be one in which the two mainstream poles of Western politics would be 1) religious Christians who believe in converting all of mankind and equality between classes etc. and 2) secular liberals who are diehard believers in Darwin, “survival of the fittest”, support eugenics, oppression of what they think are “inferior races” etc. Don’t know how I would write such a story nor do I know enough about Western political history to really do anything but that’s an idea. “Secular nationalists vs religious internationalists” was/is an actual distinction that exists, mainly in Muslim countries, fwiw so imagining a western version of it shouldn’t be too difficult.
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Reminds me of the imagining of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas as the dying gasp of a thoroughly medieval mindset opposed to the logical conclusion of Renaissance Humanism. This was the closing chapter of The Bright Ages, if I recall correctly.

I think that conflict was and is there in Western political history, but you have to dig to find it.
 
JesterBL said:
Reminds me of the imagining of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas as the dying gasp of a thoroughly medieval mindset opposed to the logical conclusion of Renaissance Humanism. This was the closing chapter of The Bright Ages, if I recall correctly.

I think that conflict was and is there in Western political history, but you have to dig to find it.
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I mean there was a conflict but it wasn’t the *main* conflict. I can imagine it being a thing around the early to mid 20th century until colonialism ends up wearing thin and the secular liberals here have to fight unwinnable wars against their oppressed colonial subjects for like a decade or two before their empires collapse.
 
lerk said:
I mean there was a conflict but it wasn’t the *main* conflict. I can imagine it being a thing around the early to mid 20th century until colonialism ends up wearing thin and the secular liberals here have to fight unwinnable wars against their oppressed colonial subjects for like a decade or two before their empires collapse.
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I was just saying there are some roots there so it wouldn't just be grafting Muslim political realities on Christendom. I think it's a good idea, and I've played with the whole Christendom as the Muslim world idea myself.
 
American football WI: In OTL, the Detroit Lions have set a massive record for futility and ineptitude. They have won exactly one playoff game in the entire Super Bowl era.

What if, through some butterfly or another, they instead turned into a dynasty with multiple Super Bowl wins and generally stayed as relatively consistent contenders?
 
Coiler said:
American football WI: In OTL, the Detroit Lions have set a massive record for futility and ineptitude. They have won exactly one playoff game in the entire Super Bowl era.

What if, through some butterfly or another, they instead turned into a dynasty with multiple Super Bowl wins and generally stayed as relatively consistent contenders?
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I have, uh, plans. Not quite like this. @AnActualFam knows what I'm talking about.
 
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