Your commend puts me in mind of this masterpiece of counterfactual silliness
People are conflating a large spectrum of different things into small “it’s good” and "it’s bad"s.
Fiction is counterfactual no matter how realistic it seems. That leads to layers of responses, from accepting the surface text as it is and moving on to analyzing those words to claim they mean a hundred different things to creating entire fan worlds based on the human instinct to want more and more of what they like. Anything Harry Potter fans have done with Rowling was done by Sherlock Holmes fans starting a century ago.
Applying counterfactuals to the real world, well, that gives me the brain shivers. Sure, the military should game out every possible scenario and law students should be given tests on gray areas that have never been adjudicated. Playing that game with real history is not in the same league. What would have happened if Kennedy/Lincoln/Franz Ferdinand/John Lennon/Malcoln X weren’t shot? The proper answer is “anything.” A world in which the unexpected upends society one day is a world in which the unexpected can occur again tomorrow. Nobody incorporates this reality into their futures, though; it takes all the fun out of the game.
But that’s the point for me. History is fascinating because it’s all black swans, one after another. No thread here goes from “Kennedy gets shot” to “The Beatles create a new culture.” Nobody saw that coming at the time. Counterfactual scenarios assume a linear progression of cause and effect, never “Kennedy gets shot” and then “Polish food takes over the restaurant industry” because there are no connections between the two. History IRL is a progression of no connections or at best connections recognized (or invented) only after the fact.
For the inevitable science fiction reference, consider Asimov’s Foundation. It had the future predicted and guided for a thousand years. Then Campbell told Asimov to mess it up and Asimov came up with the Mule, a totally unexpected mutant, a black swan before the name got applied. Greatness. Unfortunately, the lesson got lost. Apparently everyone since got stuck on the wonderfulness of predicting a future and decided to ignore the reality that it’s Mules all the way down.
Sorry for a tangent, but this reminds me of an episode of The Big Bang Theory that had a game called Counterfactuals.
Naah … Gotta be smorgasbord and Swedish meatballs all the way to the 1980s when Croatian food got big.
See this is why I don’t think these exercises are pointless. The answers might be silly, but being silly isn’t pointless. It can be uplifting in itself, and it can spark inspiration.
For example the question: ‘What if Macbeth included chainsaws?’ might seem silly and trivial, but it’s only pointless if it comes to no point, and whether or not that happens, is a function of the imagination of the people discussing it, and their imagination is in part a function of their willingness to consider questions about Macbeth and chainsaws.
One could even argue that “what if [event X] happened in [story Y]?” is the basis for literature as we know it today. Or as Michael Chabon put it:
[T]here is a degree to which . . . all literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction. . . . Through parody and pastiche, allusion and homage, retelling and reimagining the stories that were told before us and that we have come of age loving — amateurs — we proceed, seeking out the blank places in the map that our favorite writers, in their greatness and negligence, have left for us, hoping to pass on to our own readers — should we be lucky enough to find any — some of the pleasure that we ourselves have taken in the stuff we love: to get in the game. All novels are sequels; influence is bliss.
What-ifs can be educational, but there are real limitations. The scenario laid out in your post is
my bolding
The problem is that this requires not just one tiny change in a situation which could go either way, but rather then that the whole series of events and the subsequent probabilities. Let’s break down the premises:
Premise One.
Premise Two. Although it’s not specifically stated, the implication is that had the Confederates taken Little Round Top, they would have won the Battle at Gettysburg.
Which leads us to maybe, maybe not. It’s my understanding that it’s not completely given that the loss of Little Round Top would have changed the outcome even of Gettysburg, let alone the entire Civil War. (See Troy D. Harman’s Lee’s Real Plan at Gettysburg, Chapter 4, Why Little Round Top Was Not Lee’s Objective.
my bolding
What percent defines “likely”?
Premise Three
Premise Four
Premise Five
Premise Six
Premise Seven
Premise Eight
Premise Nine
Premise Ten (that although France and the Confederacy are in an alliance, all other events remain the same)
Premise Eleven
There are eleven premises there and for the sake of discussion, let’s assume that all have a 90% chance of happening, and mutiplying the factors out, gives the overall chance of that particular outcome as 34%.
If each factor only had a 60% chance, then it reduces the overall chance of the outcome is about 1%. Some things may be more likely than others, so giving about half a 90% chance each and the other half a 60% chance, then the overall chance is 5%.
Yes, the more events that need to happen in a specific sequence, the less likely they are to all occur as anticipated. However, this is true for all aspects of life. It’s more accurate to say (and I should have said) that each event was probable, given the previous one happened. The likelihood of the entire series happening is slim, but it’s not impossible.
Regarding history, the Battle of Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg is a prime example of a pivotal moment with significant impact. On the second day of the battle, Union forces had left Little Round Top undefended, which could have given the Confederates a strategic advantage. Noticing this, Union engineer Gouverneur Warren quickly redirected troops to defend the hill. The Union’s successful defense of Little Round Top was crucial to their victory at Gettysburg. This victory was significant not only for the US but also for international politics. Britain and France were observing the war, considering intervention. The Union’s win at Gettysburg discouraged them from supporting the Confederacy.
I’m not a historian (I don’t even play one on TV), but I have a lay interest in the subject. Based mostly on The Great Courses lecture, I believe the battle of Little Round Top was an important historical contingent event with far reaching consequences.
A Confederate victory at Gettysburg could have been a significant morale booster and a sign of strength to both the Union and France. However, it wouldn’t have ensured Confederate independence; that would require additional Union losses and political shifts, such as Abraham Lincoln not being re-elected in 1864. If France had stepped in to mediate, the Confederacy probably would have found itself indebted, influencing their position in the Franco-Prussian War. This alternate history could have led to a different narrative in history books, focusing on North American history rather than solely US history.
The Mexican Cession brought up complex issues regarding land ownership and the potential for future disputes. It also highlighted the contentious subject of fugitive slaves and their treatment, as well as the status of those who served in the US Army. The Civil War’s outcome could have been altered if the events at Little Round Top had not favored the Union. The 1844 election was another turning point; if Henry Clay had won over James K. Polk, the US might have avoided war with Mexico, Texas may not have been annexed, and the spread of slavery into new areas could have been halted, potentially changing the trajectory of American history.
Just because a complete cascade of events may be improbable, I believe analyzing each probable event in the sequence is interesting, and productive.
I belong to another message board, alternate history.com, where people explore exactly the sort of things that have been discussed here. I find it fascinating to read not only the alternate histories proposed, but the discussions of how history might have progressed from a point of diversion (POD). In addition to historical events like how a major historical event may have changed history, there will be discussions on cultural PODs, like “what if the Beatles hadn’t broken up” or what if the original Star Trek series hadn’t been cancelled". There’s also a section on fictional works, and one on what they call ASB (Alien Space Bats) where the POD is based on something magical or nonrealistic (what if George Washington was telepathic and could read the minds of the British generals).
It makes for interesting reading, and I’ve learned things about history I hadn’t previously known from it.
This has been a very interesting discussion. I just want to pop in and note how far it has strayed from the original topic, and that’s absolutely fine with me. Just for clarity, I also want to say that I am 100% in favor of historical and real-world what-ifs as a wonderful tool for a variety of purposes.
Larry Niven wrote a short story, " What Can You Say About Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers?" that addressed this very point.
We did this a lot as kids: “So, if you could fly or turn invisible, which would you choose?”
It made the scene in Stand By Me pretty realistic: “Who would win in a fight between Mighty Mouse and Superman?”
As a college instructor, I walked into a class early. A dozen 18-25 year olds were having an intense discussion of “If you got to choose between being blind or deaf for the rest of your life, which would you choose?”
I couldn’t help real life threadshitting: “WHEN are you ever going to have to make this choice? Relax, you’ll get to see and hear for the rest of your life!”