Comments by "Fredinno" (@innosam123) on "Whatifalthist" channel.

  1. Except the colonization of India took over 50 years (not an accurate number because of expansions into Burma and East Pakistan, so it depends on your definition of 'India'). And that assumes it happens like India, and the Germans, who supported both the Qing and ROC until WW2, would accept China being destroyed. The only reason it did in OTL was because Japan was also its ally- and a seemingly more successful one. It isn't going to be pretty- and assuming this happens after the Scramble for Africa, Germany is going to be extremely aggressive in its foreign policy, as is Japan. And if WW1 happens, the colonial empires of Britain and France will be too overextended and exhausted to really want to partition more land.
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  2. Weenie Yes, but Afghanistan has good places to mine too. Sonora needs Irrigation to produce all those crops. Also, it’s a nightmare to connect all the parcels together because every places that’s farmed in Northern Mexico is separated from the other by mountains and desert.
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  3. The proliferation of firearms eventually ended their advantages because larger nations could simply recruit more soldiers to fend them off. Hence why Russia conquered the nomads of the Steppe.
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  4.  @jfojw21dfs9  Oil was not used in the Early industrial Era, only coal. And Japan has huge amounts of it. Japan's geography is roughly equivalent to England during the same era.
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  5. Also, SWA was Black- Majority too, so that's a bit of a problem. Also, the international community did not believe it should be part of South Africa (it was a WW1 Mandate, which were intended to be decolonized). Then again, White South Africa also has nukes.
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  6. 29:33 That has a lot of do with what Rome was facing at the time (massive barbarian invasions, internal economic collapse due to the collapse of the trade system.) Hence, why East Rome was able to survive and live for another millennia longer.
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  7.  @thelordz33  Then what should he use? Patents? Stock Market valuation? It’s perhaps not what the GDP numbers imply, but there are few economic stats that show Europe is doing that well, even by other developed nations’ standards (minus Germany and Britain pre-brexit.)
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  8.  @literallywheeler  Dominican Rep. also faces Earthquakes, it’s literally on the same island…
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  9.  @Frdyan  Exactly, People need to keep in mind just because leaders act friendly towards enemy nations in some cases, it doesn’t mean they like those nations. It’s often a negotiating tactic. Moon though is known for wanting unification of Korea at all costs.
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  10.  @sinoroman  Email him if you really want him to listen. He can’t read everything.
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  11.  @MrStickyMouse Most people in the US (by 2-1 margins) want to remain in NATO. So no, very few Americans want to see the end of the American Empire.
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  12. What if the Carolingian Empire survived? What if Balhae survived?
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  13.  @timurermolenko2013  Subtracting ‘non-Muscovites’ is like removing the Great Plains from the US. Now you have a massive gaping hole.
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  14.  @jasperbudiono295  Made in China 2025 is not really working. China was trying to make itself independent in terms of tech imports (their largest import in terms of $ are computer chip components) and make themselves leaders in things like 5G and take over the data infrastructure. China is importing as many computer chips as it ever has, and Hwawei was kicked out of its ambitions to build out 5G. Chinese exports are increasing right now, primarily in medical equipment, and due to COVID. It’s not a sustainable boom. The reason the trade war failed was very simple: It was “Phase 1”. The Chinese inevitably reneged on the Phase 1 deal, giving reasons for Trump to enact more sanctions. At least that was the plan. Truth be told, neither China nor the US ‘won’ the trade war. Both the US and China took major hits, but because Trump lost the election and because of covid, the two sides effectively signed a temporary truce.
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  15. Kaanfight Capitalism existed as soon as markets existed, which is since Ancient Times. Rome had a financial sector.
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  16. Wouldn’t Oman, Aden, Somaliland, Burma, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Malawi, Solomon Is., Fiji, and the UAE still be under British Influence? They also got Libya and Italian Somalia from Italy after WW2. I guess Malta and Cyprus would be larger Gibralatars? Wouldn’t the Hong Kong accession cause problems for the Imperial Federation? Also, Botswana had a significant White population...
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  17. 5:00 No South Sudan... and I dunno.
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  18. Space Colonization? Probably should ask about Ocean Colonization first, deep ocean Aquaculture and mining are much closer to economic feasibility, and the economic, technological, and societal baseline for it already exists (oil industry, aquaculture industry, tourism/cruise ship industry.)
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  19. Metsarebuff 22 Signapore is a hodgepodge of different ethnicities.
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  20. You mean if China never faced the pressures of colonialism? It would never have reformed into a more powerful and modern state. Chinese culture is generally arrogant towards outsiders and outside ideas, and the century of humiliation is what led to China reforming.
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  21.  @cane6074 Turkey at least has a power vacuum in the MidEast it can fill.
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  22. Whatifalthist Well, yeah, but in the America’s, they still did it on behalf of the American State. The Urals aren’t really much of a barrier between the two, and so I don’t see any reason they couldn’t keep Siberia at least nominally vassalized. It’s not like the Russians somehow had an easier time getting troops to the Pacific Coast in OTL.
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  23.  @demun6065  Russia won’t collapse as in it ceases to be a nation, but it’s kind of like the Ottomans at the end of the 1900s- The nation still ‘existed’-kind of. The difference is that Russia is acting aggressive, but it’s hiding a shell of an economy and population that really has never recovered from the fall of the Soviet Union. Chechnya and Outer Manchuria are likely candidates to get split off. Russia’s only saving grace to stop it from getting parcelled up by its neighbours are nukes. Unfortunately, nukes aren’t as hard to build as they used to be, and the US no longer really cares as much about stopping nations from getting them. Unless Russia is willing to cause a nuclear winter and thus piss off everyone , it may just have to deal with it the old-fashioned way.
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  24. Roger Schmuck The route doesn’t make sense for the Athenians either. It turns east into the Nile. May as well build a new, bigger one.
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  25. Have Pierre Trudeau stay as Prime Minister and have the Quebec referendum win.
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  26. The first day Joe came into office he fucked the Canadians over by canning the Keystone XL. Yeah, he’s not going well to diplomacy.
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  27. Johny Ricco Japan and Vietnam would literally be the only thing holding communism from taking over Asia at that point, so yes. Japan would want a larger navy if nothing else. Thing is that China was a bit of a different thing- Korea was pretty clearly aggression by not just a communist nation, but another sovereign nation annexing another one- if the USA refused to help South Korea, what about West Germany? Russia still theoretically had claims on the Turks and Finns. The Red Scare was also much stronger in the 50s.
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  28. Trent N The draft is technically forced labor despite the fact you’re getting paid because you don’t have a choice if you’re drafted.
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  29. Note that the reason inflation happens in part is due to the fact central banks actually target for inflation at around 2% to encourage spending and investment. You don’t need crypto of you convince everyone to target 0% instead of 2%. Also, note that debt is currency in effect, and thus trying to target a 0% inflation rate severely restricts credit. This is partially why only Jews could be moneylenders in the Middle Ages- in a world with cheap credit, inflation would be inevitable. Finally, the US is a victim of its reserve currency as much as a benefactors. Keynes noted that a single nation taking reserve status would result in a trade deficit due to the demand for the currency (the Triffin Dilemma). This is why he actually wanted a global reserve system.
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  30. Peter Zeihan says hi. ... OK, no, but seriously, you should probably watch his stuff. This is a pretty interesting perspective though. I skimmed parts of it, but I've wanted to add my take as well, so here we go: I have studied China a lot: I would point out that Land-based trade orders are inherently inferior to sea-based ones in terms of cost of trade, and if the US was to blockade China, even if everything worked out well with the Belt and Road, it would still be a massive blow to Chinese manufacturing and trade. China is not the only cheap manufacturer, and it's not really especially good at high-end manufacturing (assuming the trade war doesn't kill that option in its cradle). China has also relied on the Belt and Road to prop up its 'Rust Belt' Northeast, which WILL inevitably decline even further eventually- and it will have the same problems as the American Rust Belt. Debt has also increased to levels at or exceeding the US in relative terms, assuming you choose to take Chinese data at face value. That's not encouraging for a developing economy. China may become a global power. But my worry is that Xi knows that the Chinese have already squandered its opportunity to be one, or are losing their chance as the world turns against them, their population ages, and their debt turns bad. Desperate people will do desperate things. Like invade Taiwan or India. In other words, the issue isn't that China is going to overtake the US. It's that China wants to- and is losing its chance.
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  31. Turkey doesn’t need to invade the Balkans to become a major power. Even just being able to take out all of its competitors in the Middle East is probably enough. Considering its military is Prussian compared to everyone but Israel and maybe Iran and the UAE, that shouldn’t be too hard. Greece is Turkey’s biggest threat in the European direction, but even then, Turkey’s centre of power is deep into Anatolia, not in Constantinople as it was in the 19th century. Russia is a massive question mark. They didn’t get involved in Karabakh as people thought he would, so who knows what Putin has on his mind in the region.
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  32. LTSR Gameriai It still doesn't change that aging populations aren't enough to create an ideological backlash. It might, however, influence its direction.
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  33. Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. People tend to forget in modern society that if you lack food and water, everything else collapses pretty quickly. People leave the cities in search of food and water. Factories stop operating without worker or water to run Machinery. Order collapses. Wealth evaporates.
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  34.  @SacredCowStockyards  That assumes China doesn't turn fucking livid and goes all out ballistic, because losing Tibet means the USA/India controls its headwaters. And China is already running out of water. Fast.
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  35. King Wiwuz IV Which is why Eastern Europe is prosperous, while Singapore isn’t.
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  36. Melnek Is Poland being run by Genocidal Maniacs? If not, it can’t happen- Poland would be half German if they got everything they got from Oder-Neisse- Even just all of Silesia is a dubious notion. Parts of Silesia and East Prussia were half-Polish, though. Poland isn’t really powerful enough to prevent either the Allies or Soviets from doing what they want. Most likely the Morgenthau Plan would happen - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#/media/File%3AHenry_Morgenthau's_Proposal_for_Post-War_German_Boundaries.png but with half of East Prussia also being German. Though there’d still be enough Germans in Poland to cause headaches for everyone, including Poland. Not even France has fully yet assimilated Alsace-Lorraine. Maybe you’d see it become Poland’s Catalonia.
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  37. You're Spying Morgenthau results in a Germany already split in at least 2. Honestly, Germany losing East Germany has proven to be enough to stop it from being a dominant European power. Again, I would like to point out that there’s enough Germans in Poland to cause major headaches. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_Poland_immediately_after_World_War_II#/media/File%3ACurzon_line_en.svg I mean, what do you expect when 1/3rd your nation is composed of a hostile ethnic group? Do the Poles even really want that land? There were a lot of plans to utterly destroy Germany by forcing it to pay huge reparations and deindustrialization at Yalta, which also didn’t go anywhere- largely because it would have held back the wider European economy and resulted in one of the worst genocides in Europe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Implementation And even THIS plan didn’t include the Oder- Neisse borders, btw- even the Western Allies in a genocidal mood didn’t want the Oder-Neisse borders. There is no way that happens unless Stalin was total control of Poland. Romania and Bulgaria surrendered to the Soviets because they had no choice and could see they were doomed. If the Western Allies are in Greece, they DO have a choice. Romania in particular still had an army that could at least slow down the Soviets before the Allies could move up to there. The worst that happens may be the Romanians lose all of the land east of the Carpathians and/or is forced to be a neutral buffer state.
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  38.  @Ghibelline_19  Also, Late Antiquity is where the Christians put their Saints and the Rise of Islam happened.
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  39.  @Ero_Hentai  Why didn't they take over Korea? They're already on the Chinese side. Plus the vast majority of Chinese military power was used up fighting against the northern Steppe tribes- thus, it wouldn't ever be taken over until late in the TL. It's better to have a friendly nation outside your borders than a hostile one inside it. The mindset of China being #1 hegemon does not change in this TL, and tributaries would be an acceptable compromise.
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  40. 19:10 One could argue Japan has already gone past that phase and has adapted its economy and society around aging demographics while the world was still doing well. Russia also has decent-ish demographics. It has a TFR of 1.8 and was rising until experiencing mass recession due to sanctions and COVID- its demographic issue is ironically that it has a horrible life expectancy due to a dysfunctional healthcare system. Kind of makes sense considering how religious and conservative the society is. The other issue for Russia is that it’s a petro-state and has little ability to modernize due to lack of capital and Putin tying Russia so heavily to China (not a great long-term partner if you care about anything else other than reconquering Ukraine.)
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  41. Wasn’t Egypt the wealthiest part of the empire due to the trade networks? From what I understand Gaul was populous but not wealthy. Also, Attila may have been turned back due to Pope Gregory’s talk with him, but his armies were also running out of supplies due to Aetius’ raids on his back supply lines and the Eastern Romans attacking his empire from the Danube. He probably just decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and the talk with the Pope was just the straw that broke the camel’s back (if it happened at all.)
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  42. bruhman420 You’d have to move Australia either north or South, the former making it a rainforest, the latter a cold grassland. The climatic effects of fucking with the Circumantarctic Current on the latter may be major though. But basically, Australia wouldn’t be Australia. Also, having an inland sea at Lake Eyre would not increase rainfall enormously, because apparently the water evaporated would rain off the ocean instead of the interior. That was part of the reason filling up Lake Eyre with seawater never really was an idea that went off the ground.
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  43. What if T-Series beat Pewdiepie?
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  44. What if the British Empire federated its empire?
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  45.  @erikabloodaxe2581  That didn’t stop them in Southern China. The Mongols didn’t go into Northern Siberia because it would have been pointless. There was nothing to plunder or things to take over (other than a couple nomad tribes, tundra, and trees.)
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  46. Moving off Earth will inevitably carry the problems of Earth off Earth. It doesn’t magically solve the problem.
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  47.  @adrienthecool8072  Then how do you explain why US has stayed higher in level of GDP/world?
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  48.  The Martial Lord of Loyalty  They could develop a trading empire even without military superiority. Also, didn’t the Indians have rifles as well when the East India Company took over?
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  49.  @SuperCrow02  To colonize space, you need an economy in space. Each Dragon seat to the ISS costs $55 mil. That’s not an economic basis. We’re still no where near to being able to do that.
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  50.  @janehrahan5116  All indications are that the Slavs were the ones that invented the heavy plough- their populations exploded first, and this helped bring about the Slavic migrations. In any case, the Romans were bad at inventing technology, but good at adopting it (hence, why they remained militarily competitive with the barbarians despite centuries of technological exchange.)
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