Alternate History Ideas and Discussion

[WolfBear]

Lead in inner cities really negatively impacts IQ and it is a serious problem in the US. Guess where poor people disproportionately live?

The surprising link between postwar suburban development and today's inner-city lead poisoning

How did lead poisoning become a persistent threat in U.S. cities? Lead paint and slumlords played key roles, but so did postwar housing policies that trapped minorities in crumbling inner cities.

theconversation.com

It's not just Flint — every major American city has hazardous amounts of lead hurting kids

Decades-old leaded gasoline is still poisoning brains via contaminated soil.

www.vox.com

How the EPA has left Americans exposed to lead in drinking water

Millions of people still get water through lead pipes. For decades, lax EPA rules missed hazardous lead levels and allowed some utilities to remain indifferent. Today the Trump administration is rushing to finalize a plan that might make things worse.

www.apmreports.org

Probably not unrelated that the high crime rate in Chicago relative to other major cities is probably related to the large amount of lead pipes:

Biden Calls for Chicago’s Lead Pipes to be Removed Within 10 Years, As Slow Roll Out Continues in Chicago

The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill includes $15 billion to fund lead service replacement efforts, and $3 billion will flow to states and cities in 2022, officials announced.

news.wttw.com

Brain-damaging lead found in tap water from most Illinois communities during the past 6 years, Tribune analysis finds

Most exposure to lead in water can be traced to pipes known as service lines that connect homes to municipal water supplies. Illinois has more service lines made of the toxic metal than any other state. Chicago has more than any other city.

www.chicagotribune.com

One of the worst in the country.

That's not even getting into air pollution:

Toxic Combination of Air Pollution and Poverty Lowers Child IQ

Children born to mothers experiencing economic hardship, who were also exposed during pregnancy to high levels of PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), scored significantly lower on IQ tests at age 7 compared with children born to mothers with greater economic security and less exposure to the...

www.publichealth.columbia.edu

How bad is low level lead poisoning? Probably not that bad

For some months, I've had a window open with some lead poisoning studies by economists. We know generally not to trust economist work without carefully checking out their tables and data (like the recent case with Lisa Cook's fantastic black patent results) as these people are known to cheat like cr

emilkirkegaard.dk

 

[sillygoose]

How bad is low level lead poisoning? Probably not that bad

For some months, I've had a window open with some lead poisoning studies by economists. We know generally not to trust economist work without carefully checking out their tables and data (like the recent case with Lisa Cook's fantastic black patent results) as these people are known to cheat like cr

emilkirkegaard.dk

Question is how much is actually low level.

 

[stevep]

The issue of Muslims vs. non-Muslims will be less salient for the immigrants to the Ottoman Empire if the overwhelming majority of them will likewise be Muslim, no?

Not really while there is discrimination against the Christian minorities and also frequently they have powerful other states willing for assorted reasons to pressure for their protection. I.e. British identification with classical Greece and Russian designs on gaining territory in Armenia and of course the straits. Those are the two most obvious protectors that come to mind along with of course the Greeks in Greece.

It a difficult position as persecution of minorities is likely to prompt external complaints if not wrath but leaving them free, unless you have confidence in your society to win their loyalty does mean their potential 5th columnists - at least to the more hard line 'nationalist' or extremists. As the wiki article says the Armenians especially were aware of how vulnerable they were and did a hell of a lot to try and avoid looking hostile to the regime but it did them no good in the end and it was only relatively small groups willing and able to fight until Russian aid reached them that did survive.

Unless you mean that the Muslim immigrants would be less xenophobic than the Turks and Arabs might be to Christian groups?

 

[Zyobot]

‘Sulla Kills A Young Julius Caesar’.

 

[Skallagrim]

‘Sulla Kills A Young Julius Caesar’.

Super-excellent POD. You know my take on the wider context of all this, obviously.

In casu, the biggest effect is that Caesar isn't there to cleverly get Pompeius and Crassus to form an alliance. Those two initially couldn't stand each other, and Caesar brought them together. Secondary effect (in part a consequence of the first one, too) is that Caesar isn't there to help Pompeius get all those decrees he issues unilaterally in the East past the Senate. The Senate almost certainly won't play ball if the triumvirate doesn't form, and is even less likely to do so if Crassus is explicitly opposed to Pompeius.

Thus, Pompeius, the triumphant hero of the last Mithridatic Wars, is demeaned by the Senators. I don't see him taking that kind of insult very well. Without Caesar, he has near-uncontested control over the army. He is the commander. Pompeius will enjoy broad support from the soldiers, and from the masses (in all classes of society). And now he resents the Senate.

In OTL, he became the leader of the Optimates out of practicality. As I've mentioned to you in discussion, @Zyobot, he was actually very moderate. He and Caesar were both far more realistic than the ideologues of their nominal factions. What I'm saying is: without Caesar to co-opt the populist faction, and with the Senate having made Pompeius into their enemy, it is Pompeius who comes to lead the Populares. The establishment always makes its own enemies.

I doubt the Senatorial Optimates can find a commander able to rival him, and thus he'll defeat them in the inevitable conflict. He'll probably be a fairly moderate ruler, just as Caesar aimed to be. Whether he has better luck avoiding assassination is an open question. The Republic still doesn't survive; it was a walking corpse by then. And at this point, retiring, Sulla-style, is suicidal. Giving up power means your enemies seize it, and have you killed.

Either way, future contenders for power include the two sons of Pompeius (particularly Sextus, since Gnaeus seems to have been less competent) and his son-in-law Faustus Cornelius Sulla (yes, the son of that Sulla), who was more conservative, but may well side with his father-in-law in any conflict. Considering how clever Sextus was, and how long he managed to hold on even after his father was killed, I can easily see him stepping into an "Augustan" role.

 

[Zyobot]

Thanks, @Skallagrim.

Don’t have much time to reply, since class starts soon, but it certainly makes one think about how history “adjusts” when certain people are cut out. For one, I can imagine there were a number of would-be Caesars who were killed off too early IOTL, though speculating on what their success would’ve looked like when they’ve been completely forgotten is… difficult, for obvious reasons.

 

[Earl]

So... Is Gaul going down to the Romans inevitble or can they surrvive without Caeser explicitly wrecking their shit for glory points.

 

[Skallagrim]

So... Is Gaul going down to the Romans inevitble or can they surrvive without Caeser explicitly wrecking their shit for glory points.

The ATL Roman civil war (Pompeius versus the Senate) will be a great opportunity for ambitious Gauls to try and imitate Brennus (at least up to a point). When the Roman civil war is over, Rome will turn around and make them answer for that.

The period didn't lack ambitious Gauls. Celtillus (father of Vercingetorix) had at this time already been killed by his fellow Gauls for his attempt to make himself king of them all. But Vercingetorix had the same ambition, and Cativolcus and Ambiorix weren't push-overs either. (It would be hilarious if the absence of a Roman triumvirate leads those three to form a Gaulish triumvirate!)

I think that when it becomes clear that Pompeius is not going to just roll over, the Senate will first try to get rid of him by offering him another military command. Probably Hispania, because wihout Caesar, the situation there won't have been handled so effectively. Pompeius then uses that as a staging ground, gathering his loyalists. When the campaign ends (having lasted, say, 59 BC - 57 BC?) he turns around and marches on Rome. Suppose the ATL civil war proceeds roughly as in OTL. That would mean it lasts from a start in 57 BC through 53 BC. That's in the middle of the OTL period of the Gallic Wars, which is when Vercingetorix, Cativolcus and Ambiorix were prominent in OTL.

Either Pompeius fights a war against them directly after he seizes power, or he gets killed while prepping for such a campaign (much as Caesar was killed while planning a Parthian campaign), and then whoever seizes power in Rome (I still have my denarii on Sextus) gets to exact vengeance on the Gauls.

A realistic side-effect of this "delay" is that you may get less or no Roman presence in the Netherlands and Britain. Roman expansion may well stop once they reach the Rhine and the Channel, without attempts to push any further. (Those didn't end up working out in OTL anyway.)

 

[Atarlost]

A realistic side-effect of this "delay" is that you may get less or no Roman presence in the Netherlands and Britain. Roman expansion may well stop once they reach the Rhine and the Channel, without attempts to push any further. (Those didn't end up working out in OTL anyway.)

That's rather ungenerous, at least towards Roman Britain. That lasted more than three centuries, which is no trifle.

 

[Zyobot]

‘Worst-Case Scenario For 2014 Yumen Plague Incident’.

 

[WolfBear]

‘Sulla Kills A Young Julius Caesar’.

Looks like Sarah Jessica Parker!

 

[WolfBear]

Question is how much is actually low level.

You can ask Emil Kirkegaard that question.

Unless you mean that the Muslim immigrants would be less xenophobic than the Turks and Arabs might be to Christian groups?

Due to a sense of common struggle for rights and equality?

 

[Skallagrim]

That's rather ungenerous, at least towards Roman Britain. That lasted more than three centuries, which is no trifle.

It was a nest of trouble, insurrection and conspiracy that consistently required the presence of multiple legions (for most of the period, four legions -- which is ridiculous). In the end, it was a drain of money and man-power. Simply annexing and exploiting the Tin Isles, and bolstering the Channel Fleet based out of North-Western Gaul to keep pirates at bay, would have been a far more effective approach.

If you make a mistake and then refuse to correct it for three centuries, that's not a vindication. That's an indictment.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

It was a nest of trouble, insurrection and conspiracy that consistently required the presence of multiple legions (for most of the period, four legions -- which is ridiculous). In the end, it was a drain of money and man-power. Simply annexing and exploiting the Tin Isles, and bolstering the Channel Fleet based out of North-Western Gaul to keep pirates at bay, would have been a far more effective approach.

If you make a mistake and then refuse to correct it for three centuries, that's not a vindication. That's an indictment.

If I recall the Romans had to station eight legions there from time to time, especially after Boudicca's revolt.

Britannia was a problem child.

 

[Earl]

If you make a mistake and then refuse to correct it for three centuries, that's not a vindication. That's an indictment.

It is also, so utterly Roman.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

It is also, so utterly Roman.

The Roman Empire was so mighty it could afford to be too proud to attend to crippling problems for centuries.

That's how the Imperium works, my guys. Ave Roma.

 

[Buba]

SW Britain was rich - gold in Wales, silver, lead and tin in Cornwall and Devon. But the rest was a worthless bog.
I agree that probably it would had been cheaper to protect Gaul from raids/piracy and exploit those riches using the Northern Fleet (which would had existed anyway) and client kingdoms occasionally propped up by elements of a single legion+auxilia.

 

[Earl]

Nero was actually considering abandoning the place but Boudicca happened,which from what I gather sealed the Roman presence there in blood.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Speaking of Celts, here's an idea. What if they had become the founders of Western Europe instead of Rome or the Germans (or in France's case both)? I know a lot of things would have to happen, from power coalescing in the hands of High Kings to militarily repulsing the Romans, but what do we think the butterfly effects of proto-England, France and Spain being made by Celtic hands would be?

 

[Zyobot]

If I recall the Romans had to station eight legions there from time to time, especially after Boudicca's revolt.

Britannia was a problem child.

Then I'd very much like to see the look on their faces, when shown what their once-hopeless "problem child" achieved in the centuries since.

Not to mention how Britain's own flesh and blood across the Atlantic is set to become the next Great Torchbearer of the West, too.