The metaphorical “what if we killed Hitler before he became Hitler”

In studying history, we are restricted by practicality to study only such things that concretely happened. Surely this leads to something like survivorship bias, so we could be placing undue scientific emphasis on things which were unlikely given material conditions, yet occurred nonetheless.

Therefore some level of speculation is necessary I think, in order to learn from the things which went right due to the non-occurrence of events. Like the eternal dilemma of system admins, the proof of their usefulness is nothing happening, things not breaking, which in turn appears as proof that they were unnecessary in the first place.

Best I can come up with is the handful of averted nuclear deployments during the Cold War, but those are fairly well known.

  • mctoasterson@reddthat.comEnglish
    28·
    1 year ago

    Look up the work of Norman Borlaug. In the 1940s through the 1960s he developed and spread high-yield agricultural techniques and crop varieties. He travelled to some of the poorest most underdeveloped countries to share his knowledge and increase the yields of farmers there.

    In the early 1900s many scientists and other figures had been convinced we were facing a looming Malthusian crisis in which millions would simply starve. Norman Borlaug effectively averted that crisis for countless millions of people worldwide.