New Reality Seeds

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Influenza was not endemic to the Americas (the first recorded case was in the 12th century). The first recorded case of typhus was recorded in Spain in 1489, three years before Columbus sailed. While tuberculosis did exist in the Americas since 17,000 BC, there were very few cases in the archeological record because Native Americans did not domesticate cattle or drink cow's milk (it was existent in bison, but Native Americans did not seem to catch it from the bison that they killed, at least not frequently enough to show up in the archeological record). In pre-Columbian times, the two greatest 'diseases' experienced by Native Americans were iron deficiency and osteoarthritis.

Like I said, matter of debate. Osteoarthritis and the like are indisputable because they show up in bone. But most diseases don't. And the first recorded undisputed cases of just about everything are Renaissance or later, because it's usually impossible to identify anything from older records, and again, most stuff doesn't show up in skeletons. Influenza for example is often said to have been first described by Hippocrates, well before your 12th century date, and on the other hand to have not existed before the 1580 epidemic. Typhus' close relative, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, was first identified in North America in the 19th century. So is it native? Nobody knows - it's since been found all over the world, and very likely didn't spread there in just a century. I understand there is even some doubt about the causative agent of the Plague these days. Mostly we just can't tell.

[David Johnston2]

Then there's the version where Europe managed to massively depopulate themselves with the super-Black Death and in modern times an unmolested civilization descended from the Mound Builders is competing with some Central American New Mayan Kingdom to colonize Europe.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It would be interesting to find out. After two generations, the dedicated racists would probably be extinct, while the successors would be a mix of African, Asian, European, and Native American blood. There would still be some racial bias, probably with higher levels of European blood being seen as a positive and higher levels of African blood being seen as a negative, but there would be more opportunity for social mobility regardless of racial heritage than even in more advanced timelines. I imagine that Centrum agents would find it strangely comfortable compared to other timelines of the same period, as the Americas would probably have relative racial harmony by the 1930s. Of course, the rest of the Western world in the 1930s would look at the Americas in horror with the ubiquity of miscegenation, and the fascists would be practically frothing at the mouth, especially the Nazis (to the point of banning immigration to and from the Americas).

Would this Earth's Nazis decide to declare war on America, rather than trying to conquer Europe first? Might they be able to ally with the other European nations, in this war?

This also applies to the 1936 scenario, above.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

You misunderstand me. I assume that living among people free of a given bigotry will, in most, but not all cases, erode that bigotry. People tend to fall in with those around them.

Bigotry is innate in humanity. There is no way on earth to eliminate it without radically changing us into a different species. Us vs. them is an evolved necessity that before large populations were viable assisted in survival.

Individuals may learn and work to minimize prejudice, but we all suffer from some measure of it. Remove racism, sexism, etc. and we get fat-phobia, homophobia, etc.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Would this Earth's Nazis decide to declare war on America, rather than trying to conquer Europe first? Might they be able to ally with the other European nations, in this war?.

They wouldn't need to particularly. In this timeline America isn't a power, because the Western Hemisphere is effectively totally depopulated. And whatever the Nazis might think of the race mixing, it has to be admitted that this has managed to more or less exterminate America's Jewish population. And its natives. And all its other small minority groups. Keep in mind that immigrants who arrive married will not have any children. It's actually quite a horrific premise if you think about it too hard, since the vast majority of people tend to fall in love with people of the same ethnicity simply because those are the ones that live nearby. I suppose a less civilized society might be able to retain some level of population through a slave trade in nubile girls or something.

Note that the fact whatever evil supernatural power is responsible for this can enforce rules based on fractions of "racial heritage", effectively validates one of the core tenants of the Nazi ideology. In this time line it actually *means something*, unlike OTL where it largely doesn't.

[AlexanderHowl]

Actually, I think that America would be thriving because of hybrid vigor from interbreeding. Within Latin American and most of the Carribean, few people are more than 50% anything people of the mixing between African, European, and Native populations (as well as Asian populations by the 1860s). In the US and Canada, I doubt that most African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans would not qualify as 25% 'something' else do to four centuries of interbreeding (consenting or otherwise). There are very few people in the USA who do not have a 'passing' African American or Native American relative if their family has been here for more than a century, so it would just necessitate the acceptance of unmentionable relationships (though the upper class whites might go extinct in the USA within a couple generations). In addition, Jewish tradition maintains that children are Jewish as long as their mother is Jewish, regardless of the nature of their father (and Sephardic Jews are a mixture of European, North African, and Southwest Asian bloodlines anyway).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Actually, I think that America would be thriving because of hybrid vigor from interbreeding.

Hybrid vigor is just as imaginary as the strengths of race purity.

Within Latin American and most of the Carribean, few people are more than 50% anything people of the mixing between African, European, and Native populations (as well as Asian populations by the 1860s).

You can't have it both ways. If the definitions aren't tight enough to mean a significant fraction of couples are now sterile, they aren't tight enough to drive major changes in demographics or culture. And of course this sort of thing is part of the problem I brought up - here on OTL there *are* no markers for pure bloodlines. If the centuries deep, relatively closed gene pool of European Jews isn't enough to establish them as a distinct population for this, why would the much more recent and diversely sourced "White" or "African American" or even "English" do so?

Sure, if the whole thing really is orchestrated by case by case intervention of an evil god it can still do whatever He wants it to, but if you are trying for any kind of logic (say the sort that might allow the locals to *predict* whether somebody is a potentially viable mate without trying for a couple years to see if she gets pregnant or not) you need something more consistent.

[AlexanderHowl]

Hybrid vigor is just a shorthand of saying that different racial populations lack the usual recessive genes of other racial populations. Children are less likely to die early from terminal genetic diseases or suffer from chronic genetic conditions if their parents are from different races. Of course, they might be carriers of such genetic conditions, so their children might suffer from the genetic conditions of two races, which is why hybrid vigor tends to only show up for one generation (occasionally, you get similar effects through random genetics within a group, such as seen with the breeding success of King George III and Queen Charlotte).

In the case of the above setting, the European populations (who likely only have traces of other racial heritages), recent immigrants, and isolated genetic groups (like the Amazonians) would suffer sterility while those of mixed blood and those willing to mix their blood would not. It would be a powerful motivation for whites to marry (rather than just have natural children) with people of other races and for recent immigrants to quickly assimilate. It would also probably halve population growth, as recently immigrated married couples could only get pregnant once in America before they experienced sterility.

[AlexanderHowl]

Who said anything about Ashkenazic Jews? I only mentioned Sephardic Jews, who are a completely different culture and ethnic group.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Bigotry is innate in humanity. There is no way on earth to eliminate it without radically changing us into a different species. Us vs. them is an evolved necessity that before large populations were viable assisted in survival.

Individuals may learn and work to minimize prejudice, but we all suffer from some measure of it. Remove racism, sexism, etc. and we get fat-phobia, homophobia, etc.

I disagree. Seeking to be part of a comunity is innate. Preferring your comunity to others is innate. Hating others is a convention. Comunity we all need, hate objects are created by artifice.