Things TLs 7-9 would be interesting to see WITHOUT

[shadowjack]

BMR's posts there remind me that a whole bunch of technological development is—like so much history—a matter of the right place at the right time… and therefore you can fudge a lot of invention dates by a decade or two either way. So instead of not having the thing exist at all—have it delayed. (Or early.)

In our timeline, television was a curiosity just before WWII, saw some development in the late 1940s, and hit the mainstream in the 1950s. I once developed an alternate where television was invented over a decade earlier, and matured more quickly; really fancy late-1920s/early-1930s night-clubs would have cable television set ups to carry live music and early "music videos."

So you could go also the other direction—for whatever reason, no one figures out to throw a decent image on a CRT and sell people on the concept until the 1960s. First thing that comes to mind: Newsreels and all the other parts of classical cinema culture endure another decade. The second thing that comes to mind: the Vietnam War would have had little to no television news coverage! Or, alternatively, would have been the first thing anyone saw on TV.

Consider a world where seatbags and airbags were invented and implemented earlier—James Dean survives his car crash?—or a world where Detroit beat Nader and American cars were mostly safety-device free up into the 1990s.

Can do the same for social movements, too.