LightSpectra
me autem minui
I give you three reasons why:
1. The Butterfly Effect. The smallest of forces have monumental effects. An oft used example of this: A gentleman stops to admire a butterfly, and because of that wasted moment, misses his bus; and thus, is late for his job interview; and thus, does not get the job, does not build up his career, does not eventually become chief physicist of MIT, does not discover cold fusion, American reliance on fossil fuels continues, nuclear war with Russia happens over oil, etc.
Now, given the great effects that a butterfly can have on the flow of events, changing something monumental like "what if the Roman Empire hadn't collapsed?" automatically makes it impossible to have any sort of coherent predictions about what is going to happen in the alternate future. Attempting to make any sort of guess is futile.
2. Alternate scenarios presume that not only what happened changes, but the factors that caused said event also change, and thus the situation is now incomprehensible. For instance, if you were to investigate the counterfactual scenario, "what if the Russians had fared better in the Great War?," then you have to assume that all the reasons the Russian Empire was not ready for war -- severe munitions shortages, dreadful personnel in the War Ministry and officer corps, internal corruption and insurrections -- were also different. But wait, we face a second problem now: how did these factors change? You have to reach back and make more changes as well: give Tsar Nicholas II the proper attitude towards ruling, give Vladimir Sukhomlinov a brain, remove the revolutionaries from the equation, and instill some sense of modernization within the Tsar's ministers.
You may have noticed, then, that this "what if" scenario is rather unlike the history we're familiar with. In order to make the change required for the counterfactual, you have to make countless secondary changes to make the first one possible, and therefore even more to make the secondary ones possible, Ad infinitum. You are no longer looking at the Russian Empire, and it no longer has any resemblance to historical events.
3. You can ususally disguise your "what if" proposal within more reasonable questions. Asking "what would have happened if the Confederacy won at Gettysburg?" is absurd, for the two reasons above. But, you can raise sensible points that (hopefully) would satisfy your urge for alternate histories. Instead, ask, "what was Lee's plan had he won at Gettysburg?," or "did the Army of Northern Virginia have enough supplies to go further North?," or anything similar. These can be answered.
1. The Butterfly Effect. The smallest of forces have monumental effects. An oft used example of this: A gentleman stops to admire a butterfly, and because of that wasted moment, misses his bus; and thus, is late for his job interview; and thus, does not get the job, does not build up his career, does not eventually become chief physicist of MIT, does not discover cold fusion, American reliance on fossil fuels continues, nuclear war with Russia happens over oil, etc.
Now, given the great effects that a butterfly can have on the flow of events, changing something monumental like "what if the Roman Empire hadn't collapsed?" automatically makes it impossible to have any sort of coherent predictions about what is going to happen in the alternate future. Attempting to make any sort of guess is futile.
2. Alternate scenarios presume that not only what happened changes, but the factors that caused said event also change, and thus the situation is now incomprehensible. For instance, if you were to investigate the counterfactual scenario, "what if the Russians had fared better in the Great War?," then you have to assume that all the reasons the Russian Empire was not ready for war -- severe munitions shortages, dreadful personnel in the War Ministry and officer corps, internal corruption and insurrections -- were also different. But wait, we face a second problem now: how did these factors change? You have to reach back and make more changes as well: give Tsar Nicholas II the proper attitude towards ruling, give Vladimir Sukhomlinov a brain, remove the revolutionaries from the equation, and instill some sense of modernization within the Tsar's ministers.
You may have noticed, then, that this "what if" scenario is rather unlike the history we're familiar with. In order to make the change required for the counterfactual, you have to make countless secondary changes to make the first one possible, and therefore even more to make the secondary ones possible, Ad infinitum. You are no longer looking at the Russian Empire, and it no longer has any resemblance to historical events.
3. You can ususally disguise your "what if" proposal within more reasonable questions. Asking "what would have happened if the Confederacy won at Gettysburg?" is absurd, for the two reasons above. But, you can raise sensible points that (hopefully) would satisfy your urge for alternate histories. Instead, ask, "what was Lee's plan had he won at Gettysburg?," or "did the Army of Northern Virginia have enough supplies to go further North?," or anything similar. These can be answered.
