They're real, and they're out there: an infinite number of parallel universes similar to ours, plus an infinitely larger number that are different.
What would we see if we could visit a version of Earth that had been identical up to a thousand years ago, but had then started to develop differently? To get a meaningful sample, the experiment should be repeated a few million times.
Quite likely, most parallel Earths would have far fewer people on them. Our existence is the result of a long chain of improbable outcomes.
"Counterfactual history" is full of scenarios where a single battle or an assassination sets mankind on a new path. The US Civil War was particularly important. A few common patterns can be detected in history.
Apparently, this is a real devil planet. Groups try to eliminate or exploit each other. A few winners accumulate all the benefits, leaving most people below average. They just want to survive in their modest circumstances, and tend to resist change. Evil inevitably causes more evil.
Small decisions at pivotal moments reverberate for centuries. Occasionally, we can almost glimpse what might have been.
Perhaps it's best this doesn't happen too often.
In reality, no one has ever imagined the really interesting timelines, all the arbitrary combinations of impossible ideas. Since humans create history, the only meaningful way to simulate them would be to experience them.
Scenario one: Two human species
It almost happened: a world with two very different types of humanoids, unable to interbreed or to assimilate each other.
They would probably have evolved on separate continents. The Neanderthals were unlucky enough to occupy Europe before the Cro-Magnons left Africa. If they could have reached the Americas, they might have learned to defend themselves against the Bering Strait invasion. No doubt they would eventually have been enslaved anyway.
If the two species had somehow co-evolved, like humans and animals in Africa, the world would now be a very different place.
The two species could have separate territories, probably a multitude of small reservations inside conventional nation states.
In the most extreme case, they would form an integrated society with different roles. The smarter species would make all the decisions, an intellectual lifestyle they would consider a serious duty.
If Homo Sapiens hadn't been the smartest of the two species, it would have desperately tried to evolve.
Scenario two: The Roman Empire never collapses
Mired in corruption and conflict, Rome's disintegration was inevitable by the sixth century. To continue ruling Europe, it would have had to be replaced by something stronger.
Perhaps an early economist could have invented free markets, or an innovative general could have set up a ruthless police force. If the barbarians had been slightly more barbaric, the external threat could have reunited the imperial provinces. To survive, they would have had to resist most types of change, like the Chinese empire.
Surrounded by enemies, a besieged emperor might have encouraged military development. Even if the subsequent rate of progress had been only slightly faster than in our reality, the world would now be unimaginably more advanced - or not exist at all.
Scenario three: Christianity and Islam are never invented.
The Middle East developed many monotheistic religions. They would have come up with something else, perhaps Zoroastrian and Jewish offshoots. Maybe too many faiths would have canceled out, or seemed absurd. The Arab world almost ended up like India.
In that case, Europe would have been even more fragmented, while China was forging its greatest empire. Without serious external threats, it would have been tempted out of its insularity. The western world could quite easily have been colonized by Asia. The civilized invaders would have been welcomed by some, tolerated by many.
The main language of North and South America would now be Chinese.
Scenario four: No Dark Ages
In Europe, the years AD 600 to 900 were almost a return to normalcy. The population crash wasn't entirely bad: life expectancy even increased.
The centuries of decline show the vulnerability of authoritarian governments that don't tolerate opposition. With nothing to replace them, society collapses into small, warring groups.
Eventually, a relatively stable power balance emerged, based on feudalism and endless small wars. What if it had been slightly more stable, allowing civilized outposts to establish themselves and form trading networks? This almost happened in Scandinavia and Ireland.
To succeed, they would have needed to generate a stable surplus, bigger than the subsequent baby explosion could consume.
That would require one or more big ideas: a better way to fish the North Sea, a new plow, firearms, military organization - and how to form and expand stable groups.
At this crucial time in history, a well organized nation state could have taken over the world, forming a loose empire of many cultures under one army.
Swedish could have been the de facto world language.
Scenario five: No USA
What if the North American colonies had never revolted, because they needed aid against a European or Indian threat?
In that case, Canada would now extend most of the way down the east coast. There would also be several Spanish and French speaking countries in North America. War would be inevitable.
If the US had never become a superpower, Latin America or Europe would have tried out for the role.
A Latin American Union with many states would have been more militaristic, always looking for external threats. The Spanish Empire was based on exploitation, with no rights for the peasants, and few chances for advancement.
A European superpower would be very unstable, relying on intrigue and shifting alliances to survive and expand. It would encourage surrounding regions to form affiliated unions, occasionally using devastating force to eliminate a rival.
There would have been many small world wars, with the various powers uniting against serious threats like Russia.
Scenario six: No World War Two
Europe could easily have avoided World war Two, if World War One had been fought to its logical conclusion, with the complete defeat and occupation of Germany.
In that case, Germany would have become an economic powerhouse thirty years ahead of schedule. The other European powers would have tried to compensate by overexploiting their colonies, instead hastening their independence.
A European Community and defense alliance would keep the peace. They might even form a single superstate based on the Swiss model, with regional autonomy and many checks and balances.
War with the Soviet Union would probably have been delayed until after the invention of nuclear weapons. Without its eastern European empire, the latter would have been more paranoid.
America would have tried to stay neutral in the subsequent cold war.
For a while, Japan could have expanded its East-Asian empire with impunity. Eventually, war with the US, Russia, and various European colonial powers would have been likely.
A less weakened Europe might have tried to "civilize" Asia on its own terms, breaking up China and India.
Scenario seven: The Axis win World War Two
Could Germany and Japan have won World War Two? Easily.
All sides came close to using poison and nerve gas, and biotoxins like anthrax, but the technology wasn't quite ready.
They could have halted the fighting in months, leaving a desperate stalemate. Eventually, the USSR would have collapsed without surrendering, with Stalin executed.
Germany would have established a string of puppet regimes in Europe, and ruthlessly exploited what remained of the Ukraine and the toxic wastelands formerly known as Britain.
Secure in their victory, they would have become even more ruthless, with ever more intrusive surveillance and torture methods. Resistance would simply be inconceivable. Most of Europe would have been Germanized within a few generations.
Japan would have needed outside help to prevent a US invasion. In this scenario, Germany could have ended up fighting the Vietnam War.
The nuclear stalemate would have lasted until today. Occasionally, the Nazis might have made some limited concessions to prevent a global suicide war. Surrounded, the US might have succumbed to fascism itself.
The world would have turned into the ultimate totalitarian superstate, a machine designed to create a society of superior beings. It would have backed up its ideology with elaborate theories, and never stopped improving itself.
All state subjects would have been monitored and regulated around the clock, enslaved by mood-altering drugs, assigned marriage partners as a reward for hard work, and forced to carry out long-term plans no single person could understand.
Eventually, it would have evolved into a perfectly rational society, controlling its members' minds. At this point, it might have rediscovered the rules of morality. More likely, it would have rewritten them completely.
Scenario eight: Communism wins
What if communism had been somewhat less brutal?
Sometimes, history can start over from scratch. In 1945 that seemed like a good idea. Most countries, including the US, have voluntarily implemented socialist policies since then.
If the USSR had been too weak to invade in 1945, China could have formed a socialist coalition government by 1950, assuming both sides had been slightly better matched and less evil.
Maybe the country first needed to hit rock bottom, with an even greater death toll, before change was possible.
It would have taken at least two generations to neutralize the legacy of millennia of brutal violence.
Today, China could have been almost free, with large corporations, independent consumer groups, and unions, something it won't achieve in our timeline for years to come. There's a good chance these things will never happen.
With a long history of central control, all of Asia could easily have turned communist.
Russia has always been a collective society. It could have built up its industrial capacity with minimal violence, with the farms 90% under central control.
Without the Marshall Plan, Europe could only have rebuilt itself by borrowing from the future. Governments would have ended up owning everything.
Each country would be run like an immense corporation. Combined with universal democracy, everyone would be a shareholder, and try to vote the best benefits for their region.
Central Planning would soon become more powerful than whatever figurehead parliament was allowed to remain in office.
The Third World has never been stable enough for free markets. Every family and tribe has to look out for itself. Newly formed central governments could have guaranteed stable prices and made basic investments. Economies of scale could have delivered education and simple infrastructure.
They could also have prevented local kleptocrats from enriching themselves, keeping everyone at the same low level, and making almost everyone happier.
The ultimate result would have been a poorer, but more "civilized" planet.
It would be more fragmented, with many artificial barriers and competing types of command economy.
After half a century, communism would have served its purpose, and more advanced free markets could take over.
This would have been the time of greatest danger.
Scenario nine: World War Three
Humanity almost committed suicide during the Cold War.
The annual risk to every human alive during that period was at least comparable to smoking.
The Final War (for at least a century or so) would probably have started as a third world coup or an attack against a third party, and quickly escalated.
The initial death toll of a full US/USSR strategic exchange would have been about a billion, with most of the planet relatively undamaged at first. The skies would have darkened noticeably for months, followed by several unusually cold summers.
Agriculture would immediately have become 95% less efficient, as distribution networks collapsed.
The first year would have brought vast refugee camps in rural areas, with mass euthanasia and suicide of starving survivors.
Fallout cancers and epidemics would have quickly added another billion deaths, and economic disruptions would have killed the final billion, for a combined 70% human mortality rate.
The end result would likely have been a grim new world order, in which all nations would be subordinate to the UN.
Civilization would not have returned to pre-war levels until 2100.
Scenario ten: A world state
It would have been almost inevitable - if, by some miracle, there had been no world wars in the twentieth century.
A single new idea can change everything; fortunately it doesn't happen very often. In this case, the grand vision would have been nothing less than a planetary superpower.
The first world TV networks would have started in the 1960's. After decades of numbing boredom, the rich countries would finally have unleashed their full potential, creating a global network of superhighways, new cities, and desert factories.
The Unification Plan would allow local freedom and autonomy, imposing a global tax of no more than 10%. Most poor areas would benefit under this arrangement, without having to give up their traditional culture.
Ultimately, the goal would have been nothing less than a single world society, different from anything that came before, complete with a planetary language.
Scenario eleven: Hippie paradise
In the 1960's, a profound culture shift affected about 1% of mankind. What if this group had been larger but less self-centered?
It could have started with a universal religion, quickly splintering after a rapid rise, its main ideas absorbed by competing groups.
The western world would be filled with many types of communes and micro-nations. Some villages would be run like countries, with their own bizarre belief systems and traditions.
The world economy would have shrunk precipitously, a declining birth rate causing a greening planet. Most communities would grow their own food, hold annual festivals, and specialize in various trades.
There would be fewer taboos, and people would act more impulsively. Their goal would be maximum personal and spiritual development, in as many ways as possible. There would be millions of religions and cults, with no right or wrong way to do most things.
Those who couldn't handle the freedom because of their temperament would be encouraged to pursue pleasure for its own sake, perhaps in the form of drugs or even death tournaments.
There would be a hidden consensus to prevent any group from gaining too much power. It would take a lot of effort, but such a world might successfully stabilize itself, and endure longer than all of human prehistory.
Scenario twelve: the Soul Decoded
The world we live in is actually an aberration. A decision was made a long time ago, perhaps by Thomas Aquinas, Newton, or Francis Bacon. They took the first steps on our present path. No one realized the importance at the time.
What if science had decided to develop the humanities instead of technology?
If we actually understood the mind, we might know what really matters. There would be less technology, but our quality of life would be incomparably higher. It could be a living Utopia, with every moment as meaningful as possible. Education would be vastly easier, so workers could be more productive while working only a few hours a day.
In this version of heaven, money and most forms of wealth would be unnecessary. There would be few outward signs of success. People would live exceedingly modest lives, in vast dormitories or underground. Food might be a gray paste, and fashion non-existent.
After finally developing the science of philosophy, mankind might learn there are things even more meaningful than pleasure.
Perhaps there is no such thing as the human mind, just a place in our heads where many alarm signals mix together.
The goal would be to develop the best possible mind. Humans would function as cells of a larger soul. Eventually the cells would be replaced with machines.
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