OT Things that would never have happened

[dragoon500ly]

And people say that nothing good could ever come out of a nuclear war!!!

No Storage Wars, South Beach Towing or Dawg, The Bounty Hunter....

[raketenjagdpanzer]

No DVDs - they were just getting ramped up in the mid/late 90s.

Actually, given that the Cold War didn't end, there's a lot of tech that never would've trickled down to civilian hands (DVDs were not among these, though - the Motion Picture Electronics Group was driving forward from the VERY early 90s). No GPS-in-phone, and, given that the iPhone never got invented likely no smartphones as we know them at all. Sure, cell phones...but 1G "bricks".

If you found a working personal computer in T2k, if it was the fastest thing out there, it'd be a PII-450 or possibly PIII-500 with 3-5gb of hard drive, and perhaps 128-256mb RAM and a 17" tube monitor (flat panel displays were available - I remember installing some - but they were rare).

CDs rode tall in the saddle; cassettes weren't totally out yet (I was making "mix-tapes" for friends up until '96 or so), and vinyl hadn't made the "underground" resurgence yet. Likewise, VHS releases of first-run movies were still common.

I'm sure there's some drugs and medical procedures we take for granted now that wouldn't be at all common had things "stopped" in 1997.

Anyone with Type II diabetes is dead by late mid 1998.

[pmulcahy11b]

Neither George W Bush nor Barak Obama would have been presidents, and it would be the Clinton Administration that took us into World War 3.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Neither George W Bush nor Barak Obama would have been presidents, and it would be the Clinton Administration that took us into World War 3.

Assuming he survived an initial strike, W would have been the de facto president of the Republic of Texas, though.

[Olefin]

Considering where the nuclear attacks are in Texas then George W. Bush definitely would still be alive and governor if the rest to the timeline was followed. The question would be if Clinton would have been re-elected in 1996 with war going on with the Soviets and Chinese - in a situation like that Bob Dole may have been elected instead.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Considering where the nuclear attacks are in Texas then George W. Bush definitely would still be alive and governor if the rest to the timeline was followed. The question would be if Clinton would have been re-elected in 1996 with war going on with the Soviets and Chinese - in a situation like that Bob Dole may have been elected instead.

IMHO, Bill Clinton would have been re-elected. His "advetures" with Monica would have been ignored in light of the nightmare in the Far East. Also, per V1.0 and v 2.2, the USA was shipping HUGE amounts of anti tank, anti air missles to China. The American economy was performing well, un-employment was low, interest rates were fairly low, the "housing bubble" of the early to mid 2000's was still in the future, and probably not have happened.

So, again IMHO, I see no real reason politically for Bill to fail at the polls.

My $0.02

Mike

[mikeo80]

Some other things we would not have seen IF T2K happened.

1) Lindsay Lohan
2) Teenage Moms
3) International Space Station
4) Hubble Telescope Repair Missions
5) Retirement of Space Shuttles (Maybe even some new ones??)
6) Exxon Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico (Nukes would have done a LOT more damage)
7) Somali Pirates (IF they showed their pointy little heads, would be SMASHED in passing by US, UK, NATO, whatever)
8) Osama bin Laden, Taliban (Again, smashed by Western powers)
9) Reality TV (Survivor starts in 2000 IRL)
10) ALL of the damn Judge TV shows
11) American Idol (Start 2002 IRL)

These are a few off of the top of my head.

My $0.02

Mike

[copeab]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Anyone with Type II diabetes is dead by late mid 1998.

Probably not. Type II doesn't require insulin in most cases and it's not a terribly fast-acting disease. It is possible to treat mild cases of Type II without drugs in some cases (exercise and diet).