Post by Zyobot on Jul 28, 2020 23:28:02 GMT
After the collapse of the USSR and the apparent triumph of global capitalism in its wake, the people of the 1990s were looking for a bright future ahead of them as they headed into the twenty-first century. Though the brief scare caused by Y2K wracked society for a time with apocalyptic fears of planes crashing and elevators no longer working, the panic that ensued was largely for nought as the public calmed down and went back to their humdrum lives as usual. Sadly, that sense of relief and revived optimism wouldn't last long. For 9/11 and the responses of governments around the world catalyzed another round of tumult that culminated in erosion of civil liberties via the Patriot Act, massive Wall Street scandals like those of Enron and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the invasion of Iraq ultimately blowing up in America's face, and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression hitting global markets in 2008--an event that at the eleventh hour, swung the presidential election that year in favor of the United States' first black president, Barack Obama.
So, hoping to change the future for the better--but not wanting to demoralize people by informing them of what's to come in 2020--what if ASB were to bestow knowledge of what happens leading up to 2010 onto the people of January 1st, 2000? And made it obvious so that aside from a new adamant deniers, no one doubted the veracity of what they've just learned?
My first guess is that the US will rush to preemptively stop 9/11 from happening this time, with Governor Bush's chances of becoming president taking an epic nosedive and necessitating a different, less interventionist GOP candidate to take his place. Reactions to breakthroughs like the iPhone ought to prove interesting, with the same applying to follow-ups like the iPad and competing smart devices released by the likes of Samsung and Google. 2010 seemingly being before excessive screen time becoming a major moral boogeyman, I'm guessing that there would be much less reluctance to adopt them once they arrive on the market, a demand that Apple and its fellow tech companies will surely aim to meet sooner than IOTL. Lastly, an aforementioned professor at the University of Chicago Law School will have just received the news of a lifetime: that in another 2008, he was elected to be the next president of the United States. And due to the fact that millions of other people have also been made aware of this, cue armies of reporters knocking on Obama’s door and asking for an interview with him over how it feels to know that in another history, he became POTUS.
But that's all I have to share for now. What do others here think will ensue, now that people all over the world know what would've happened during the next decade, had ASB not intervened and let the timeline run its original course?
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
