Ask HN: Delay one major discovery by decades–what changes most?
Thought experiment: Pick one scientific or technological breakthrough and imagine it arrived meaningfully later. How does that change the trajectory of history?
To keep this interesting:
* Keep it plausible—think "transistors delayed 40 years," not "no electricity until 2100."
* Play along with it. Suspend disbelief enough to make it interesting.
* Focus on the _consequences_, not the missing invention. How does this alter the arc of history?
Progress often feels inevitable in hindsight, but it's really a sequence of lucky breaks. Change the timing of one, and everything downstream shifts. What's your parallel universe? I'll start: Nuclear fission delayed 25 years. WWII fought without atomic weapons. No decisive end to the war instantly cementing the US as the undisputed global superpower and ushering in Pax Americana. No mutually assured destruction fundamentally altering the calculus of major warfare. Yet the discovery was inevitable, and they start appearing in the 1960s under a different world order. What happens next?