The ARIN conference that I am attending has certain lunch tables reserved for specific topics, such as “whither IPv6” or “IANA/ICANN transition”. Frankly they leave me speechless, and I thought today we could set up the history table. There we could discuss a variety of larger issues.
Suggested topics include:
- Could the battle of Gettysburg in 1865 have been won by the Confederacy on the second day?
- What were the principal causes of the collapse of the western Roman Empire after AD400? Which of climate change, tax exhaustion, pestilence, and barbarian invasion was the most decisive?
- Will the development of shale oil fracking liberate the US from dependence on foreign offshore oil?
- Did the Reformation make the Thirty Year’s War inevitable or could the War have been avoided?
- Could the Latin (western) Roman Empire have been saved from collapse? What were those conditions?
- Were there any realistic conditions under which the USA might have failed to win WW2?
- The world has been experiencing a collapse of human fertility since about 1965. By 2100 there will be several billion fewer people that there are today. Discuss the implications for trade, capital formation, investment, peace and war.
There were no takers for this useful idea. But I shall try again.