AHC: Maximum scientific and technological progress possible in the 20th century

[Phalamus]

So, once in a while we get a thread about the possibilities and implications of certain scientific discoveries or technological developments happening earlier than IOTL. However, I feel that a significant draw back of these threads is that nothing in science exists in isolation, so by considering only the implications of a single development, you can never take it very far unless you also postulate that a number of other developments also happened earlier, and discussing those may lead you to derailing the thread.

So here I propose a different. Your challenge is to re-engineer, to the best of your ability, the entirety of 20th century human history for maxium scientific and technological development.

My own idea of what such a timeline could be like is something along these lines:

• No world wars and no hegemonic superpowers. The world is multipolar and permanently locked in a multi-sided cold war state. Alliances are relatively fluid and there are periods of tension and rapproachment between all major powers, allowing a good deal of international cooperation to happen despite the existance of strong international rivalries. Countries compete with each other in multiple ways, but the most important one ends up being scientific and technological achievement, likein the OTL space race but extended to other fields as well. This way we get the best of both worlds for technological development. The government investments brought by war and the stability, commercialism and free flow of ideas allowed only by peace.
• Without WWI, the Czochralski process, once discovered, spreads beyond Germany much quicker than IOTL. Also, without the war, scientists have more time and resources to devote to "trifling" matters such as crystal growing, so they start improving on the process earlier. A few years down the road, sillicon crystals somehow conveniently become a fad in jewellery and this stimulates even more interest. The result is that the process is perfected much earlier, allowing for the production of high-purity semiconductor materials by the 1920s or 30s (around the same time as the transistor was first conceptualized). So by the 1930s we're more or less where we were in OTL's 50s in terms of electronics. Assuming that something like Alan Turing's work gets commissioned by some country as part of the multi-sided Cold War's arms race, that leads us to a much earlier computer revolution.
• In biochemistry, vitalism gets discredited more quickly (even though people had all of the clues by the late 19th century, it took a very long time for it to die...) leading people to look for chemical explanations for life phenomena sooner.
• As a result of the aforementioned larger interests is crystal growing in general, X-ray crystallography is developed earlier, allowing a "lucky" discovery of DNA a few years later and for earlier structual studies on proteins.
• As a result of a generally more science-focused world, religiosity declines faster, lessening the opposition to stem-cells research and cloning.
• The CRISPR/Cas9 system is discovered earlier and its potential for genetic engineering is identified more quickly. We're talking about fairly accidental discoveries here, so this is good stuff to work with.

This is of course, just a very rough sketch and a collection of half-baked ideas, but hey, it's a start .

I'm excited to hear other people's thoughts on the subject.

 

[DocJamore]

How exactly do patents and copyright work in this timeline? No World Wars means power blocs have no reason to cooperate with each other. Intellectual property theft would be rampant and a critical component of developing countries economies. Too much IP theft will slow down innovation as what's the point of spending money and time developing new technologies if they get stolen without the credit to their creators?

 

[Workable Goblin]

How exactly do patents and copyright work in this timeline? No World Wars means power blocs have no reason to cooperate with each other. Intellectual property theft would be rampant and a critical component of developing countries economies.

That doesn't match actual history, where Britain, France, and Germany all cooperated in the creation of the Berne Convention (i.e., the harmonization of copyright laws, including reciprocal recognition of copyright) in 1886 (!), just sixteen years after the Franco-Prussian War. One of those three, admittedly, was rather lax in following the Berne Convention--Britain. France and Germany apparently didn't see any problem cooperating on the IP issue, probably because it benefited both of them as highly developed, cutting-edge countries with large creative and scientific sectors. The Berne Convention grew slowly but steadily over the new century or so, with some developed countries (such as Japan) joining relatively early, and others (such as the United States) joining much later.

So, the most likely outcome is that it looks a lot like OTL. Initially there is, more or less, a "Continental" bloc of France and Germany (and sort of Britain), a "US" bloc of the U.S. and some South American countries, and a number of other countries with their own idiosyncratic policies. Most likely over time these will slowly converge into one or two blocs that will ultimately merge because the developed countries will perceive a bigger benefit from common copyright and patent policies for their domestic industries than from disjoint policies, especially when looking at forcing the rest of the world into adopting the same policies.

Too much IP theft will slow down innovation as what's the point of spending money and time developing new technologies if they get stolen without the credit to their creators?

One could say, on the other hand, that lack of copyright and patent protections would mean a much easier time for inventors, scientists, and engineers to access the work of other inventors, scientists, and engineers, and extend, modify, or adapt it in new and creative ways (and likewise for artists, writers, and similar professionals). In terms of developing nations, it also means that they have much easier and cheaper access to new technologies and industries, instead of having to divert sometimes large sums of money into supporting industries in the developed worlds, allowing them to develop more easily. Thus, making IP nearly impossible to enforce globally will greatly speed up innovation and development by removing a burdensome tax on would-be users of IP.

In fact, although there seems to be some benefit from copyright and patent laws to creation, it's unclear just how large it is and it seems possible that existing IP laws are far too stringent and burdensome, with excessively long copyright and patent protection durations and overly restrictive burdens on consumers. Certainly in practice they are honored more in the breach by many end-users. So there is a definite possibility that this will create a pressure towards shorter terms and fewer restrictions that could, in fact, improve creativity and innovation.

 

[Phalamus]

Yeah, there is definitely a net benefit in a slightly laxer/more flexible enforcement of copyrights. A situation where people are still allowed to profit significantly from being the first to invent something but not to hold such a strong monopoly on their invention as to prevent other people from building on it for decades.

I also don't see how the absence of World Wars would lead to no international cooperation. Most likely, we wouldn't see the formation of any League of Nations/United Nations type organizations, but the conventions system of international arbitration that grew during the 19th century would remain in force. Countries would get together from time to time to discuss particular topics of contention, with international law largely resulting from those meetings. Copyright law uniformisation between is likely to happen on a large, as it was already happening in the 19th century. And that is only one of many forms of international cooperation that were happening and would continue to happen.