I think you are completely overlooking a significant chunk of impact. Suppose that technologies A and B are similar. The techs act as substitutes, say several different designs of engine or something. And if everyone is using tech X, the accumulated experience makes X the better choice. This gives long term control of which path tech goes down to a “who got there first”. Could electric cars have taken off before petrol if someone else had led that parade.
There are plenty of substances that increase fuel octane, so if someone else had led the parade around a substance that didn’t contain lead, a lot of brain damage could have been prevented.
If some non military group had lead nuclear energy, would reactors use thorium instead of uranium?
Yeah, that sure does seem like a way it should be possible to have a lot of counterfactual impact. I’d be curious for any historical examples of people doing that both successfully and intentionally.
I think you are completely overlooking a significant chunk of impact. Suppose that technologies A and B are similar. The techs act as substitutes, say several different designs of engine or something. And if everyone is using tech X, the accumulated experience makes X the better choice. This gives long term control of which path tech goes down to a “who got there first”. Could electric cars have taken off before petrol if someone else had led that parade.
There are plenty of substances that increase fuel octane, so if someone else had led the parade around a substance that didn’t contain lead, a lot of brain damage could have been prevented.
If some non military group had lead nuclear energy, would reactors use thorium instead of uranium?
Yeah, that sure does seem like a way it should be possible to have a lot of counterfactual impact. I’d be curious for any historical examples of people doing that both successfully and intentionally.