What would world stuck at 1950s would be like?

I want to ask anyone here about what would world stuck in the 1950s would be like.

I mean around the world not only in America but around the world including the setting of this Elseworlds for my novel Fictionverse Project: World of the 50s from both culture & technology which set in Thailand

but the year of setting is 2022 AD

Edited by ohmmy on Sep 29th 2022 at 10:52:24 PM

Easy, grab a science fiction novel/comic from the 1950s and you see what people Expected the 2020s to be like.

Just 1950s with "marginal improvements to technology but no innovation. Traditional gender roles with "lip service" to the ideas of the civil rights (thwy became "popular i. The 60s 70s but early civil rights started in the 40s, at least vote for women in the us,)

I know this is an old post, and I don't know about Thailand, but anyway...

• Obvious biggie: Cold War is still ongoing, no collapse of the Soviet Union or Eastern Bloc, no reforms of China by Deng Xiaoping, &c.
• Something is needed to stop or limit technological growth. Perhaps the biggies might be the invention of the integrated circuit (which would be hard as several different men- Robert Noyce, Jack Kilby &c.- independently came up with similar ideas) and the female contraceptive pill. Without which you have bulky, discrete-transistor-based electronics on the one hand (no home computers, no smartphones, probably limits to space travel...) on the one hand, and limits to howequality between the sexes can be achieved, on the other.
• Get rid of the counterculture in the 1960s, somehow. Perhaps no war in Vietnam to fuel the anti war movement? No British Invasion (perhaps have the Beatles die in a place crash on the way to America?) (Perhaps do the same with some fold singers like bob Dylan etc.) Of course this could simply mean said counterculture takes a different form with different motivations, I don't know. (EDIT: Possibly more applicable to Western culture than Thai culture, though.)
• Assume most high-profile nuclear accidents, Chernobyl in particular, don't happen. Thus nuclear energy is still seen as the clean modern alternative to traditional, dirty old fossil fuels and there is less investment in renewables. (And maybe the Soviet Union doesn't collapse as quick.)
• Other thinks unique to your chosen setting the average Westerner doesn't know about.

In short, think of all the ways - culturally, economically, politically - that real world happenings of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and so on changed the status quo of the 1950s, and how they could be changed to maintain that status quo.

These are a few not very well informed ideas as to how you might get your alternate history, for one. How the 2020s of this world looks? Obviously you need to be somewhat inspired by existing retro-futuristic works and future predictions of or based on the 1950s, and adapt it to your chosen setting, its history and culture. What works in America obviously won't work in Thailand. Be mindful of how your alternate history has reached that point, though.

Edited by TheLyniezian on Apr 29th 2024 at 10:46:52 AM

I think if we're considering things like he civil rights movement in America, firstly, that's really only relevant to that part of the world- note the OP was originnaly wanting to talk about Thailand, a commmpletely different countrey, with its own very different culture and politics, no doubt. Secondly, I think the direction of travel in the 50s was definitely towards that of civil rights and desegregation, and it's hard to see that not continuing. Perhaps a turn towards conservatism in US politics, possibly involving the replacement of several Supreme Court justices? (With possible knock on effects for Roe vs. Wade down the line?)

Or have it even earlier, and you can get rid of Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson- and you still have motion picture censorship and the Code Era of Hollywood? (Of course, this is assuming unity of thought and other stereotypes around what constitutes American political conservatism...)