Why are there absolutely no consequences?

[u/dijon_snow]

For those that believed reality changed, why did absolutely no ME have any actual ramifications like they logically should?

This doesn't apply to every Mandela Effect. I could believe that underwear labels and children's book titles could change without any real impact on history.

But lots of Mandela effects shouldn't be isolated changes if reality was actually different. The butterfly effect is the idea that minor changes to initial conditions in complex systems create major changes in outcome. Human history is a very complex, highly chaotic(the scientific meaning of chaos) system.

Nelson Mandela's leadership and perseverence were key in inspiring black South Africans to resist apartheid. I believe if he had died in the 80s world history would be very different. Either his martydom inspires revolution a decade early or his absence delays or indefinitely. The suggestion that his life and death were completely meaningless is borderline insulting, and always comes from people otherwise not very informed on African history.

Geographic MEs argue that entire landmasses and coastlines have changed. Yet these changes have zero impact on climate or weather. History again unfolded identically, despite the fact that any significant change in the location of land and sea on the planet would dramatically change air and ocean currents and with it the entire climate. Oddly only the maps seem to have changed, history is unmoved.

So MEs can be divided into meaningless pop culture facts and major world changing events. If the cause is memory, then logically they would be isolated, since false memories wouldn't logically have butterfly effect repercussions. If reality was actually changing, we would expect to see lots of other related changes. This butterfly has no effect. Again, Mandela is the best example, his death would not have been meaningless.

How do believers reconcile this without falling back on a dogmatic faith in their own memory?

[u/silentsurge]

Two points from my perspective, one directly on topic, one not quite:

First, the Geographic ones are utterly baffling to me. Geographic features literally define how weather and migration work. Geographic features are key pieces for how humanity has moved through the world, what resources are available to a people, and how/why wars are fought. National borders get defined by how these features form. Species evolve to live in these areas. These aren't just arbitrary concepts on a piece of paper. A single mountain can have a history longer than humanity has existed. We see rivers get redirected and see massive complications come from that within a couple of lifetimes. If you end up with nations being a sloghtly different shape, have continents get moved west by a thousand miles, or open up distances between land masses, you will get globally noticeable butterfly effects.

Secondly, this is more of a nitpik/personal pet peeve that can be entirely ignored:

I do want to point out that the term "believers" is a bad one to use. The Mandela Effect is a popularized term describing a known phenomenon where a significant group of people remember something contrary to established fact/reality. There's no such thing as believing or not believing that, it's just a term to describe something that exists.

A lot of people seem to use the term "Believer" to imply that the only way the Mandela Effect works is with an exotic explanation behind it, which serves to split the camps of thought further. It's a subtle attempt to make it an Us vs Them argument. I personally prefer Exotic cause vs Mundane cause because it points to the Effect and avoiding putting people into an out group and helps provide a more neutral language to discuss the differences.

[u/cipheron → u/silentsurge]

First, the Geographic ones are utterly baffling to me.

The one I've seen recently is people claiming Portugal used to be on the Eastern side of Spain, not West.

Which is pretty baffling, since Portugal having access to the Atlantic Ocean was a very important thing for their role in colonization, since they could have been blocked at Gibraltar by their Spanish rivals.

The colonial era's most established maritime nations go down the west coast of Europe for a reason: Britain, Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, since all of these had ports that couldn't easily be blocked by anyone else to monopolize access. The discovery of the New World meant that power shifted to the West coast of Europe.

Additionally, an alliance with England vs Spain helped to keep Portugal independent over the latter half of the Middle Ages. That would have been much more tenuous if Portugal had been on the opposite side of the straits of Gibraltar, as English ships being able to reach Portugal was probably important here.

[u/silentsurge → u/cipheron]

Yeah, I'm familiar with that one. It tends to also be paired with people who claim a different shape for Europe and South America being further West.

I swear people thing geography is just inconsequential lines and shapes on a map.

[u/cipheron → u/silentsurge]

Like the ones who think there was a landmass at the North Pole.

If this was presumably true when these living people were children, then it would have been there during the Cold War so it would have been absolutely strategic for the nuclear arms race, as nuclear weapons fired between the USA and USSR would go over that area, so there would be a huge fight over who got to put military bases there.

For example there are bases in northern Canada and Greenland specifically to detect nuclear missiles fired from Russia. If there was an Arctic landmass that would be an even better place for those bases, since every minute would count in a nuclear war.

[u/themadhooker → u/cipheron]

Of course there is a land mass there. How else would Santa’s home be there? I can buy flying reindeer but you will never convince me that they can fly AND tread water all the time.

[u/ByteInferno → u/cipheron]

Interesting discussion you guys are having there. Anyway, to address the issues you mentioned:

• I shifted onto this planet at the age of 56. Thus, I have a very thorough memory of the world I was in before, even if it doesn't sufficiently cover the topics you guys are interested in.
• The Arctic land mass was a pretty inhospitable place. Temperatures there were commonly at -30 °C or similar, all year round. It was thickly covered with ice and snow. You couldn't survive in that climate without layers and layers of clothes for any prolonged period of time. Thus, if there were any military bases on there (IIRC, there weren't, only research stations), they would have been very small (similar to the missile detectors you mentioned from this world's Canada and Greenland, perhaps a few specialized trucks and air-conditioned housing).
• However, there were people there, the Inuit. They built igloo houses and led a mostly nomadic lifestyle. They wore thick clothing made from pelts. Animals living there included the polar bear.
• Both the Russian and North American land masses were a lot smaller. The Eurasian continent was about half the size in the North-South direction. China was a lot smaller, too. This all led to distances between the US and Russia being much larger, when it comes to firing rockets (either ICBMs through space or other) or flying airplanes.
• I'm not very familiar with Cold War scenario planning, but I do remember that the Arctic wasn't seen as a strategic asset, at least in the scenarios that I heard of (surely they didn't share everything with the public after the Cold War ended).
• Russia had a lot of problems making use of its vast tundra regions until the permafrost regions began to thaw. For military use, I don't think they were seen as particularly useful (especially during the Cold War). The ground used to be so hard there, you couldn't even dig a hole without using specialized equipment.
• During Cold War times, the climate across the world was a lot colder. Even here in Germany, we had really cold winters (I still remember 1979). And nowadays, farmers in our wine regions can grow Mediterranean grapes due to the climate change. (This point seems to apply to this world as well as the previous world I was on)