How The Postman Almost Owned E-Mail

Thrawn writes "'Imagine that the U.S. Postal Service was in charge of e-mail. Sound absurd? It does to most people until they realize that it almost happened.' " I think the chance of it actually happening are massively overstated in this article, but it's still an interesting "What If". But about as likely, as say, The Confederacy ^? winning the US Civil War ^? .

Comments

Slavery is bad, mmkay?

[wackybrit]

as say, The Confederacy winning the US Civil War.

Yeah, that would have been awful. If it'd happened, slavery and racism would have continued to exist until well into the 1900s, and even now, blacks would suffer bad treatment at the hands of whites.

Thank God they lost and that all blacks were equal to whites in every way from 1870 onwards. Oh, hang on...

Re:Slavery is bad, mmkay?

[Cirvam]

I'm confused as to how the south wasn't the agressors even though they attacked first? Or am I mistaken and there was some small battle before that which the north attacked first?

Harry Turtledove

[colmore]

Speaking of alternate history and the confederacy, anyone interested in such things should check out Harry Turtledove's excellent alternate history series.

And since I can anticipate the off-topic discussion, as an educated southerner, I feel I should say that, yes while the South was fighting to preserve slavery, (it was, after all, the basis of their economy) the North was *not* fighting to abolish it(*). And if you read the constitution literally, the south had the right to secession. Having said that, it would have really sucked if the nation had been split in two, and I'm certainly glad President Lincoln was able to later use the war as an excuse to abolish slavery.

(*) in fact, two full regiments of union soldiers disbanded in protest after the emancipation proclimation, refusing to fight a war for slaves.