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Authors in the 1632 series have a very optimistic view of capitalism. Also very little understanding of the German language, which is explained away by the crea

Authors in the 1632 series have a very optimistic view of capitalism. Also very little understanding of the German language, which is explained away by the creation of "Amideutsch". In the real world, "Amideutsch" wasn't nearly as bad and while Germans readily take up English words, they aren't that malleable when it comes to grammatical mistakes/changes. Especially adults probably wouldn't form that kind of creole and there aren't enough American children to make that much of a difference... The series helped me think more deeply about the history of Europe, also other parts of the World. There are now stories about China, India, the Americas, probably other places I am forgetting right now.

irishsultan 5y ago
> In the real world, "Amideutsch" wasn't nearly as bad In the real world Germans already were on a technological comparable level to the Americans. Not to mention that by the 1940s the German language had already been much more standardized than it would have been in 1632, one big reason mentioned in the books that boosted "Amideutsch" was the fact that there was no "German" language that all German immigrants to Grantville/Magdeburg could fall back to.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  I can easily read and understand most texts from that period. It does feel and sound "old". The grammar is pretty much identical. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish between a grammatical error and a grammatical "difference to the standard", for example in a dialect or even Creole language. But if it hurts a native speaker, it may very well be a mistake.
  - irishsultan 5y ago
    I don't entirely disagree on whether the German in the books is bad, I definitely notice issues when they have someone speaking in Dutch. It's just that I don't see how you could compare amideutsch (1632) with amideutsch (real world).
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      There are sometimes German words and phrases being used, wrongly. One of the lesser authors seemed to actually use google translator, and badly at that. To me as a native, it just has a feeling of wrongness. For the German language this is different than Dutch because Dutch has a less complicated morphology. One non-morphological example is that they would translate "uptime" as something like "aufzeit", while referencing it like a river. "zeitauf" would make sense as an adjective, but it hurts as a noun. The literal translation would be "Hochzeit" which unfortunately already means "wedding", but could be distinguished by context and pronunciation.
eru 5y ago
> Authors in the 1632 series have a very optimistic view of capitalism. Really? The series leans heavily pro-union, for example.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Does it, really? At least one uptime Union and its members play a big role, but I don't remember much about unionization efforts and major strikes. Nothing close to what happened in the industrialization age in Europe. Partly that is because some of the political gains from those efforts have already been leapfrogged downtime. My point is more around the entrepreneurship and how easy it is for the Americans (and sometimes downtimers) to make a fortune. Also how easy it is to retool whole industries and economies in a short time-frame. But hey, it's fiction...
  - ghaff 5y ago
    >retool whole industries and economies in a short time-frame It's a general pattern with this type of book. They're probably way too optimistic about what you could accomplish in the absence of refined raw materials, tools, etc. even if you had a lot of the basic knowledge in some form. Even if you weren't thrown in prison as a wizard or crazy person, making even WWI-level weaponry or antibiotics in a world without even the concept of standardized manufacturing processes would be challenging to put it mildly.
    - rmah 5y ago
      IMO this book does a rather good job of that. And the problems you describe is an ongoing theme throughout the series. For example, they learn that they cannot even make WW1 level weapons (they settle on a sort of hybrid civil-war era rifles + flintlocks for mass production because of problems making percussion caps, IIRC). And they learn quickly that they can't make antibiotics at more than small lot lab amounts. A lot of their retooling is cannibalizing parts from existing equipment for different uses.
      - 5y ago
Apocryphon 5y ago
The original book came out in 2000. Pre-9/11, pre-Enron, pre-financial crisis, most everyone had an optimistic view of capitalism. If this series had been started a few years later than it was, it would feel very different.

irishsultan 5y ago

> In the real world, "Amideutsch" wasn't nearly as bad In the real world Germans already were on a technological comparable level to the Americans. Not to mention that by the 1940s the German language had already been much more standardized than it would have been in 1632, one big reason mentioned in the books that boosted "Amideutsch" was the fact that there was no "German" language that all German immigrants to Grantville/Magdeburg could fall back to.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
I can easily read and understand most texts from that period. It does feel and sound "old". The grammar is pretty much identical. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish between a grammatical error and a grammatical "difference to the standard", for example in a dialect or even Creole language. But if it hurts a native speaker, it may very well be a mistake.
- irishsultan 5y ago
  I don't entirely disagree on whether the German in the books is bad, I definitely notice issues when they have someone speaking in Dutch. It's just that I don't see how you could compare amideutsch (1632) with amideutsch (real world).
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    There are sometimes German words and phrases being used, wrongly. One of the lesser authors seemed to actually use google translator, and badly at that. To me as a native, it just has a feeling of wrongness. For the German language this is different than Dutch because Dutch has a less complicated morphology. One non-morphological example is that they would translate "uptime" as something like "aufzeit", while referencing it like a river. "zeitauf" would make sense as an adjective, but it hurts as a noun. The literal translation would be "Hochzeit" which unfortunately already means "wedding", but could be distinguished by context and pronunciation.

eru 5y ago

> Authors in the 1632 series have a very optimistic view of capitalism. Really? The series leans heavily pro-union, for example.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
Does it, really? At least one uptime Union and its members play a big role, but I don't remember much about unionization efforts and major strikes. Nothing close to what happened in the industrialization age in Europe. Partly that is because some of the political gains from those efforts have already been leapfrogged downtime. My point is more around the entrepreneurship and how easy it is for the Americans (and sometimes downtimers) to make a fortune. Also how easy it is to retool whole industries and economies in a short time-frame. But hey, it's fiction...
- ghaff 5y ago
  >retool whole industries and economies in a short time-frame It's a general pattern with this type of book. They're probably way too optimistic about what you could accomplish in the absence of refined raw materials, tools, etc. even if you had a lot of the basic knowledge in some form. Even if you weren't thrown in prison as a wizard or crazy person, making even WWI-level weaponry or antibiotics in a world without even the concept of standardized manufacturing processes would be challenging to put it mildly.
  - rmah 5y ago
    IMO this book does a rather good job of that. And the problems you describe is an ongoing theme throughout the series. For example, they learn that they cannot even make WW1 level weapons (they settle on a sort of hybrid civil-war era rifles + flintlocks for mass production because of problems making percussion caps, IIRC). And they learn quickly that they can't make antibiotics at more than small lot lab amounts. A lot of their retooling is cannibalizing parts from existing equipment for different uses.
    - 5y ago

Apocryphon 5y ago

The original book came out in 2000. Pre-9/11, pre-Enron, pre-financial crisis, most everyone had an optimistic view of capitalism. If this series had been started a few years later than it was, it would feel very different.