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submitted 6 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] zout@fedia.io 2 points 6 months ago

Columbus was the first catholic to land in America. Guess who wrote our history books.

[-] Liz@midwest.social 4 points 6 months ago

Bruh, it's because Columbus kicked off the age of colonization that led to the modern world. All other claims to the first discovery are either the initial settlement or largely inconsequential meetings between worlds.

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 1 points 6 months ago

Columbus did not in fact do that, nor is that "the reason" the modern world exists. Broken window fallacy, slaughtering people and generally doing colonialism is not an effective way to create technological progress.

[-] Liz@midwest.social 2 points 6 months ago

Sooorrrrta, extracting huge piles of wealth off the backs of your colonies is actually a decent way to up the standard of living back home and free up people for higher-tech.

That's not actually what I was arguing though, I was just pointing out that that's the obvious moment that completely changed the fate of the Americas, Europe, and Africa. None of those other contact events had any particular impact on the world. Colombus and the colonial era absolutely did. Good or bad wasn't really my point.

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 1 points 6 months ago

In doing so you sacrifice the wealth and progress of the people you are colonializing. Like I said, broken window fallacy. Slaughtering while cultures doesn't actually as a rule lead to an increase in human wealth or progress towards this future.

And "great person"ing Columbus who was more a bumbling symptom of the colonialist sentiment that already existed is silly. There would have been colonization without him. He's just the face that got to start genocides for Spain in the Americas first.

[-] Liz@midwest.social 1 points 6 months ago

I'm not the person down voting you, just FYI.
Again, I didn't say this was good, only that it's an obvious turning point in history that lead to the modern world. It wasn't inevitable that we got here from there, but we did, so that's the obvious start.

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 2 points 6 months ago

Beehaw doesn't have nor does it federate down votes, so don't worry. People can be as upset as they want but if they won't engage in discussion to voice it I'll never know.