• Liz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    7 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
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      7 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
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          7 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
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 months ago
            1. I’m not the person down voting you, just FYI.

            2. 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
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              7 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.

              • Liz
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                7 months ago

                Relevant meme I just stumbled across…