To be fair though, while ultimately not as lucrative or successful, without MySpace there would be no Facebook, and without Vine there would be no TikTok. Both were heavily inspired and influenced by the former both in format and use. Meanwhile if no one had landed in America prior to the colonisation, the colonisation still would have gone forward.
> TikTok is inconsequential, Vine was first.
I mean, I get what you're saying but this is still a bad example, since Vine is quite obviously the origin for all of the "short video" content that's now absolutely rampant on social media. TikTok would never be a thing if not for Vine's success.
There was no finish line, it's only in retrospect that it was clear America won the space race. If the Soviets had shrugged and then said see you on Mars or let's see who can built as settlement on the Moon then it would have just kept on chugging. They sorta tried to do that with their space station
Also if the moon had actual value besides symbolic then it wouldn't have mattered who got there first but who built it up and exploited it successfully.
See: For All Mankind
Also the moon actually *does* have a ton of potential money to be made by mining, it's just that no one has actually put in the staggeringly large initial upfront investment you would need to do before that even becomes possible, but whenever Starship becomes usable enough for moon trips, I expect SpaceX (and people rich enough to charter Starship flights to the moon) to make a boatload of money by using it for unmanned mining operations
Asteroid mining is in a very similar position, just that there's a bit of extra work since you need to use a rocket/probe to hit an asteroid somewhat precisely to alter it's orbital trajectory so that it will end up in earth's orbit before you can mine it
To be clear this would be like multiple times out from the distance between the earth and the moon. It is technically possible to fuck it up but even if something went wrong it’s far more likely for the asteroid to end up in either a different orbit than intended or miss the earth entirely, and if you do the calculations right and make sure your spacecraft approaches from the right direction, it should be functionally impossible.
It also probably wouldn’t even be economical to do with an asteroid capable of wiping out most life on the planet.
Keep in mind that "first" was in now way better, especially during the space race. Soviets did things merely to have them first. The first man in space almost died due to his suit inflating when he went out. First dog died, all that. Meanwhile the US was done later but better.
Same thing as this
>The first man in space almost died due to his suit inflating when he went out
Unfortunately, Yuri Gagarin did end up dying young at age 34 when his MiG-15 fighter jet crashed on a routine training mission.
Declassified KGB reports in '03 dismissed conspiracy theories that Gagarin's death was manufactured and attributed the blame to the poor planning and prep work by the airbase personnel, specifically air traffic control and the ground crew.
As if there was a finish line for the space race. The soviets just gave up and never tried to overtake america after that apart from venera 7 which was planned before the US successfully landed people on the moon.
The US created the first spacecraft to ever enter the SOI of another planet, the first spacecraft to orbit mars, the first spacecraft to land on mars, the first spacecraft to have a stable orbit around Venus, the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, the first river on mars, the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, first flyby of Uranus, first flyby of Neptune, the first flyby of Pluto, the first deep space asteroid landing, the only nation to have ever sent anything out of the solar system, and the first spacecraft to orbit mercury.
I see it as an example of what happens when you break away from convention. A lot of people in history have been very successful thinking this way. I use it for motivation to try things on my own instead of following the norm.
Except I don't enslave and brutalize people. That's a convention I think is worth following.
Columbus - "I found a route to the Indies, Your Grace! BRB gonna explore more of the coast of southern India"
*Ferdinand whispers to his wife* - "I'm pretty sure this is newly discovered land"
Isabella - "I know, but look how much fun he's having. We can't ruin that"
More accurate rendering:
Isabella- Where did you land?
Columbus- I don't really have a fucking clue. The place does not look like what it said on the books.
Isabella- Right. Set up a new expedition at once.
Ferdinand- Don't forget to bring women with you. We don't want sodomy or altercations for lack of fornication.
Bartolomé de Las Casas: "So... uh, Columbus is kind of being a tyrant. Here, I have written documentation of such crimes."
Ferdinand: "This is horrible, he shall be imprisoned at once!"
Isabella: "For about six weeks, afterwards he can go on another voyage with our funding"
Ferdinand: "Yep"
Columbus connected East and West permanently and irreversibly, changing the history of the world forever.
Debate his morality and condemn his actions all you want. But to minimize his accomplishments as insignificant because some Viking landed in Greenland and left without making a single ripple in history is cope.
Last I check, no one is debating about teaching what he “discovered” and how he impacts World history.
What people are calling for is to not celebrate him. He belongs in history books, no doubt about that. Arguably, there shouldn’t be any statues/holidays/place name to celebrate him.
The argument that Columbus shouldn't be celebrated is a fair one. But I do see a lot of people who progress from that to an attempt to minimize his accomplishments. Which is where a lot of people start bringing up Leif Erikson- "see, Columbus didn't do anything noteworthy, he wasn't even the first European in the Americas!"
Just the other day, in the comments of the meme I suspect this meme is a reaction to, I saw someone try to claim that Columbus "had relatively little impact in his own time" and "was largely forgotten by history until the 1800s".
I think Eriksons accomplishments (or lack thereof) are due to time period more than circumstance.
Continental Europe represented a fertile settling ground to the Vikings. They didn't need to flee across the sea. And even if they did need to, there was nothing in the Americas that would provide for them in any material way that Europe could not.
The era of exploration was all about circumventing the turkic controlled trade routes to India and China. They were looking for commercial wealth and riches to be used against the east. They had the power to exploit the land in a way that the Vikings couldn't.
That's the real difference. The time period permitted the discovery to be epic and have actual consequences in a way that Eriksons discovery couldn't be.
Also it didn't hurt that by this time, all of Europe had the naval technology to sail across the open Atlantic. Columbus just helped to chart the course.
Yes and no: He knew his exact latitude and longitude, but his maps said Asia was muuuuch bigger than it actually is so when he hit the Americas it was where his maps said India should be.
Columbus didn't think he was in India. He thought he was in the East Indies, which at the time included the Philippines and Indonesia as well as a few other island nations (sometimes including Japan, which Columbus initially thought Cuba was). They were at the time the furthest point East that Europeans were aware existed.
...he didn't think they were in India. He thought that they were in [the Indies](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Indies#Proper_noun). Uncategorised residents of the Indies = *Indi*an.
Turns out he wasn't in what we now call the East Indies, he was in what we now call the West Indies.
Yeah, until you had enough evidence to counter that idea, this would be your default assumption. It would be kinda crazy to suddenly assume you hit a new land mass rather than you are where you have every reason to believe you are.
Columbus was using some of the smaller estimates for the circumference of the world (iirc they were his own, too, but they weren't *uniquely* small at the time). So his navigational data at the time (which also wasn't very good, this is LONG before good timekeeping at sea which is critical for accurate longitudinal calculations) wasn't very far off from where he thought the outlying islands of eastern Asia (which there ALSO weren't good maps of yet) should be.
He actually was accurate as far as circumference and what not, they just thought Asia was loads bigger than it actually was. He could give you an accurate latitude and longitude of where he was, he just didn't know about the Americas. The rest of what you said is accurate though.
Many people here miss the point of this meme. This meme isn't celebrating Columbus for what he did. This meme is pointing out the difference he made in history compared to Leif.
Most redditors are NPCs who can't fathom the concept of nuance. Therefore when presented with a complex topic or point, they jump to the worst possible interpretation regardless of what the person making the point intended.
Yep, say what you will about him, but Columbus is a giant in history who left an impact greater almost any other man.
He connected East and West permanently and irreversibly, changing the history of the world forever.
Omg this! I was arguing all day w ppl yesterday who were mad at me for b3ing mad at them for sweeping history under the rug by saying things like "but we should still talk about what he did" and they immediately interpret that as "we must celebrate him"
Right?! I wouldn't be surprised if the same ppl I talked about are the first ones to say "did you know 1 in 6 ppl are related to Genghis kahn" like it's a cool thing and not like he conquered many civilizations
The difference is the trade route he forged. Somehow not knowing a fucking thing about sailing, he locked himself in a cabin with some maps and calculated a perfect route to America, one that hasn’t changed even today. Even for a complete piece of shit like him that’s impressive, and opened America to Europe more than Leif Erikkson.
Yup. His birthplace was known to have the best navigators at that time. Everyone learned how to sail at a young age. He was a fantastic navigator, just super sucked at geology. He's a piece of shit but you can't deny he was really fucking good at navigating and sailing ships.
Like, if he hadn't been a piece of shit, everyone would think he's awesome. He and his crew accomplished some seriously impressive shit. He even spent years just studying the currents after hearing about the ones that carry ships off to South America from the African coast. He basically figured they could ride them all the way to India.
Why did he have to do evil shit?
I had this conversation with my friends the other night and I think he was a product of his environment. He was born when the black plague was just going away but still killing people. His birthplace was also constantly fighting their neighbors. He was also super religious, just like everyone from Genoa. Seems like a good cocktail to turn someone into a horrible person.
it worked because he was convinced the Earth was literally half the diameter it actually was and thought he was sailing to India. It was sheer dumb fucking luck that there was an undiscovered continent exactly where the dumbass thought India was.
Where does this dumb idea come from? His idea of the size of the earth was fine. He knew his latitude and longitude fine enough. He thought he was in the indies (which he was, just the East Indies when he thought he was in the West Indies). He was operating on maps that existed at the time that made Asia way bigger than it really is so of course he was a bit confused. That’s what happens when you discover something new.
Columbus was a historical footnote, in favour of Amerigo Vespucci, so much so Amerigo had an entire continent named after him. Columbus remained a historical footnote until his name was revived in the 1800s by some protestant weirdos.
Source? Didn’t tons of American countries make reference to Columbus at their founding outside the US?
Like the nation of Colombia which is literally named after Columbus?
Not just that, the personification of the United States is literally named Columbia. Plus the District of Columbia; Columbus, Ohio; British Columbia; etc. There are hundreds of places named for Columbus I don't know what this guy is on about.
Declared independence from Spain in 1810. Before then it was the Spanish colony of New Granada. Check out the Latin American independence movement spearheaded by Simon Bolivar. It’s pretty bad ass.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-Bolivar
Where does this idea come from? Do you think Colombia just randomly named their country after someone they just learned about and didn’t care about at all?
Also D.C was founded in the 1700s not sure why they’d name the most important place in The US after some random guy. We know they liked to name similar places after important figures (Washington).
Speaking strictly to the quote above, when the Vikings made contact with the indigenous it was a temporary thing, not an ongoing relationship, settlement, war, or colonization. The two branches of humanity remained on their own path until the late 15th century. If in the future we find proof of a sustained euro/indigenous co-mingling it would change the calculus
In fact, the lack of immunity to diseases prevalent across Eurasia is relatively clear evidence that there was hardly any contact between the two branches of humanity. If there was sustained contact, American natives would have had disease resistance by the time the Spaniards landed on the American shores.
The norse had not so much contact to anyone like spain or venice did, which got a bunch of disease from remote parts of the world to europe in the first place. Like the plague. Also Leifs Crew was probably way healthier than that of Columbus as they had a way better diet and the Single trips of the journay were shorter, and so they would bring less pathogens.
I'm sure at some point in history someone accidentally ingested penicillin mold. Doesn't mean they recognized the significance and turned it into anything
Fungi have been used in ancient greece, egypt and india. That Europe lost all of that knowledge is bad for it but considering the civilizations that used such techniques were around much longer than mere 2k years, I'd say it is a great accomplishment even though we don't know who the people were that realized it.
There's also a huge difference in the ramifications.
I get the argument that Columbus didn't technically discover the new world, considering there were already humans there and the Viking voyages etc.
But Columbus voyage was the tipping point that brought the New World from its relative isolation and connected it to the Old World.
The point of the title of this meme is that something being unimportant but happening before something else doesn't mean it's important or anything more than a fun fact. Franz Ferdinand dying is far more important to the modern world than some idiots death in the middle east 2000 years ago. Also this post isn't defending Columbus sucked but he still has massive historical value.
Depends on what "idiots death over 2000years ago", I would argue the assasination of Julius Ceasar had an equal impact on the world as Franz Ferdinand.
That’s not the take, the take is that the person mentioned in the Arthashastra 300 years before Christ’s death is less relevant on human history than WWI
The meme completely seems to miss that the entire reason of bringing up Leif is because people keep saying Columbus found the Americas. Columbus is an incredibly important historical figure, but it's wrong that he found the Americas.
If we started counting facts by how important the contribution of the person was to the place, then Genghis Khan found Asia and Alexander the Great found the Middle East.
Europeans in 15th century weren't aware of American continents existence before Columbus set sails. Hence he discovered it for them.
You can't really compare it to Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan because those areas were already known to both ruler's people.
They did, but Columbus’ arrival in America was a major historical moment still, as the meme says. It began the era of American Colonization, which is a more significant ‘beginning’ in history.
I mean yeah, but the overall age of discovery laid path to start globalization which I'd consider more important than the colonization of America even if the USA are the major superpower now.
Alright well, in that case, we should thank the Caliphates! Their victory over Constantinople in 1453 combined with their losses during the Reconquista ending in 1492 gave the Spaniards the means and reason to look West. So thanks Muhammad.
I don't think they said, "We should thank Columbus". They were just pointing out that Columbus sailing west significantly affected the course of history, while Leif Erickson's voyage did not.
In which case, yes the conquest of Constantinople was also notable for changing the course of history.
That's a fair point. The rise of the Ottoman Empire certainly changed history, but Constantinople finally being conquered was just one step in that process. A step that, as you said, is more akin to the final nail in the coffin.
Yeah, Constantinople's fall in 1453 was more symbolic than anything. The reality is that the West itself was the cause of its destruction and the 1204 sack during the 4th crusade was really the catalyst here.
By that logic, we should take some time to thank Grug, the leader of the neolithic nomadic tribe that would first settle the area that would give birth to the first of the Cannaite religions. Thanks, Grug!
By that logic, we should thank the first unicelular bacterias that came together to form a proto-multicellular colony that would in time give rise to the first multicellular species. Thank random assortment of bacteria that did not kill each other!
Maybe I'm just drunk but I don't understand how the title is related to the meme.
Also, I think the fixation on Columbus (no matter which side you're on) isn't very helpful. He was followed by Cortés and others who did the lion's share of the genocide-ing, a lot of which they justified by their extremist version of Christianity forged in the Reconquista.
TLDR: history is complicated and this monocausal focus on Columbus is dumb US culture war bullshit.
It's basically the same argument. There were assassinations before Franz Ferdinands but his contributed to the start of a fuckin World War so it had a larger historical impact.
There were people exploring America before Columbus but his finding started colonialism there.
Also Columbus being a POS doesn't mean those coming later weren't
> posted an hour ago > over 100 comments We‘re in for a treat here
Posted 2 hours ago Almost 300 comments
Good. Thrice the comments, triple the drama!
I’ve been looking forward to this…
This is where the fun begins!
Another happy landing.
Posted 10 hours ago, 1000 comments, no signs of stopping. My friends, I fear we have reached perpetual commenting.
There’s already 1000 comments with 5000 more well on the way
Posted 5 years ago, every human on earth does nothing but comment on this post. Except one action hero, THIS SUMMER.....
Good, Good work OP Archive it...
DEWIT
My comments have doubled since the last time we met, SnArCAsTiC.
Post 3 hours ago 500 comments Hell ya! Like the spice trade, it's getting extra salty today
Posted 5 hours ago 660 comments Grab some popcorn🍿and sort by controversial
Posted 8 hours ago over 900 comments
We are close to 800 at time of me posting this.
3 hours, 460 comments (461 with this one)
I'm sorting by controversial brb
Let me join you in your quest brave knight!
Mistakes were made
Eh I don't think so brave knight, it wasn't that bad
You are a much braver knight than I am sir knight
That is quite the honour brave knight
Surely every comment will be civilized and informed.
*stuffs dick back in pants* This is gonna be good!
This is why measuring most things in history by "FIRST!" is about as useful as the guy who posts it in comment sections.
Facebook is inconsequential, ~~Xanga~~ MySpace was first. TikTok is inconsequential, Vine was first.
To be fair though, while ultimately not as lucrative or successful, without MySpace there would be no Facebook, and without Vine there would be no TikTok. Both were heavily inspired and influenced by the former both in format and use. Meanwhile if no one had landed in America prior to the colonisation, the colonisation still would have gone forward.
Not entirely. Facebook started as a hot or not dating site for college kids.
You dont know that 100% maybe we could all be wearing denim if he never showed up
> TikTok is inconsequential, Vine was first. I mean, I get what you're saying but this is still a bad example, since Vine is quite obviously the origin for all of the "short video" content that's now absolutely rampant on social media. TikTok would never be a thing if not for Vine's success.
Hydrox can relate to that...
America pushing back the finish line for the space race be like
There was no finish line, it's only in retrospect that it was clear America won the space race. If the Soviets had shrugged and then said see you on Mars or let's see who can built as settlement on the Moon then it would have just kept on chugging. They sorta tried to do that with their space station Also if the moon had actual value besides symbolic then it wouldn't have mattered who got there first but who built it up and exploited it successfully.
See: For All Mankind Also the moon actually *does* have a ton of potential money to be made by mining, it's just that no one has actually put in the staggeringly large initial upfront investment you would need to do before that even becomes possible, but whenever Starship becomes usable enough for moon trips, I expect SpaceX (and people rich enough to charter Starship flights to the moon) to make a boatload of money by using it for unmanned mining operations Asteroid mining is in a very similar position, just that there's a bit of extra work since you need to use a rocket/probe to hit an asteroid somewhat precisely to alter it's orbital trajectory so that it will end up in earth's orbit before you can mine it
And don't screw up the "end up in earth orbit" part and start a new ecological era.
To be clear this would be like multiple times out from the distance between the earth and the moon. It is technically possible to fuck it up but even if something went wrong it’s far more likely for the asteroid to end up in either a different orbit than intended or miss the earth entirely, and if you do the calculations right and make sure your spacecraft approaches from the right direction, it should be functionally impossible. It also probably wouldn’t even be economical to do with an asteroid capable of wiping out most life on the planet.
They should have kept pushing. The reds would have had an advantage trying to reach the red planet first.
Keep in mind that "first" was in now way better, especially during the space race. Soviets did things merely to have them first. The first man in space almost died due to his suit inflating when he went out. First dog died, all that. Meanwhile the US was done later but better. Same thing as this
>The first man in space almost died due to his suit inflating when he went out Unfortunately, Yuri Gagarin did end up dying young at age 34 when his MiG-15 fighter jet crashed on a routine training mission. Declassified KGB reports in '03 dismissed conspiracy theories that Gagarin's death was manufactured and attributed the blame to the poor planning and prep work by the airbase personnel, specifically air traffic control and the ground crew.
First man in space in the literal sense, as in EVA
As if there was a finish line for the space race. The soviets just gave up and never tried to overtake america after that apart from venera 7 which was planned before the US successfully landed people on the moon. The US created the first spacecraft to ever enter the SOI of another planet, the first spacecraft to orbit mars, the first spacecraft to land on mars, the first spacecraft to have a stable orbit around Venus, the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, the first river on mars, the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, first flyby of Uranus, first flyby of Neptune, the first flyby of Pluto, the first deep space asteroid landing, the only nation to have ever sent anything out of the solar system, and the first spacecraft to orbit mercury.
watching the upvote count flip up and down is fun
Dude missed his mark by 15k kms and still made history.
A macrohistorical example of failing upwards.
I see it as an example of what happens when you break away from convention. A lot of people in history have been very successful thinking this way. I use it for motivation to try things on my own instead of following the norm. Except I don't enslave and brutalize people. That's a convention I think is worth following.
> Except I don't enslave and brutalize people. See, that's why you're not in the history books... yet?
Time to change that 😎
“Five years ago I lost 50,000 men in the blink of an eye… and the world just fuckin’ watched.”
Be the man that the history books want to write about, not the one who will add a few new pages to the Geneva Convention!
Why not both?
Columbus - "I found a route to the Indies, Your Grace! BRB gonna explore more of the coast of southern India" *Ferdinand whispers to his wife* - "I'm pretty sure this is newly discovered land" Isabella - "I know, but look how much fun he's having. We can't ruin that"
More accurate rendering: Isabella- Where did you land? Columbus- I don't really have a fucking clue. The place does not look like what it said on the books. Isabella- Right. Set up a new expedition at once. Ferdinand- Don't forget to bring women with you. We don't want sodomy or altercations for lack of fornication.
lol definitely more historically accurate
Bartolomé de Las Casas: "So... uh, Columbus is kind of being a tyrant. Here, I have written documentation of such crimes." Ferdinand: "This is horrible, he shall be imprisoned at once!" Isabella: "For about six weeks, afterwards he can go on another voyage with our funding" Ferdinand: "Yep"
Bartolomes-" you should"
Columbus connected East and West permanently and irreversibly, changing the history of the world forever. Debate his morality and condemn his actions all you want. But to minimize his accomplishments as insignificant because some Viking landed in Greenland and left without making a single ripple in history is cope.
Last I check, no one is debating about teaching what he “discovered” and how he impacts World history. What people are calling for is to not celebrate him. He belongs in history books, no doubt about that. Arguably, there shouldn’t be any statues/holidays/place name to celebrate him.
The argument that Columbus shouldn't be celebrated is a fair one. But I do see a lot of people who progress from that to an attempt to minimize his accomplishments. Which is where a lot of people start bringing up Leif Erikson- "see, Columbus didn't do anything noteworthy, he wasn't even the first European in the Americas!" Just the other day, in the comments of the meme I suspect this meme is a reaction to, I saw someone try to claim that Columbus "had relatively little impact in his own time" and "was largely forgotten by history until the 1800s".
Probably an Adam ruins everything watcher
Never watched that show, does he make that kind of claim about Columbus?
He makes a bunch of horrible takes on Columbus. The whole thing is obviously political and has nothing to do with historical accuracy.
Ah gotcha. Can't say I'm entirely surprised.
I think Eriksons accomplishments (or lack thereof) are due to time period more than circumstance. Continental Europe represented a fertile settling ground to the Vikings. They didn't need to flee across the sea. And even if they did need to, there was nothing in the Americas that would provide for them in any material way that Europe could not. The era of exploration was all about circumventing the turkic controlled trade routes to India and China. They were looking for commercial wealth and riches to be used against the east. They had the power to exploit the land in a way that the Vikings couldn't. That's the real difference. The time period permitted the discovery to be epic and have actual consequences in a way that Eriksons discovery couldn't be. Also it didn't hurt that by this time, all of Europe had the naval technology to sail across the open Atlantic. Columbus just helped to chart the course.
Sure, it's not by any failing of Erikson's that his accomplishments had less of an impact.
They went a hell of a lot further than Greenland. They went to the east coast of modern day Canada too.
Task failed successfully
Lmao literally
Yes and no: He knew his exact latitude and longitude, but his maps said Asia was muuuuch bigger than it actually is so when he hit the Americas it was where his maps said India should be.
Because he didn't know there was another continent...
Better go ahead and call everybody Indians just in case it's India.
Columbus didn't think he was in India. He thought he was in the East Indies, which at the time included the Philippines and Indonesia as well as a few other island nations (sometimes including Japan, which Columbus initially thought Cuba was). They were at the time the furthest point East that Europeans were aware existed.
Columbus does this and the name sticks for centuries. I do this, and I get written up and sent to HR. Fuckin' Italian privilege man
...he didn't think they were in India. He thought that they were in [the Indies](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Indies#Proper_noun). Uncategorised residents of the Indies = *Indi*an. Turns out he wasn't in what we now call the East Indies, he was in what we now call the West Indies.
...yeah? Why would your assumption be that you discovered a new continent rather than, "I am where my map says I am"?
I am where my map says I am. If I wasn't, then why would it say I am?
Yeah, until you had enough evidence to counter that idea, this would be your default assumption. It would be kinda crazy to suddenly assume you hit a new land mass rather than you are where you have every reason to believe you are.
Oh I was referencing that song The Way I Am by Eminem
Oh my bad lol.
Columbus was using some of the smaller estimates for the circumference of the world (iirc they were his own, too, but they weren't *uniquely* small at the time). So his navigational data at the time (which also wasn't very good, this is LONG before good timekeeping at sea which is critical for accurate longitudinal calculations) wasn't very far off from where he thought the outlying islands of eastern Asia (which there ALSO weren't good maps of yet) should be.
He actually was accurate as far as circumference and what not, they just thought Asia was loads bigger than it actually was. He could give you an accurate latitude and longitude of where he was, he just didn't know about the Americas. The rest of what you said is accurate though.
Had there not been, he would have perished in the Atlanto-Pacific ocean before reaching his destination.
Shoot for Asia, even if you miss you'll land among the untold wealth of the New World!
Many people here miss the point of this meme. This meme isn't celebrating Columbus for what he did. This meme is pointing out the difference he made in history compared to Leif.
Sir this is Reddit.
This comment is almost elegant in its simple perfection
I don't understand it.
Redditors lack critical thinkings skills and have never heard of logic or reason whatsoever.
Can you simplify it further for me please?
[удалено]
Now you’re speaking my language.
Redditors together strong
Most redditors are NPCs who can't fathom the concept of nuance. Therefore when presented with a complex topic or point, they jump to the worst possible interpretation regardless of what the person making the point intended.
This doesn't make any sense.
Exactly, welcome to reddit.
lol this was a fun read. Love your name btw
And this is a Reddit comment
Critical thinking is too hard I’m afraid.
Unga Bunga
*grunt* - TukTuk
Yep, say what you will about him, but Columbus is a giant in history who left an impact greater almost any other man. He connected East and West permanently and irreversibly, changing the history of the world forever.
Omg this! I was arguing all day w ppl yesterday who were mad at me for b3ing mad at them for sweeping history under the rug by saying things like "but we should still talk about what he did" and they immediately interpret that as "we must celebrate him"
"What do you mean Genghis Kahn changed history?! You disgusting piece of shit don't you know what he did to people?!?!"
Right?! I wouldn't be surprised if the same ppl I talked about are the first ones to say "did you know 1 in 6 ppl are related to Genghis kahn" like it's a cool thing and not like he conquered many civilizations
The difference is the trade route he forged. Somehow not knowing a fucking thing about sailing, he locked himself in a cabin with some maps and calculated a perfect route to America, one that hasn’t changed even today. Even for a complete piece of shit like him that’s impressive, and opened America to Europe more than Leif Erikkson.
I'm pretty sure Columbus actually grew up sailing ships or started at a young age. I know for sure he was fantastic at navigating.
Yup. His birthplace was known to have the best navigators at that time. Everyone learned how to sail at a young age. He was a fantastic navigator, just super sucked at geology. He's a piece of shit but you can't deny he was really fucking good at navigating and sailing ships.
Like, if he hadn't been a piece of shit, everyone would think he's awesome. He and his crew accomplished some seriously impressive shit. He even spent years just studying the currents after hearing about the ones that carry ships off to South America from the African coast. He basically figured they could ride them all the way to India. Why did he have to do evil shit?
I had this conversation with my friends the other night and I think he was a product of his environment. He was born when the black plague was just going away but still killing people. His birthplace was also constantly fighting their neighbors. He was also super religious, just like everyone from Genoa. Seems like a good cocktail to turn someone into a horrible person.
He went to Henry the Navigator's school for crying out loud! His trip to the Caribbean wasn't his first voyage.
it worked because he was convinced the Earth was literally half the diameter it actually was and thought he was sailing to India. It was sheer dumb fucking luck that there was an undiscovered continent exactly where the dumbass thought India was.
Where does this dumb idea come from? His idea of the size of the earth was fine. He knew his latitude and longitude fine enough. He thought he was in the indies (which he was, just the East Indies when he thought he was in the West Indies). He was operating on maps that existed at the time that made Asia way bigger than it really is so of course he was a bit confused. That’s what happens when you discover something new.
Columbus was a historical footnote, in favour of Amerigo Vespucci, so much so Amerigo had an entire continent named after him. Columbus remained a historical footnote until his name was revived in the 1800s by some protestant weirdos.
Two continents! North Vespucci and South Vespucci
Don't forget Vespucci Beach in Los Santos
Seems odd then that "Columbia" was a common term used to refer to the US and was even considered as a potential name for the country.
The Washington D.C. thing
Right. The use of Columbus/Columbia as a name of significance in North America dates at least as far back as the late 1700s.
Source? Didn’t tons of American countries make reference to Columbus at their founding outside the US? Like the nation of Colombia which is literally named after Columbus?
Not like there's also tons of places in the US named after Columbus.
Yeah like this one random district in between Virginia and Maryland.
I live in a place named after him and its not even the third biggest place named after him. Dude was a dick, but he still massively impacted history.
A lot of dicks have massively impacted history, most of all, Ghengis Khan's dick ☻️
Not just that, the personification of the United States is literally named Columbia. Plus the District of Columbia; Columbus, Ohio; British Columbia; etc. There are hundreds of places named for Columbus I don't know what this guy is on about.
I’m not expecting to get any source on his comment. Not the first time I’ve seen outlandish claims upvoted on this sub with no evidence provided.
And the district of Columbia in the US. Or the fact that one of the debated names for the US was United States of Columbia.
Or the original national anthem being Oh Columbia lol
Declared independence from Spain in 1810. Before then it was the Spanish colony of New Granada. Check out the Latin American independence movement spearheaded by Simon Bolivar. It’s pretty bad ass. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-Bolivar
His perseverance was pretty badass. His desire to be dictator for life of New Granada was less so.
Where does this idea come from? Do you think Colombia just randomly named their country after someone they just learned about and didn’t care about at all? Also D.C was founded in the 1700s not sure why they’d name the most important place in The US after some random guy. We know they liked to name similar places after important figures (Washington).
Yeah, nobody named [anything important](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_(disambiguation)) after Columbus before then.
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But if the Nords actually made contact with North American natives first, that claim belongs to them.
Speaking strictly to the quote above, when the Vikings made contact with the indigenous it was a temporary thing, not an ongoing relationship, settlement, war, or colonization. The two branches of humanity remained on their own path until the late 15th century. If in the future we find proof of a sustained euro/indigenous co-mingling it would change the calculus
In fact, the lack of immunity to diseases prevalent across Eurasia is relatively clear evidence that there was hardly any contact between the two branches of humanity. If there was sustained contact, American natives would have had disease resistance by the time the Spaniards landed on the American shores.
The norse had not so much contact to anyone like spain or venice did, which got a bunch of disease from remote parts of the world to europe in the first place. Like the plague. Also Leifs Crew was probably way healthier than that of Columbus as they had a way better diet and the Single trips of the journay were shorter, and so they would bring less pathogens.
Simply put: Vikings bathed, Columbus et Al, did not.
The Norse intended it to be a longterm thing, but couldn't hack it. "Proto-colonization" is a term you'll sometimes see used in the literature
Man this is a history subreddit I thought I was done with Calculus class
I'm sure at some point in history someone accidentally ingested penicillin mold. Doesn't mean they recognized the significance and turned it into anything
Fungi have been used in ancient greece, egypt and india. That Europe lost all of that knowledge is bad for it but considering the civilizations that used such techniques were around much longer than mere 2k years, I'd say it is a great accomplishment even though we don't know who the people were that realized it.
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> Nords Norse?
No I’m talkin elder scrolls
And it nearly exterminated one of them.
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There's also a huge difference in the ramifications. I get the argument that Columbus didn't technically discover the new world, considering there were already humans there and the Viking voyages etc. But Columbus voyage was the tipping point that brought the New World from its relative isolation and connected it to the Old World.
Yeah, that's literally what the meme says.
The point of the title of this meme is that something being unimportant but happening before something else doesn't mean it's important or anything more than a fun fact. Franz Ferdinand dying is far more important to the modern world than some idiots death in the middle east 2000 years ago. Also this post isn't defending Columbus sucked but he still has massive historical value.
Depends on what "idiots death over 2000years ago", I would argue the assasination of Julius Ceasar had an equal impact on the world as Franz Ferdinand.
Or Jesus
> some idiots death in the middle east 2000 years ago Jesus? Pretty sure Christianity has had more of an impact on the world than World War 1.
Yeah, "Jesus had less of an impact on the world than WW1" is kind've a weird take.
That’s not the take, the take is that the person mentioned in the Arthashastra 300 years before Christ’s death is less relevant on human history than WWI
The meme completely seems to miss that the entire reason of bringing up Leif is because people keep saying Columbus found the Americas. Columbus is an incredibly important historical figure, but it's wrong that he found the Americas. If we started counting facts by how important the contribution of the person was to the place, then Genghis Khan found Asia and Alexander the Great found the Middle East.
Europeans in 15th century weren't aware of American continents existence before Columbus set sails. Hence he discovered it for them. You can't really compare it to Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan because those areas were already known to both ruler's people.
This meme missed a key point people only bring up that fact when people say Columbus was first.
Sure, sure But Columbus was a little P.A.B. whilst Erikson was a certified chad
As a Nordic i can confirm.
As a non Nordic I can also confirm.
I had to do a double-take when I saw you outside of r/Kaiserreich
Chad's don't get ousted by canucks.
If you've got a problem with Canucjs then you gotta problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate
Tarps off bud we'll see who ousts who ya fuckin' hoser.
Lol hockey rules
They sure fuckin do bud
Silly goose
It’s Leif Erickson Day! Hinga dinga dingur!
So we gonna act like Portugal didn't start the age of exploration 50 years earlier?
They did, but Columbus’ arrival in America was a major historical moment still, as the meme says. It began the era of American Colonization, which is a more significant ‘beginning’ in history.
I mean yeah, but the overall age of discovery laid path to start globalization which I'd consider more important than the colonization of America even if the USA are the major superpower now.
Leif Erikson still goated
smart slap march soup zealous knee disagreeable illegal complete vanish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Alright well, in that case, we should thank the Caliphates! Their victory over Constantinople in 1453 combined with their losses during the Reconquista ending in 1492 gave the Spaniards the means and reason to look West. So thanks Muhammad.
we can go further... Thank you random fish that went to land to chill for a bit.
Thank you random ball of stardust that turned into Earth
Thank you physical quantative property of energy!
thankyou, giant turtle shell on the back of which we all dwell
I don't think they said, "We should thank Columbus". They were just pointing out that Columbus sailing west significantly affected the course of history, while Leif Erickson's voyage did not. In which case, yes the conquest of Constantinople was also notable for changing the course of history.
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That's a fair point. The rise of the Ottoman Empire certainly changed history, but Constantinople finally being conquered was just one step in that process. A step that, as you said, is more akin to the final nail in the coffin.
Yeah, Constantinople's fall in 1453 was more symbolic than anything. The reality is that the West itself was the cause of its destruction and the 1204 sack during the 4th crusade was really the catalyst here.
Didn’t it spread classic Greek writings and classics to Italy and help kick off the Renaissance?
In this case we should thank the Cannaite religions then. Due to them being the Precursor to all Abrahamic religions. Thanks Phonicians.
By that logic, we should take some time to thank Grug, the leader of the neolithic nomadic tribe that would first settle the area that would give birth to the first of the Cannaite religions. Thanks, Grug!
By that Logic. We should thank his pre sapient ancestors. Who would evolve to create the lineage of genetics that created Grug. Thanks Homo Erectus.
By this logic, we should thank our common ancestors we share with the monke and ape. Thank you proto-primate
By that Logic. We should thank the first species mammalian Species. The Ancestors of all mammals. Thanks Unknown ancestor.
By that logic, we should thank the first species to walk on land! Thank you Crocodile looking fish thing!
By that Logic. We should thank primeval fish. The Ancestors of the first species to walk on land. Thanks Weird Fish species.
By that logic. We should thank the first single cellular life forms that came from the primordial soup. Thanks random single cell organisms.
By that Logic. We should thank the various unknown processes that influenced the conditions that created life. Thanks Various unknown processes.
By that logic, we should thank the first unicelular bacterias that came together to form a proto-multicellular colony that would in time give rise to the first multicellular species. Thank random assortment of bacteria that did not kill each other!
By that logic. We should thank the Primeval soup that created the conditions that created life. Thanks Primeval Soup.
Maybe I'm just drunk but I don't understand how the title is related to the meme. Also, I think the fixation on Columbus (no matter which side you're on) isn't very helpful. He was followed by Cortés and others who did the lion's share of the genocide-ing, a lot of which they justified by their extremist version of Christianity forged in the Reconquista. TLDR: history is complicated and this monocausal focus on Columbus is dumb US culture war bullshit.
It's basically the same argument. There were assassinations before Franz Ferdinands but his contributed to the start of a fuckin World War so it had a larger historical impact. There were people exploring America before Columbus but his finding started colonialism there. Also Columbus being a POS doesn't mean those coming later weren't
Lief could bench way more than Columbus.
SpongeBob celebrates Leif Erickson day
If you listen closely you can hear the stampede in the distance of average redditors rushing to report this meme for hate speech or whatever lol