Philosophical question - if Columbus had not discovered America - would you exist?

[bryant69]

Poll question: Philosophical question - if Columbus had not discovered America - would you exist?

I don't think I would have - my ancestors on one side were from Germany and on the other side English.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[rucky]

1. It depends on what your definition of "you" is.

as long as we're getting philosophical.

[bryant69]

3. Fair enough - but not sure how to answer that question. n/t

[JackRiddler]

38. Obviously none of us would exist in the same form

It turns into an alternate universe and all random factors (such as which of billions of gametes involved in a reproductive act meet at what time to make a zygote) restart from 1492. No one has exactly the same genetic makeup as any given individual today. The world has a different history and everyone is a different person for that reason as well. Sooner or later Europe or China or some old world power finds America and most likely colonizes it and subjugates the Indians. However, because it's actually China that finds America, it ends up being called Li after a Chinese explorer and the Indians are called Europeans, because Li thought he had reached Europe... now let's go watch Quantum Leap or Star Trek or some such for more exciting fun.

[DFW]

79. It could have happened

I am an Eastern European Mongrel of German Jews, Poles and Russians.
It's perfectly conceivable that the gene pool that produced me in
Virginia might have done so in Kiev under other circumstances.

[redqueen]

2. Did you know the rainforest is burning?

Dying, actually.

[bryant69]

5. Yes I did know that. n/t

[redqueen]

6. Very well.

Enjoy your poll.

[bryant69]

8. The conditions which produced me have also produced untold misery around the globe.

Including burning the Rainforest.

Bryant

[Name removed]

59. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KillCapitalism]

4. Possibly

I'm of British/Scandinavian descent so I guess if were around I'd be living in either of those two regions.

[demnan]

7. I think the question should be

If Columbus had not discovered America, how many native Americans would exist today?

[bryant69]

11. Why? n/t

[AndyA]

12. In this part of the country, a lof of Native Americans are doing quite well.

They are building casinos, and making a ton of money.

I know this doesn't impact all of them, and I know it hasn't always been this way, but a lot of them are pretty happy with things right now.

[hisownpetard]

51. Excu-u-uze me? n/t

[malakai2]

58. Wow

That's like, so totally different from the situation where I live. Maybe the tribes out here in the Dakotas just don't know what riches await them.

[AndyA]

68. Check it out.

http://www.cherokeecasino.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53

http://www.creeknationcasino.com/index.cfm?id=8 (Click on the Construstion update pic in the upper left)

[joshcryer]

97. WTF. Seriously?

Rate of illiteracy, education, alcoholism, nicotine addiction, etc, is the worst in all Native American communities. They're freaking in bad shape dude. Casino's don't just magically fix problems.

[northzax]

48. probably roughly the same number as today

here is a citation estimating the native population of North America (including Mexico) at between 1-12 million, in 1492. so let's take the high mark, 12 million as our guesstimate.

The Indian Population of North America in 1492
John D. Daniels
The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 49, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 298-320
doi:10.2307/2947274

According to the US census, there were 3.7 million people who listed "American Indian or Alaskan Native" in 2000. in 1996, the latest Canadian Census, there were 610,000 natives in Canada, and in 1982 (last census I found) a total of 23,000,000 in Mexico.

[againes654]

9. I don't know

I think that the Europeans would have found "America" eventually, so I don't know. Maybe, I would still be alive, but in another country. Hummmm that is a brain tickler.

[Dhalgren]

10. "You" are the product of a particular egg and a particular sperm.

Any major change in the "cause/effect" modal chain that brought "you" about would make it highly unlikely that the particular egg and particular sperm that produced "you" would have come together. Which egg descends at a particular time and which sperm out of the hundreds of thousands manage to enter that egg is so chaotically random, that any change in the past could make it improbable that "you" would be here.

[Yupster]

13. German ancestry, so maybe

I'd be alive in Germany, or maybe my ancestral line would have stopped short of me, probably by a bullet in World War I or World War II.

No way to know.

[slackmaster]

14. Maybe not, but if President Wilson hadn't pardoned my grandfather in 1918

I definitely wouldn't exist.

[TwilightGardener]

15. Nope--not in present form--I don't think Italians and Poles would have met up somewhere else.

[MethuenProgressive]

16. Columbus didn't "discover America", so the poll is bullshit.

:eyes:

[bryant69]

18. I apologize for not putting in the disclaimer - I just assumed my fellow DUers were aware

that America was already inhabited when Columbus came here and of the other potential contacts with Europe and the Far East. I trusted that they would know what I meant. But I see you have a different opinion of your fellow DUers.

Bryant

[Name removed]

20. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TahitiNut]

24. From an epistemological perspective, EVERYTHING that's 'discovered' already exists.

... and the word 'discovery' itself presumes a contextual/cultural ignorance preceding it. One could also speak of the 'discovery' of European peoples by the native Americans - as they became aware of nations of peoples that they were ignorant of until that time. That such an existence was RELEVANT is, in 20/20 hindsight, unarguable.

Repeated context-free quibbling over the term 'discovery' is sophomoric. :shrug:

[MethuenProgressive]

25. I wasn't focused on 'discover' as much as 'Columbus'. TahitiNut

Although some poster did leap in with both feet assuming that was my 'beef' with the poll...

[JackRiddler]

39. Technically he did, as he didn't know about it before hand.

For example, today I discovered that a lightbulb in the kitchen burned out.

Oh, wait, maybe Columbus discovered nothing, because he died still thinking it was Asia.

[Buzz Clik]

17. I think, therefore I am.

... and I think this is a very silly poll.

[King Coal]

70. You're putting the horses Columbus brought before Descartes, René.

I mean Buzz Clik.

[KansDem]

19. Ja! Aber vermutlich jetzt würde ich Bier trinken und Bratwurst essen...

Kein "hot dog" und Coke für mich! :beer:

[TahitiNut]

21. (1) It was MY ancestors, the Norsemen, who 'discovered' America for Europe.

(2) The existence of each and every one of us, to the degree that such existence is possible, guarantees that existence in one of the vitually infinite Heisenberg universes.


Columbus' role was as an agent, merely to spread the cancer of monarchical primacy under the imprimatur of a 'universal' church. The perpetual assumption of populist responsibility for the acts of monarchs under which our ancestors were indentured is a kind of historical revisionism I abhor. I've said it before, the Bolsheviks dealt with 'royalty' in the only reasonable way. Sane and egalitarian people would, imho, equate the Bush family ancestral relationship to the 'royal' families of Europe as a partial justification for extermination. The contemporary notion that a dictatorship or totalitarian military junta is somehow a greater evil than a monarchy is, imho, insane. There is no worse form of government than a monarchy.

[JackRiddler]

44. No, it was Egyptians on a boat of reeds

So saith Thor Heyerdahl - come to think of it, a Norseman himself.

Anyway, the Spanish had forgotten about the Norse. Hail Asgard!

What the Spanish really discovered, of course, was their overwhelming military superiority to the Aztecs. Otherwise Montezuma's explorer might have discovered Spain, and poor poor Spain in that case.

[L. Coyote]

22. Definitely NOT. Likewise for nearly everyone in the Americas and Europe.

Do the simple arithmetic.
2 + 2 = 4
4 + 4 = 8
8 + 8 = 16
16 + 16 = 32

64, 128, 256,
512 great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents,
1,024 2,048 4,092 8,184 16,368

Go back 500 years and you have 1,048,576 ancestors. Even someone in Europe has a high probability one of their ancestors is a Native America. Nuumerous Native Americans were relocated to Europe by marriage and by servitude. Spain conquered the low countries Duchies, etc. etc. Consider also how many Native Americans are part European given this number, 1,048,576 ancestors.

Counting back a mere 1,000 years, we each have 1,099 TRILLION ancestors (in theory).

FROM: http://jqjacobs.net/anthro/ancestors.html

[JackRiddler]

90. Very good...

And it's not just in theory but mathematically sound that we each have on the order of 1,099 trillion ancestors as of the year 1000, a time when there were merely 250 million people (I may be guessing wrong but on that order). That's about 22 billion ancestors per person alive at that time. In turn, most of the people alive at the time did not produce progeny whose descendants still live on today. So let's say 44 billion ancestors per person alive at that time.

We are a gloriously inbred species and very much one race.

-Nicholas of the Spartan Royal Family, successor to King Leonidas.

[Ediacara]

23. This question is impossible to answer going back ONE generation

You want my opinion on 30 generations in the past? When I'm almost certainly not a descendant of anyone involved (my ancestors stayed in Europe until the 1890s)?

[Az]

26. The shift in history would so radically alter the path that no one now would exist

Its too big an event. It changed the world. And that far in the past such a shift would have global and total effect.

[Lilith Velkor]

27. Depends on whether "America" was "discovered" or not.

Without potatoes, the European ancestors of most white Americans would have starved to death, or been too malnourished to have offspring.

[racaulk]

28. It's impossible to know.

Everything in this world is interrelated in some way, and one simple action could set into motion a series of events the scope of which we could never know. So a huge event like this one, that occurred over 500 years ago, likely caused a large amount of change throughout the present-day world. If Columbus had never arrived in America (I also take issue with the word "discovered", as with the discussion upthread), it's impossible to know who in present day America would still be here. It is also impossible to know which people that were never born (because their ancestors were massacred) would be alive today.

As for me, it is very unlikely that I would be here. My ancestry is primarly European and Native American, so I doubt I would have ever been born had Columbus never voyaged here.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. If a tree hadn't fallen on a tyrannosaurus 75 million years ago we wouldn't exist.

And Hitler would be in charge of the Sixth Reich.

So what's your point?

[bryant69]

35. I don't really have one I suppose

I said it up above- I (and almost every white American), by our very existence, have caused untold misery and suffering. Or such untold misery and suffering was required to get us to the point we are now.

Bryant

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

62. ...

"Or such untold misery and suffering was required to get us to the point we are now."

Sounds like a bullshit argument to me.

[AngryAmish]

45. I don't think Hitler discovered America

[porphyrian]

30. I don't think so, but I'm not sure.

If Columbus had not "discovered" America, certainly another explorer (or pirate or ship lost at sea) would have, and colonization would still have happened in some way and to some extent. And, though I'm pretty solidly caucasian, I'm adopted with no real knowledge of my bloodline's history. So, your guess is as good as mine.

[hfojvt]

31. there's a finite chance that I would have

Other European explorers definitely would have in plenty of time to settle it in 1607.

I cannot be sure though. The only thing I definitely know is that I am not wearing my underwear, since it is not from Kmart. DefinItely.

[CanSocDem]

32. Are you asking....

....that, if given a choice from some netherworld of 'pre-life', would a person choose to wait for another opening rather than having to grow up in the USA???

Ones' theory of the nature of consciousness seems to be a factor.

I believe that people choose 'where' to spend their life.


.

[LeftishBrit]

33. Probably...

those of my ancestors who were not East Europaean Jews were Scots, and most did not live in the Americas, and those who did (Canada) only started doing so fairly recently.

[Rhythm and Blue]

34. If my father had sneezed two minutes before engaging in sexual intercourse

with my mother, it is overwhelmingly likely that his ejaculation would have occurred at a very slightly different time and location, and with a very slightly different content, and as such a different sperm cell would have provided half of my genetic material. The farther back you go, the greater the effect of chaos.

So I would say the answer is fairly obviously, "no."

[Rex]

36. Most people currently think the poll is bullshit.

I say it is impossible to even debate the topic.

[Swamp Rat]

37. That was my first thought,

but the OP did state it is a "philosophical question." In other words, a rhetorical question for others to disparage or agree or expand upon? :shrug:

[bryant69]

42. Yep. n/t

[Rex]

43. My answer was far more rhetorical

IMHO :)

[Richard Steele]

46. As more people get to know the OP, the "bullshit" option steadily gains ground.

He posts several polls a week, and it's been MONTHS
since the last time I DIDN'T vote for "This poll is Bullshit".

[Swamp Rat]

49. At least he is kind enough to include "This poll is Bullshit."

I say that is downright nice of him. :D

[Rex]

53. Gentleman poller.

I want to know who picked 'i like to vote'.

[Swamp Rat]

61. Not me!

Seriously.... but I very often do. :D

[Richard Steele]

56. Yes indeed! Credit where due- he has my respect for ALWAYS including that. nm

[bryant69]

52. I suppose I'll just have to live with your disapproval. n/t

[Rex]

54. What I want to know is why only one person picked 'I like to vote!'

:(

[Richard Steele]

55. Lots of people do. At least you have my respect for always including that poll option, y'know? nm

Edited to add the word "always".

[bryant69]

57. I'm thinking of switching to "I'm an asshole; this poll is bullshit." Might be too on the nose n/t

[Richard Steele]

63. Too OFF the nose, IMHO. "Bullshit poll/you're an asshole" are NOT the same thing.

I'm a CONSISTENT "this poll is bullshit" voter, and I'm
saying that none of the votes meant "Bryant is an asshole".

The one or two times I thought you were an asshole, I TOLD
you so, didn't I? Because that's a completely separate
issue that needs to be addressed upon its own merits.

[bryant69]

64. ah i see the problem - good thing you said something before I changed it.

I would hate to be unclear. What if the poll option read "I am an asshole and I think this poll is bullshit." Is that more clear?

Bryant

[Richard Steele]

65. No. If you care, it should be separate choices: "This poll is BS" and "Bryant is an asshole".

On the plus side, that would probably cut the "bullshit" votes in half... :evilgrin:

[Forkboy]

78. Passive aggressive...it's not just for breakfast anymore!

*FEELING VICTIMIZED - The p/a man protests that others unfairly accuse him rather than owning up to his own misdeeds. To remain above reproach, he sets himself up as the apparently hapless, innocent victim of your excessive demands and tirades.

[bryant69]

80. I'm not sure which of us you are talking to.

But obviously there are people on this board who would appreciate it if I stopped participating. That seems unlikely to happen.

Bryant

[Forkboy]

81. I was talking to you

And you just provided Exhibit B in your reply.

[bryant69]

83. By "Misdeeds" I assume you mean posting polls and having opinions you disagree with?

What is the "misdeed" in posting this poll?

Bryant

[Forkboy]

84. No "misdeeds" per se...

But for every good poll you post there's five stupid ones, and when people point that out you inevitably fall back on a variation of your post above, "I'm an asshole; this poll is bullshit."


he sets himself up as the apparently hapless, innocent victim of your excessive demands and tirades.

Sorry Bryant, but you seem to do this in almost every thread I've ever seen you start when someone says something negative about the poll or you.Having spent years with a person who was a veritable case study for P/A it's very easy to see in others.

Now, that's not a bad thing necessarily, but it makes you look afraid of your own opinions and afraid to confront directly those who disagree with you.If that's the Bryant you wish to project that's your business.But your arguments would be better served by actual rebuttals to those who disagree with you than playing the victim card.And if those attacks are so superficial then it should be all the easier to smack them down with a reasoned reply. :shrug:

[bryant69]

85. If someone says "This poll is stupid" than there's little to smack down

I mean if someone has a specific complaint I respond (although obviously in some cases I disagree with the complaint) but just saying this poll is stupid - what can you say to that?

In this case the fact that people think this is bullshit was largely expected. Because most of us are pretty comfortable sitting back and tsk tsking Columbus and what a bastard he was without realizing how much of our lives flow directly from what he did.

If you aren't a Native American and you live in the united States, particularly if you were born here, your existence sprung from the Genocidal actions of Columbus and other early explorers. That's my opinion at any rate. And not in a butterfly flapping its wings kind of way, but in a fairly direct way.

That's an uncomfortable thought; I see why people might not like thinking about it.

Bryant

[Forkboy]

86. Well you just did it to me here...

:)

I wish you would include more things like your last two lines when you posted the poll.When you leave your explanation or motives up for debate people are more likely going to question that than think about the poll.Internet forum dynamics being what they are and all.

I know I almost always write short posts so people end up taking them many ways, so that happens to me as well.But I tend to care so little of what most people think of me that I rarely take the time to explain.But on those rare days that I do, a lot of those people will understand me a little better, and have a better idea of whatever point I had in my head, and will react accordingly.

However, if you do care what other people think (nothing wrong with that, just not how I am) then it would help if you took more time than I care to.

Hell, I'm taxed just writing this much. ;)

[BrotherBuzz]

40. If the Germans hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor I would not exist

[Richard Steele]

67. You're rolling! nm

[BB1]

41. OTOH, if my forefathers were heretics,

the expulsion of religious freaks to the New Land could maybe not have taken place, which might have enabled them to regain strenght and still burn my grandmother (from 1915) on the stake. That would have prevented me from existing alright. She didn't find her husband until 'Bevrijdingsdag', (May 5, 1945, the day Holland got freed by Americans and Canadians) and she was 30 by that day. Too old to have made it as a heretic...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

47. If Columbus's mom had said no, the question would be moot.

[hisownpetard]

50. If Christopher Columbus had been a Native American, would he still have discovered America?

[TheUniverse]

60. No I wouldn't.

But then again if Hitler didn't kill 6 million jews, or Stalin didnt kill 20 million people I wouldnt exist. The odds of any one person existing is very low probably less than 1 in 999999999999999.... If any minor event in history changed, I wouldn't exist. SO yes, even though columbus was a dick, I guess I can thank him, or even Hitler for existing.

[hisownpetard]

66. Why not thank them BOTH? Don't be stingy.

[Kajsa]

69. He didn't "discover" America.

There were people here way before the first European
landed on NA.

That would be Leif Erickson, not Columbus.

Columbus was a genocidal fraud.

He gave the Native Americans a choice-

Accept the cross or get the hangman's noose!

What a guy.

[bryant69]

72. Yeah we covered this above. n/t

[Kajsa]

77. The "discover" part-yes.

The 'believe in my God or die'-no.

I want to give Columbus full credit
for being a genocidal maniac.

Why we still "honor" Columbus Day
I will never understand.

[bryant69]

82. Well presumably there are celebrating other parts of the story?

If the "believe in my God or Die" part is the most important to you, I kind of see where you are coming from - but i'm not sure that everybody feels that is the key part.

Bryant

[Marrah_G]

71. Nope, not in this body anyway

Part of my Birth family came over shortly after the Mayflower (and incidentally still live in Plymouth/Kingston) and my great grandmother was Native American (yet I am STILL so damn pale I am almost transparent, WTF!).

I can see both sides and let me tell you, it can be emotionally confusing. I try not to get to wrapped up in the right or wrong of history beyond the part where we need to learn from our mistakes.

Humans migrate, they always have. Populations shift and mix. It's the natural way of things. Perhaps the violent side of it will breed out of us eventually.

[Virginia Dare]

73. "Our" existence has more to do with the natives...

showing the English how to grow tobacco. Had that not happened, no colonial expansion and no U.S. of A.

[iverglas]

74. Nope -- nor if Archduke Ferdinand had not been assassinated

My grandparents, while all English, came from four different parts of England, and different classes. Two met in Canada after immigrating here as children, so if Wolfe hadn't defeated Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham ... And two met in England over the hospital bed of my grandmother's brother during WWI, which leaves me thanking the assassins in the Pan-Slavism nationalist movement.

[gatorboy]

75. I never pegged you as an athiest.

[madokie]

76. yes but my language choice would most likely be Cherokee

as my great grandmother was 100% Native American and as it was directly through her that I am here.

[icymist]

87. What kind of question is that? Of course I'd exist! And so would everyone else!

Things would just be different. Not for the better, nor the worst,... just different. Don't you watch the new BBC series Doctor Who?

[seemslikeadream]

88. You know he didn't discover North America, don't you

It was here all the time!

[Vinca]

89. Not only would I exist, I'd be British and have healthcare. nt

[GRLMGC]

91. No

I'm from Central America so I have both European and Native American heritage. If there had been no contact, I would not exist. It might not be such a bad thing, though. European conquest of the Americas was extremely devastating to the people who were already living here.

[cynatnite]

92. Sure...why not...

that is if you subscribe to the theory that there is a universe for every action taken and not taken. Saw that on a Trek episode. :)

[malaise]

93. How do you discover somewhere and find people

when you arrive.

[CTyankee]

94. You figure it. My mother was Scottish descent, father was English and Welsh.

The Scots arrived here first in 1790 (the "Clearances" in Scotland), the English and Welsh in the 19th century. While my bloodlines seem to be all in the British Isles, I don't see how they could have intertwined anywhere else but Texas for god's sake, which is where I am from. But maybe an egg from mother and sperm from daddy so a few of what might have been me...

This makes my head hurt...

[Javaman]

95. If jesus and superman had a fight, who would win? nt

[leeroysphitz]

96. How do you know you exist at all?

I mean if we're going to get philosophical and all.