• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOPM
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m pretty sure he didn’t discover it, what with people having lived there for tens of thousands of years.

    • lugal@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I never got this semitic discussion. I can discover a cabin in a forest or a store in a city but Columbus can’t discover a continent because he wasn’t the first one who discovered it?

      • saltesc@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        As far as I care, “discovered” is in relation to cartography, at which point most societies know of it and its location.

        Anything else is just pathetic semantics that could go back through evolution and the chronology of Earth’s continents and geography. No one wants that except a couple of Actually Guys.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        This would have more merit if he ever set foot in North America. He landed in the Bahamas. It’s technically part of the North American tectonic plate, but so is part of Iceland.

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      I discovered a new restaurant last week. It’s been around for decades but it was new to me. I can’t remember the first time I tasted a tomato or potato, but to the Europeans it must have been amazing! And don’t forget chocolate!

      You are correct about the thriving and ancient civilizations in the “New World” of course. Getting olives and oranges and figs, even horses, doesn’t feel like enough compensation for what happened to them…

    • LoboAureo@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      The gravity was there from the beginning of time, but Newton discovered it.

      English is not my first language but as long as you specify for who, you can use discover, like "I discovered this movie last year, it’s my new favorite movie since then’ and the movie was published 40 years ago.