[ExI] Gender-Neutral Side Note

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 7:36 AM spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> I have heard the argument since I was a child that Columbus (intentionally or otherwise) underestimated the circumference of the earth.  But being a highly skilled sailor, I haven’t found that notion convincing.  He might have theorized that India was an enormous continent that spanned well over half the globe.
>
> The Europeans knew one could walk east from India to China to a sea, but they had no way of knowing that sea wasn’t the same ocean that touches Spain, or how wide it was.  Someone had to try it. Columbus knew eventually someone would.  So he did it.  Of course he was a hero.
>
> I wouldn’t be surprised if he underestimated it in the sales literature to sell stock and get funding.  That kinda stuff still happens to this day.

Here's an alternate wrinkle for you: what if he had heard, from a
Bristol merchant visiting a Spanish port, that there were good fishing
grounds far to the west (which the Bristol fishermen had learned of
from Viking tales of their former expedition), and thus knew that
there was some sort of land over there (that, given the real
circumference of the Earth and the distance eastward to the Chinese
coast, couldn't be China), but kept that secret because "better
fishing grounds" was, he thought, worth less to the royalty than "Asia
with all its spices and trade"?