[HN Gopher] 19th Century Map Shows a Fictional Country Created b...
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19th Century Map Shows a Fictional Country Created by a Con Man
Author : drdee
Score : 60 points
Date : 2024-11-04 02:50 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| serallak wrote:
| > He was so convincing that 250 poor Scots went on board the
| ship, the Edinburgh Castle, armed with his guidebook to Poyai.
| They then spent two years dying in the jungle. Forty of them come
| back and stand for his defense to say, 'No, we just got lost
| because obviously we didn't find the land in the guidebook.
|
| People said he was the best conman.
| mon_ wrote:
| The lengths of self delusion people will resort to rather than
| accept the fact they've been conned.
| labster wrote:
| Make Poyias Great Again
| technothrasher wrote:
| I've got an old map of Massachusetts from 1799 which, while not
| fraudulent, is completely wrong in several places. For one, where
| my town is supposed to be, it names another town that is actually
| much closer to Boston (and is also duplicately labelled on the
| map in its correct spot). It isn't like my town didn't exist at
| that point. It incorporated 50 years before that, and already had
| a major road from Concord going through it.
| veunes wrote:
| Such maps can reveal a lot about the focus and priorities of
| early cartographers
| ajb wrote:
| If you're looking for the most valuable forgery/con in history, a
| good candidate is the Donation of Constantine[1], a forged
| document which claimed to transfer sovereignty over western
| europe to the pope.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine
| t_mann wrote:
| Another good candidate: the Privilegium Maius [0], which
| contained several provisions to elevate the status of the House
| of Habsburg and their territories in central Europe and helped
| them rise to the first tier of European aristocrat families,
| where they remained for 500+ years (interestingly, despite the
| forgery being recognized as such almost immediately).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilegium_Maius
| ajb wrote:
| Interesting, a good candidate. It would be nontrivial to
| compare them.
| xrd wrote:
| I was reading the article posted on HN yesterday from Matt
| Lakeman about Guyana. Then I read this quote about this
| fictionalized country: "...a local Indigenous
| population that for some reason loved British colonizers,"
|
| Grifters don't really have to come up with a truthful sounding
| story. They need to come up with something absurd.
| delichon wrote:
| Maybe he found the Oompa Loompas.
| xrd wrote:
| LOL. I wish I could give you two upvotes.
|
| But, your idea is not plausible. Oompa Loompas are too
| believable.
| primer42 wrote:
| All countries started as fictions created by con men
| INTPenis wrote:
| All borders are fiction created by con artists. You're a person
| of my own tastes. I will follow you to downvote hell. ;)
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| All countries are fictional.
|
| Just a lot of people believe in the same fiction and hence it
| appear real because of reinforcement learning.
|
| Some take the fiction too seriously and get a pride from
| believing in the great fiction they live. Some push it extreme
| and die for the fiction.
| nurettin wrote:
| It probably started as groups of people trying to survive
| bandits in a village, then in a castle, then a city state and
| then on some land. Before you know, there's a different
| culture.
| rougka wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/19980214123619/https://lunaremba...
|
| Still alive, kicking and making millions
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(page generated 2024-11-10 23:01 UTC)