The Shipwreck of the San Felipe

[@istoppedcaring6209]

Spain loved it's grandstanding offcourse, it took 12 days for the spanish ambassador to rome to make it out of the gates to the city due to the massive bagage train, (ambassadors were not paid, this was a wealthy spanish nobleman or more likely royal familymember (of the blood) it is funny when we realise that the rich today are far richer but don't do things like this (honestly they should, right now they are pretty much just hoarding for future generations adding to a generational wealth gap between rich and poor, the spanish at least paid craftsmen, servants, cooks, guards, woodchoppers, metal workers,etc. for the sake of prestige and i would argue that it is due to the constant competetive atmosphere (including war) that europe became the most "equal" continent to begin with, explorers wrote journals on both the unbelievable wealth and splendour of palaces in India, Persia, China,... but they also wrote on the immense poverty that could be seen allmost everywhere else, Europe however was marked by decentralised states until the mid early modern period and even then power required negotiation, king wants money, estates general, cities, ... negotiate a deal, by the late early modern period the money had to be given but they could still at least get some consolations and importantly compared to today, there had to be a reason for the money, (allready in the medieval period (at least in the low countries) vasals had to pay the ransom for their landlord when taken in custody, but as these have to pay exceptions increased they also demanded that the king act responsibly, for one thing the notion that the king shall live of his own domains, ergo, the king can not sell off royal domains to pay for debts then require more subsidies from the cities and lords to pay for these debts and his own lifestyle, (which is in fact a major problem today, taxes are raised higher and higher to pay for the expenses (debt) made by previous administrations to mostly private investors, which usually increases the wealth divide in the most devious manner as they to benefit from better roads and so on, but like tax collectors investing so they get to speculate on gathering tax income by paying an upfront price they essentially pay the taxes forward so they can make a prrofit on them

[@WaltMussell]

A lot to unpack here, and I'm not sure where to begin. But I do believe Europe had greater levels of poverty than you are suggesting and I think leaders of many nations were ostentatious. What Europe did differently a few hundred years ago was engage in long range ship travel, which gave it a trade access not yet considered by other nations

[@istoppedcaring6209]

@@WaltMussell long distance trade had been practiced long before europe's golden age, europeans however arrived with technical superiority due to ages of internal competition on nearly every level, any significant advantage was quickly addopted by any and all major players, those who failed to do so could simply cease to be which may also partially explain why Africa has thousands of ethnic identities whilst europe has mere dozens in the modern age, (and there were indeed far more in ages past) who would considder picardians today? they are now French, I myself am Flemish but also considder myself so because of specific historical tendencies and injustices that caused flemings to generally cling to it. but i digress I am not a historian yet offcourse and even if i were it wouldn't matter given that that would be an authority argument but i have read a lot on it, offcourse the competition of which i speak requires a strong internal cohesion as well as was the case in early modern western europe (centralisation tendency) at this time europe developed so rapidly because states were large enough to have the ressources to invest in development but could never steamroll one another and uneasy enough to follow a very realist vision on international relations "Si vis pacem, para bellum" ergo, you can't afford to fall behind, this advanced technology as well which then carried over to long distance exploration and trade