A
Story
19th Century Map Shows a Fictional Country Created by a Con Man
  • ajb
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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

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
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  • 1 month ago
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Interesting, a good candidate. It would be nontrivial to compare them.
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.
Such maps can reveal a lot about the focus and priorities of early cartographers
All countries started as fictions created by con men
All borders are fiction created by con artists. You're a person of my own tastes. I will follow you to downvote hell. ;)
https://web.archive.org/web/19980214123619/https://lunaremba...

Still alive, kicking and making millions

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.

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.
This is the wrong way to think about it.

If you claim sovereignty over a state's territory, violate its laws, refuse to pay its taxes, and threaten its citizens will violence, will the state respond?

If their response is severe enough to bring you into line, the state exists. If not, then the state is fiction.

  • xrd
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  • 1 month ago
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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.
Maybe he found the Oompa Loompas.
  • xrd
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LOL. I wish I could give you two upvotes.

But, your idea is not plausible. Oompa Loompas are too believable.

Better if incredulous victims filter themselves out.
> 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_
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The lengths of self delusion people will resort to rather than accept the fact they've been conned.
Make Poyias Great Again
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