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When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

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Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#81

Post by rodelrod »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #75
rodelrod wrote: post #74

In many cases, because both overlap with geographical features: the Carpathians in Romania, the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Ukraine, the green mountainous Portugal north of the Tagus vs the flat "montado" landscape to the south.

>because both overlap It's easy to see why old empires/countries were divided by geographical features due to military reasons. But why would it affect the current-day political climate directly ? I think the causal relation is more like Geo -> old empire -> (more things) -> current day politics like the original post implied, than Geo -> old empire Geo -> current day politics as you implied; unless I missed your poi…

Putting it in these terms, what I'm trying to say is something like:

  geography → economy → old empire

  geography → economy → current day politics
The biggest caveat to this is that the importance of geography is conditioned by technology, and technology changes over time. So a more detailed model could be something like:

  geography + current tech → agriculture/commerce/industry/military → economy/culture → politics
See how the dominant powers changed with the shift from bronze to iron or with the development of open ocean navigation.

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#82

Post by inglor_cz »

Traveling around the Balkans, the old political divisions are absolutely striking.

The longer the rule of the Ottoman empire, the less developed the region tends to be. With the exception of Istanbul proper, of course, it was the main beneficiary of all the plunder.

Edit: I am writing this from a vacation in Slovenia, which is basically a Slavic-speaking Austria, with the exceptions of cities like Koper and Piran, which look like a Slavic-speaking Italy.

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#83

Post by Spellman »

api wrote: post #78
rjbwork wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chesterton's fence. I admit that when I was younger I was much more eager to just tear it all down and start anew...but with experience I have come to see things are never quite so easy. Things are the way they are for a reason, and it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things.

> it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things. People misinterpret Chesterton's fence as an argument against changing things, but it's actually just about what I quoted above. It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. It just argues that you should make a strong effort to figure out why it is how it is before attempting to do so. I'd argue that if you d…

Yup. I've often seen Chesterson's Fence trotted out as an argument to never change anything. Or at least place onerous burden of proof on the new change to prove itself.

However, some times the circumstances that gave rise to the fence are gone! You still need to do the work to show that this is true, or at least some best effort. But if after a cursory check there is no compelling reason, retorting "ah but there may still be some use, go search the wisdom of the ancients further" is a terrible response. That is how you calcify debt and become unable to adapt to changing circumstances.

There is a balance between preserving out of an abundance of caution and tearing it all down because it was inconvenient or "new is better."

We already have plenty of innate status quo bias. We don't need to heap more on top without good reason.

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#84

Post by ssnistfajen »

hk__2 wrote: post #70

Some examples, especially the one about the "English" possessions in 1154 vs. elections results in 2022 vs where Brits are living in 2020 look very fishy. You have to try really hard if you want to see (or invent) a correlation between those, because they really don’t match at all.

England and France in 1154 are practically different nations with very different cultures compared to England and France in 2022, not to mention nine centuries' worth of evolving relations between those two.

Any pattern can resemble each other when they are approximated on large enough scales because then all differences would be wiped out. Geopolitical boundaries do often survive in some forms throughout history, as we can see some resemblances of the divisions in Medieval France vs. modern French departments. However this is the product of mainly geographical divisions (terrain such as rivers, mountains, plateaus, etc.) and in Brittany's case, an ethnic culture historically unique relative to the rest of France.

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#85

Post by thrdbndndn »

rodelrod wrote: post #81
thrdbndndn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because both overlap It's easy to see why old empires/countries were divided by geographical features due to military reasons. But why would it affect the current-day political climate directly ? I think the causal relation is more like Geo -> old empire -> (more things) -> current day politics like the original post implied, than Geo -> old empire Geo -> current day politics as you implied; unless I missed your poi…

Putting it in these terms, what I'm trying to say is something like: geography → economy → old empire geography → economy → current day politics The biggest caveat to this is that the importance of geography is conditioned by technology, and technology changes over time. So a more detailed model could be something like: geography + current tech → agriculture/commerce/industry/military → economy/culture → politics See…

Makes sense.

When you said geography features, I was more thinking of natural barrier (like rivers, mountains): they were very crucial in shaping the old country border, but should have less impact today if both sides are already in the same country. So it's interesting that some of political division are still present around them, which makes me think history has its (unproportional) influence than the geography itself. But I guess it's always multi-factor and hard to tell in vacuum.

It doesn't help that in most of examples in OP, the major difference between two (old) countries is the economic one, so a certain degree of Matthew effect is there.

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#86

Post by odiroot »

Ironically, the first map with Poland although very popular (it comes up on Reddit on a weekly basis) doesn't explain much.

It's the part not shown there that matters. The Russian partition (and to a lesser extent Austrian one) was the cause of the area in blue being poor and underdeveloped.

There was nothing particularly great in being under Prussian (German) occupation. It's that Russian occupation was so much worse, hell bent on robbing Poland on everything of any value.

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#87

Post by Ancapistani »

perrylaj wrote: post #32
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #24

I wonder if things are going to change significantly with all of the covid related movement.

Anecdotally, the movement I've seen largely results in consolidation of 'like-minds', rather than a culture-mixing diaspora that results in a greater balance of varied perspectives. I hope my limited experience isn't the norm, but I suspect it is.

I agree, from a US perspective.

Prior to COVID, it seemed like most people who moved long distances did so either for financial opportunity or to “come back home”. During COVID (and up to now) it seems like a lot of people are moving to places they’re more politically/ideologically/socially comfortable.

I think part of that is due to the expanded availability of remote work - but not all. My social circles are predominately conservative, and several of them have left jobs and took a significant cut in pay to move to more rural areas because they wanted to be away from the city. A couple of the more liberal people moved the opposite direction for the opposite reason.

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#88

Post by [deleted] »

Spellman wrote: post #83
api wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things. People misinterpret Chesterton's fence as an argument against changing things, but it's actually just about what I quoted above. It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. It just argues that you should make a strong effort to figure out why it is how it is before attempting to do so. I'd argue that if you d…

Yup. I've often seen Chesterson's Fence trotted out as an argument to never change anything. Or at least place onerous burden of proof on the new change to prove itself. However, some times the circumstances that gave rise to the fence are gone! You still need to do the work to show that this is true, or at least some best effort. But if after a cursory check there is no compelling reason, retorting "ah but there may…

[deleted]

Re: When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps

#89

Post by AshamedCaptain »

fguerraz wrote: post #16

This seems to be complete BS to me: all I see in these maps is a lot of confirmation bias, the author really sees what he wants to see. Some maps do overlap very well but in that case it only looks interesting because we want to see a causation link where there is correlation. So sorry for the harsh words but I actually find this upsetting.

In academic language this is called "the many labels you can put to a population density chart".
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