Maps distort how we see the world

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC

snoman wrote: post #105

JackFr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed, considered or even mentioned outside very small cohorts Not true. They're honestly discussed all the time to the point of becoming tiresome.

Right? Is there a person above 25 that hasn’t seen the episode (or clip) from The West Wing about map projections at this point?

Post by codingdave » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

NoRelToEmber wrote: post #121

randcraw wrote: post #10

There was a memorable scene from "The West Wing" on the biases imposed by most map projections, in particular, how Mercator makes North America look huge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI

It's fascinating how we're expected to believe senior White House officials are such perfect strawman doofuses that they have never seen a globe or the Mollweide projection, or were ever reprimanded by a geography teacher for saying "up" instead of "North". The only thing that scene is missing is for her to fall over in shock and disbelief at hearing that the Earth is round. They're not characters, they're tools to p…

Post by lm28469 » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

bluepod4 wrote: post #44

jgeada wrote: post #24

Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings)…

> I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Hmm. That’s not usually how the discourse goes. It’s never “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. That’s terrible.” It usually goes something like “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. This distorts our worldview and makes us think things we shouldn’t have thoug…

Post by bluepod4 » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 9:41 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #77

bluepod4 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Hmm. That’s not usually how the discourse goes. It’s never “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. That’s terrible.” It usually goes something like “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. This distorts our worldview and makes us think things we shouldn’t have thoug…

> But my thoughts about Europe definitely changed after seeing the other projection. That’s odd. Did you think land mass was somehow really important? Did you ever check out how small Britain or Spain or Portugal or Netherlands were to the size of their empire. Do you now think that Indonesia is more important because of its size? I would expect that revelations about population would be more worldview adjusting (Nig…

Post by lm28469 » Wed, Jun 21, 2023, 9:43 PM UTC

luxurytent wrote: post #50

The overlay of Canada on Europe is always a fun one. We moan so much here (perhaps rightfully so) about lack of public transit and reasonable infrastructure to get around, but we're also comparing a population of (just recently hit!) 40,000 and ~700,000. Orders of magnitude larger, but roughly same land area. This is why I am hugely in support of increased immigration into Canada, housing crisis aside (it'll resolve…