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Maps distort how we see the world

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#221

Post by fragmede »

DirkH wrote: post #208
snoman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As an adult I was shocked to find out how the projection I grew up with altered my perception of my poverty-stricken country. I had no idea for my entire life that it was so much larger than other countries on the map I thought were larger. I doubt I am rare here at all. And I have no idea what "The West Wing" is. And I doubt I am rare here at all also.

It is a TV show from 1999 that centered on the literal office of the same name that the US President holds court in.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#222

Post by anikan_vader »

bagacrap wrote: post #187
meindnoch wrote: post #136

Yeah, it must be the Mercator projection why the global south is poor. Never mind New Zealand and Australia... Never mind that the whole post-USSR Asia is on the same level as some African countries... It must be those damn maps.

Actually the claim was that the global poor are close to the equator. Given how little motivation I have to even move when it's very hot, and how moving is required to generate wealth, and how recently A/C was invented, it's probably not totally a coincidence. But yea Mercator isn't the problem.

I mean it’s pretty easily explained by the Industrial Revolution starting in Europe, which is very far north. The explanation that heat induces laziness is a bit suspect given that in older eras many of the most prosperous civilizations were near the equator. (Egypt, Sumeria, the Persians, Indus River Valley Civilizations, etc.)

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#223

Post by kortilla »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #52
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)…

> 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! That's the point of the post. The trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed, considered or even mentioned outside very small cohorts because th…

The faux outrage is hard to take. I grew up with the chopped up non Mercator maps and nobody cared looking at one or another.

It was called out multiple times in my geography glasses in the 80s that the flat contiguous map was wrong and we spent lots of time looking at globes and North or South Pole centered maps.

Nobody is being oppressed or underrepresented by this projection. This isn’t an episode of the west wing.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#224

Post by kortilla »

XorNot wrote: post #192
prepend wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it important that poor people live near the equator? I expect that a large part of the population is aware of this fact. So bringing it up doesn’t contribute to the article and is a bit off in the article. Why not mention that the days are longer in the summer away from the equator. Or they people near the equator have darker pigment. Or many other true but irrelevant facts.

Because the equator in the Mercator projection is the closest to "true size"...which means that the wealthier nations, well above that, are in fact exacerbated in apparent land mass. I like this site[1] for showing the true size of countries on a standard projection. Look at how much the US actually changes in size when you move it's latitude even a little. Like it or not, the perception of scale of a problem is link…

Nobody looks at a map before saying “most of the world is experiencing X”. This is a fantasy straw man.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#226

Post by croes »

eldaisfish wrote: post #72
js2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably seen that clip a dozen times and this was the first time I noticed Whitford manspreading in the middle of the clip and Janney batting his leg back. By the look on his face, it seems improvised to get a laugh out of her.

it’s a huge stretch to claim there was no bias involved. the biais is in putting europe front and center and at the top. Have you seen maps that place the americas in the center? How about maps with north and south swapped?

If you nake a map for your navigation, what would you put in center?

Your starting point or any other point?

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#227

Post by keiferski »

This article misses what I think is actually the bigger "distortion"[1]: the idea that an externalized, view of Earth as an object in space should be the default way of visualizing our place in the universe. This is itself a distortion based on a long, long lineage of philosophical-religious ideas on how the world is constructed and how human beings fit into it. It seems to me that we could construct any number of other maps that are either more truthful, more useful, or more in-line with human thriving (eudaimonia) [2].

In other words, if all maps are distortions, is the one we're using actually the one we should be using?

1. I don't really like this word, as it implies that there is a real shape of the world and that every other perspective is somehow wrong.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#228

Post by Taniwha »

trhfhxggf wrote: post #54
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 makes things further from the equator appear huge. There's no conspiracy or biases involved, unless of course you're proposing that the Mercator projection was developed to give Antarctica a false sense of superiority.

One of the common maps used in schools cuts off the bottom quarter of the map, including Antarctica making the southern hemisphere half the size of the northern

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#230

Post by divbzero »

Jun8 wrote: post #6

Interesting post with eye opening stats (even after reading many posts like this I'm still amazed at how big Brazil is!) Another interesting effect maps have on worldview that was not mentioned is the placement of North at the top ( https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/7960/why-is... ). The fact that in the South of Egypt was referred to as "Upper Egypt" has confused me to no end, since "clearly" it's the…

I always thought Upper/Lower Egypt referred to regions that were upstream/downstream relative to the Nile.
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