271–280 of 351 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one claimed people do this. You have created a straw man-ception. Our awareness of the world is informed by distorted maps, even if it only impacts us subconsciously.
No it’s not. Nobody cares about Greenland despite it being larger than all of Europe on the projection.
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)…
Just use another projection? Mercator is everywhere, nothing else.
And yes, size of countries is important too (eg. how people fear Russia because it seems large and discount the importance of Africa because it's next to the equator).
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…
There's a similar phenomenon of terminology creep with language terms like 'High German' and 'Low German'. This nomenclature has been adopted into fantasy literature to suggest a more noble vs. fallen version of some ancient dialect, but all it meant originally is that 'high' speakers were upstream (and therefore uphill) from the 'low' speakers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except Mercator wasn't German. He was born in the County of Flanders, current day East Flanders and moved to Germany at the age of 40. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerardus_Mercator
"5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594" Everything was a bit complicated in that region in the medieval period. In the C16, you immediately come up short with the concept of "Germany".
Same with Italy, which wasn't a single state until the mid XIX century. Over to the east states lost independence and remained so for hundreds of years, only to re-emerge in the XX century.
My point is that state as an entity doesn't fully define one's identity.
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…
And?
The trade-offs between longpolling and websockets are rarely discussed outside of very small cohorts. The tradeoff between wankel-engines and piston-based motors are rarely discussed. The tradeoffs between oak and pearwood are rarely discussed.
That's why our society has division of labor and people becoming experts in their topics.
And I am pretty sure experts on cartography have discussed the different merits and tradeoffs and converged on Mercator for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, and I don't care. It works, I can use it, and as long as no one can point out a tangible problem with it, I see no reason to worry about it. Same as the cartographer doesn't need to know or care why I decided that the chatapp he installed uses longpolling to communicate with the backend instead of a websocket. Same as I don't need to know or care why the carpenter who made my desk used oak instead of pear or rosewood.
And seeing countries as smaller or bigger than they are isn't a problem in my eyes. I can reasonably expect an educated person to know that maps are 3D->2D projections and are thus distorted. If I want to know the exact size, I can always look it up. I don't have a more or less favourable view of a country or its people based on the countries apparent size on a map.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The second sentence of the article strongly implies some nefarious concentration of power and wealth among the globally powerful countries is at the root of the popularity of mercator projections.
Well, they is a "nefarious concentration of power and wealth among the globally powerful countries". And the Mercator projection does suit them practically, and shows their countries bigger than they are, so...
With the advent of the paperless office, the increasing ubiquity of screens, and the steady progress in 3D rendering performance – there will soon be little need for 2D map projections. We just render the Earth as a sphere and do some perspective projection.
Screens are still flat, so it would still be a 2d projection.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The second sentence of the article strongly implies some nefarious concentration of power and wealth among the globally powerful countries is at the root of the popularity of mercator projections.
Well, they is a "nefarious concentration of power and wealth among the globally powerful countries". And the Mercator projection does suit them practically, and shows their countries bigger than they are, so...
So what?
Do these countries become more powerful, richer, or have more resources than others because they are represented bigger on a common map projection? If so, then let's just hope that our new overlords from the Antarctican Coalition are benign emperors :D
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed And? The trade-offs between longpolling and websockets are rarely discussed outside of very small cohorts. The tradeoff between wankel-engines and piston-based motors are rarely discussed. The tradeoffs between oak and pearwood are rarely discussed. That's why our society has division of labor and people becoming experts in their topics. And I am pre…