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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

#321

Post by dwaltrip »

dwaltrip wrote: post #301
resolutebat wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to think you're being ironic here, but I suspect you're not, so no: the vast majority of the world is outside the US and has not, in fact, seen an obscure episode of a TV drama about American politics. For others who haven't, here it is: https://youtu.be/vVX-PrBRtTY Although the projection it proclaims as superior, Gall-Peters, has grievous flaws of its own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_…

I just learned about the equal earth projection, which was apparently invented very recently in 2023. It’s the best looking equal area projection I’ve seen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Earth_projection

Ah, oops, that should say 2018, not 2023.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#322

Post by trallnag »

eevilspock wrote: post #198
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)…

Feels like you're pretending that Amero-Eurocentrism is not a thing, that there is no agenda or bias to be examined or criticized. If you've ever played Risk, the Amero-Eurocentrism is extreme. https://cdn.matthewhaeck.com/content/images/2015/02/risk.jpg https://freeprintableaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/risk-... North America: 9 territories, larger than Africa. Europe: 7 territories, as large as Africa. USA: 3 t…

I'd love maps where Europe is smaller to become the norm in schools and daily use oberall. Maybe it would make people migrating here from huge and vast countries reconsider.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#323

Post by usrbinbash »

coldtea wrote: post #295
usrbinbash wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

> Do these countries become more powerful, richer, or have more resources than others because they are represented bigger on a common map projection? No. They become so by colonizing and stealing other's resources. Then the map projections that are convenient for them, are imposed upon the rest of humanity. This, among other legitimate uses, has the side-benefit for them of presenting said countries as larger than th…

> They become so by colonizing and stealing other's resources.

Pretty sure all of the former colonies are independent nations by now, and have been for more than a generation.

> Then the map projections that are convenient for them, are imposed upon the rest of humanity.

Excuse me? Who is imposing what on whom now, and how?

Last time I checked, everyone is free to use whatever map projection they want, centered on whatever point of the globe they want. Or they can use an actual globe.

> has the side-benefit for them of presenting said countries as larger than they are, and thus being one more way to subconsciously hammer onto everybody their superiority at that level too...

Yeah, pretty sure I don't perceive Antarctica as some kind of superior super-nation. Or greenland, although I gotta say, it's a really cool place, especially during summer.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#324

Post by ralusek »

fifafifi wrote: post #240
ralusek wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This clip is always hilarious to me. Smugly declares "it's where you've been living this whole time," as he stands in front of a projection that is just as flawed, as all projections are, as the Mercator. The only priority of that map projection is attempting to account for the accurate area of landmasses, sacrificing correct shape of landmasses, as well as a ton of navigational utility. A globe is the only correct p…

A globe is not a map projection. With a globe you can only see part of Earth at once.

A globe IS a map projection. It's the projection of the surface of the planet onto a sphere.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#325

Post by ralusek »

Jabbles wrote: post #265
ralusek wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This clip is always hilarious to me. Smugly declares "it's where you've been living this whole time," as he stands in front of a projection that is just as flawed, as all projections are, as the Mercator. The only priority of that map projection is attempting to account for the accurate area of landmasses, sacrificing correct shape of landmasses, as well as a ton of navigational utility. A globe is the only correct p…

> as well as a ton of navigational utility Surely this utility was only ever useful for sailors, and these days not even them?

No I mean like when you open your maps application and want to go somewhere with GPS, latitude and longitude will be vertical and horizontal and proportionally spaced due to the map using a projection like Mercator...

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#326

Post by bluepod4 »

prepend wrote: post #154
bluepod4 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a fixed and narrow definition of what important means. Importance should change depending on context. Sure, you are definitely allowed to say that a certain metric (i.e. population size or density) has more practical applications and provides better signal for “blah blah”. But I’m not discussing “blah blah”.

I’m curious why you think my definition of important is fixed and narrow. I didn’t define it and I agree that importance is a factor of context. I commented that it was curious that someone would think size is so important that learning the true size of countries would change their world view. In that land mass isn’t usually very important for political or cultural significance (eg, Canada is huge and that doesn’t ma…

Because you used phrases like “really important” and “more important”. It sounds very juvenile.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#327

Post by shard »

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 chance I get I try to promote the Cahill-Keys projection. Not only does it better preserve area and reminds you that the earth is a sphere, it is also one of the more esthetically pleasing projections out there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_project...

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#328

Post by bluepod4 »

brightlancer wrote: post #212
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…

> I think you should be more amazed at people who _don’t_ care at _all _ about size. Sure, this group might include reasonable people like yourself who are knowledgeable about map distortions and trade offs. But a lot of the “I don’t care” group overlaps with the “Africa is a country” group. On what are you basing it? IME, almost nobody cares. Even folks who like maps (e.g. me) "don't care" in most cases, because fla…

I was basing it off of “IME” and “AFAICT” similar to what you just did in your own ad hominem attack ironically. I don’t tend to preface things like that when commenting and usually I assume this when reading comments online. I used to write “anecdotally” but it’s 2023.

https://itsoktobewhite.quora.com/

On Quora, there’s a “group” sort of like a subreddit titled “It’s OK to be White”. There’s about 35k people who follow it. Their mission is to “uplift White cultures and oppose anti-White racism”.

Like I already said in my previous comment (so you didn’t need to ask twice what I was basing it off of), people often post map distortion memes on Quora and these other people from that group come out of the woodworks to complain. These memes aren’t even posted in that group. And I wish I could say that it’s just these weirdos on Quora that act like this. But no. I’ve seen it on Instagram. On Facebook. I’ve heard it in real life. It’s a thing that bothers a certain demographic of people. While it’s not a “major” thing and shouldn’t matter, it’s still a thing that I tend to see often.

I see there’s miscommunication here though. I do agree with you that most people “don’t care”. That’s the phrase we have been using. What you are saying and what I also believe is that most people are “map agnostic” for lack of a better phrase. They don’t care in that sense. Like life is too short. It’s just a map.

But when I used the phrase “don’t care” and added underscores around it and the words “at all” in my comments yesterday, I was referring to people who have _strong_ and _negative_ opinions about not caring.

For example, OP said that he was _constantly amazed_. And the other language he used evoked that he was “flabbergasted” that people care about map distortions. (Do you see how this is a different definition of “don’t care”?)

The language he was using and the emotions involved “mirrored” the language and emotions that I see on Quora and hear in real life from that specific group of people.

You’re right. I don’t have any concrete data or surveys or experiments or a sentiment analysis to show that those groups overlap. I was just basing it off of being alive for 30+ years, living in different countries, having a brain, etc.

(Also, there’s nothing wrong with calling someone a moron and/or a racist lol. The two groups usually overlap. Oops I did it again!)

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#329

Post by zimpenfish »

dwaltrip wrote: post #319
jgeada wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, a loglog plot? Even in that, there is a seriously wide dispersion to your correlation. And then look at the same data on a linear plot.

The linear plot in that Wolfram link is messed up. It doesn't show all the data (caps out at 800 billion GDP). Here's a corrected linear plot, from the script that I linked (commenting out the log-log scaling): https://ibb.co/9bBgwH8 There is clearly a correlation, even on linear. It's a little messy, but it's undeniably there. The starting point for this discussion was about the relationship between a country's size…

> The result is 0.82, which indicates a strong positive correlation.

datamash gave me 0.52 for Pearson. Which is "eh, maybe".

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#330

Post by earthboundkid »

midasuni wrote: post #35
Freebytes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Students rarely even look at a globe, though. They see many more maps online.

Especially the southern hemisphere, as their head is normally above the globe

Kids are short. Australians turn maps so they are south side up anyway.
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