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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

#331

Post by Nasrudith »

fifafifi wrote: post #239
cpuguy83 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying there is a bias is not an accusation of wrong doing or "demonization".

It's crazy how populists and misinformation agents have successfully convinced people that any mention of a potential bias is an "woke" attack on their whole personality and world view.

Only if you count bad evangelists as "misinformation agents". There are unfortunately plenty of bad actors who have persistently tried to use it as a social cudgel and an excuse to fight for social dominance, shield oneself from being questioned (including self-reflection), and to write others off. To be frank, it is no wonder people view it as an attack when that is exactly what it has been used for.

For a similar patterns of bad behavior by the same actors look at the utterly terrible framing and naming of white priveledge, where not having problems nobody should have to deal with is phrased as if not being discriminated against is a moral problem!

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#332

Post by kortilla »

darkwater wrote: post #271
kortilla wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it’s not. Nobody cares about Greenland despite it being larger than all of Europe on the projection.

Well I actually used to think - before being educated about map constraints and the Mercator projection - that "Wow Greenland is HUGE".

How old were you when you learned that though? I thought the same thing until we were shown why it’s misleading in like the 4th grade.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#333

Post by kortilla »

fifafifi wrote: post #235
kortilla wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it’s not. Nobody cares about Greenland despite it being larger than all of Europe on the projection.

[flagged]

> Greenland is not Africa.

I don’t think you are getting what I’m saying. Greenland is larger than countries we spend far more time obsessing over with history lessons.

Importance in education and subsequently people’s mental models is not at all driven by size on the projection. It’s a dumb theory not backed by any real research.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#334

Post by [deleted] »

zimpenfish wrote: post #329
dwaltrip wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

[deleted]

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#335

Post by expensive_news »

bit_flipper wrote: post #316
rocqua wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No map shown to a driver at the detail level of navigating intersections should have to care about projections much. At that small a scale earth is approximately flat, and any half decent projection should have minimal distortions of any kind.

You can read about why projections still very much matter for large scale (which is what I think you meant; small scale would be something that shows you whole countries and not used for road navigation) maps in the article I linked. Google Maps tried out an alternative projection back when it was still Keyhole and ran into problems with angular distortion when zoomed in. The original post is sadly lost to Google shu…

Why does Apple have the only map (that I know of) that projects Earth as a ball, as it is? It seems like a very obvious solution.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#336

Post by goodbyesf »

prepend wrote: post #215
goodbyesf wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s odd. Did you think land mass was somehow really important? Yes. That and population. Generally, the larger and more populous countries tend to be the most powerful and influential. > Did you ever check out how small Britain or Spain or Portugal or Netherlands were to the size of their empire. Ever wonder why britain, spain, portugal and netherlands expanded their landmass by creating their empires? Ever wond…

> Generally, the larger and more populous countries tend to be the most powerful and influential. But this is obviously not true. Just look at the list of top 10 by GDP and check out how many of them are relatively small. I mean you have to have natural resources and can’t be tiny, but it’s not like Germany and Japan are powerful because of their landmass. I think judging countries by their size is a mistake in ratio…

> But this is obviously not true.

It is obviously true. The five permanent security council members are US, China, Russia, UK and France. US, China and Russia are obviously gigantic. UK is gigantic via its ties to Canada, Australia, NZ. After all the silly monarch of britain is the head of state of all these nations. And France has a gigantic empire still. Go check out their EEZ.

> but it’s not like Germany and Japan are powerful because of their landmass.

Germany and Japan aren't powerful. Powerful nations aren't occupied by a foreign power. Germany and Japan are extraordinarly weak. Their economic well being is entirely dependent on the generosity of another nation.

There is a reason why Germany and Japan tried to expand their territories in ww2. They failed and they have to live with the consequences.

> I think judging countries by their size is a mistake in rationality and people shouldn’t do that.

Sure. Landmass by itself isn't everything. As I said, you have to factor in population, quality of land, ports, neighbors, etc.

> It’s only silly people who look at Greenland on a Mercator map and think that they are powerful based on size.

You quoted "the larger and more populous countries tend to be the most powerful and influential."

Do you know what populous means? It's silly to quote something and not understand it.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#338

Post by kevdev »

chippiewill wrote: post #17
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

Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of the White House, had a two-ton block of cheese. It was there, for any and all who were hungry, it was there for the voiceless.

And a wheat thin the size of Lake Tahoe.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#339

Post by coldtea »

usrbinbash wrote: post #323
coldtea wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

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

Yes. And if someone breaks your legs, you should totally be able to run a marathon after, say, 15 years. After all, they haven't broke your legs for a while.

History and national development doesn't work like that. A major handicap can still keep you back for centuries.

It's even more than a handicap relatively too. It's not just that you were held down (and the other side neutral): the handicap for you was at the same time an enrichment off your back for the other side.

Even more more so, since "independent nations" is mostly a facade for the busines as usual, of neocolonialism: the same shit, but somewhat more convert (bribing politicians, setting up banana-republic conditions, if needed bringing in the army, supporting this or that dictator into power, and so on, and using monetary policy and foreign aid to make sure they never stand on their legs).

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#340

Post by usrbinbash »

coldtea wrote: post #339
usrbinbash wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

> Pretty sure all of the former colonies are independent nations by now, and have been for more than a generation. Yes. And if someone breaks your legs, you should totally be able to run a marathon after, say, 15 years. After all, they haven't broke your legs for a while. History and national development doesn't work like that. A major handicap can still keep you back for centuries. It's even more than a handicap rel…

Yeah, I'm not gonna discuss colonialism here. Multiple generations are a long time to get things in order. Many countries rebuilt from scratch into powerful industrialized nations within decades after major wars.

And it's also not the topic of the discussion tbh. This is about the impact of the Mercator projection, and unless I get to see a peer reviewed study convincing me otherwise, my point stands.

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