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Every map of China is wrong

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Re: Every map of China is wrong

#211

Post by usrusr »

willtemperley wrote: post #55
lolc wrote: post #6

So Openstreetmap must be illegal in China! And indeed it is: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/China Of course that doesn't stop people from mapping every bench in China https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=China#map=3/33.99...

The workaround might be to attach the GPS device to your dog's collar, as was done in Cuba by OpenStreetMappers

Doesn't say much about legality on paper, not even about how much of an invitation to selective enforcement it is, but looking at the Strava global heatmap through the lense of political systems is quite interesting: quite a bit of tracking in continental China, Cuba has more than Haiti. North Korea is a near-perfect blank, you can easily tell which islands belong to the south. The one spot where some tracking was registered is the ski resort they built in 2014 (apparently with a pre-used gondola system that i rode on when it was still in Ischgl). According to german wikipedia, a central excuse for building a ski resort was trying to attract tourists from China?

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#212

Post by hlynurd »

ipnon wrote: post #112

Medium is not the best place to host your writing. I didn't even read the article because more than half of my screen was taken up by the Medium call-to-action and the Google account modal. Does anyone remember when a webpage just loaded a document?

Medium doesn't have the best user experience but their SEO is fantastic (the last time I knew)

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#213

Post by ClumsyPilot »

bartekpacia wrote: post #201
GordonS wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And let's not forget that the US recently stationed troops on a tiny Taiwanese island that's less than ten miles from the Chinese mainland. And at a time when the US is sabre-rattling over Taiwan, and is about to give Taiwan billions of dollars for "defence". And elsewhere in the world, the US almost seems to be trying to start WWIII. In the current climate, being paranoid is the sensible option.

> And elsewhere in the world, the US almost seems to be trying to start WWIII. What? Where? Can you give some examples? > is about to give Taiwan billions of dollars for "defence" Why quote defence? You think they give it for offence? I suppose you're a citizen of the West; then US hegemony is certainly in your best interest.

> I suppose you're a citizen of the West; then US hegemony is certainly in your best interest

I am guessing you are from US, and you guys do not notice that quite often, domestic US politics shifts and you have a schism and throw one of your ‘allies’ under the bus.

Mr. Macron he just made a speech about how Europe can no longer rely on US.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/macron-sa...

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#214

Post by cbeach »

alephnerd wrote: post #194
cbeach wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic, that socialist/communist regimes always win power on the idea of giving control and ownership of assets back to "the people" The reality, of course, is that the people end up giving control and ownership to a one-party state. The four remaining Marxist-Leninist states are China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Marxi... ) In 2024, their Freedom Indices (out of 10…

China isn't Marxist-Leninist - the CCP split from Marxist thinking and Comintern early in the PRC's history. It's become it's own thing because anything "communist" is just lip service at this point. Public veneration of past Chinese empires and dynasties is way more common than some idealized view of a proletariat state. Same with Vietnam (basically a crony capitalist country) and Laos (basically a buffer between Th…

You might want to edit Wikipedia's list of Marxist-Leninist states, in that case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states#Marxi...

Also the page on China, which states the government is a "Unitary Marxist–Leninist one-party socialist state"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd be interested to see how that edit would be received by other editors of the page.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#215

Post by anonymoose33282 »

t-3 wrote: post #183
Propelloni wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be an embarrassment to say something has outlived its usefulness?

Changing it could mean they made the wrong decision in the first place, which could make Important People lose face by possibly being at fault. Of course, they could try to present things in a different way, but potentially inviting criticism by rectifying mistakes isn't going to be looked upon warmly unless the people involved are all dead or out of favor.

It's also not exclusive to China/authoritarian countries. Plenty of European countries have de-facto decriminalized cannabis by rarely enforcing laws on possession (I'm reminded of how often I saw people openly smoking weed on the street in Berlin years ago), yet politicians don't want to be the one to stick their neck out and say that the war on drugs failed or cosign the use of a particular substance -- even if their electorate largely would agree with them.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#216

Post by bombcar »

asoneth wrote: post #204
toss1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. This seems like low-intelligence autocratic bullshirt more than anything. Does the CCP really think that the US military are going to use ordinary street msps to target their missiles and that this obfuscation will protect them from on-target hits? Sure, in WWII there were a few apocryphal instances of bad maps foiling an attack, but that was decades before mapping satellites. As mentioned, it's been a l…

> Does the CCP really think that the US military are going to use ordinary street msps to target their missiles and that this obfuscation will protect them from on-target hits? In some cases using consumer-level street maps could make for more accurate targeting. Many years ago I worked on command & control systems for a US military contractor. The mapping imagery our software used from military mapping providers wer…

The general "what is over there" type questions are often more up-to-date in commercial outfits - but the military can order a satellite pass of an area that they're particularly interested in, if they need it.

So in general the commercial stuff is better, but in the specifics the military stuff will come out on top, depending on what the mission is and how much anyone cares about it.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#217

Post by jhbadger »

TechnicalVault wrote: post #143
_xnmw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe GJC2 can be modified on the fly, by changing offset parameters? So in a hypothetical war situation, only providers obtaining data in realtime from "authorized" sources would have access to accurate targeting information.

Nah, because the thing is the Russian and US militaries will have their own maps of China anyway. There's a reason the UK's mapping agency retains the historic name of the Ordinance Survey, maps has always been a military thing and they've always retained surveyors.

This reminds me of a fascinating book titled "The Red Atlas" by John Davies and Alexander Kent which is about the very detailed maps of Western cities the Soviet Union created during the Cold War.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#218

Post by Workaccount2 »

dahart wrote: post #205
throwaway4good wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some elaborate technical trade barrier? I think that is giving them too much credit. This is thinking from a military apparatus stuck in the 1950es.

No need to speculate. The reasons for it were stated explicitly, as the article mentions. They are, briefly, to “promote mapping” for “national economic construction”, “national defense”, and “social development”.

To be fair, they say that about literally every initiative they undertake.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#219

Post by Workaccount2 »

obscurette wrote: post #65
sib wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many years, the most accurate (paper) maps of the Soviet Union were those created by the CIA. The USSR's own maps included lots of intentionally incorrect data.

I remember from my childhood (early seventies is Soviet Union) that it was allowed to print road maps with straight lines only and distances between cities were always at least several kilometers wrong. I also remember when my classmate lost the map when orienteering (these were relatively accurate) and he and his parents had a lot of trouble because of that.

I believe back then you could only get orienteering maps from the military too.

Re: Every map of China is wrong

#220

Post by kube-system »

ajmurmann wrote: post #207

I don't understand why Google adheres to this law. They are blocked in China anyways, no?

Not having a search engine there doesn't mean they don't have any business that could be impacted by Chinese law: https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/jobs/resul...

Also, making your employees fugitives of foreign law can make their weekend travel plans a little bit more complicated.

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