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This map is not upside down

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Re: This map is not upside down

#211

Post by incr_me »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #104
incr_me wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offensive how? "Developing" and "things aren't so bad" are offensive because they obfuscate imperialist relations. That's the position of the theorists who use "Global North"/"South", anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South#... What do you mean by discriminatory?

I haven't read the link you posted because I want to expand on my initial reaction. A layman who is not familiar with the reasons behind Global North/South would not think about imperialist relations. I'm somewhat okay with "developing" because the term is easier to understand: some countries are less developed than others. Plus the terms are fluid. If a country becomes developed enough then they switch labels. Globa…

Right, in my experience it's a distinction that's offensive to the "Northern" camp that thinks about the disparity in terms of each country's independent "growth"/"progress"/development". It also offends "would-be Northerners", i.e. comprador/petty bourgeois individuals located geographically in the "South", for similar reasons. To complicate matters, dependency theorists were themselves petty bourgeois apologists of the Non-Aligned Movement. It's just that times have changed, just like how "American Indian" is preferred by the older generation because "Native" and "Indigenous" are impositions of liberalism, even though the newer generation may prefer the latter labels.

Personally I don't care what language is being used as long as the real conditions are being brought to light. Persecutory investigations into psychology on these matters are dead ends. The successful adoption of "Native" and "developing" did not liberate.

Re: This map is not upside down

#212

Post by jumploops »

"North" is better correlated with the direction of travel that our planet/solar system is moving within[0]

Given the context in our movement compared to the milky way, maybe it's better to have East/West for top/bottom, with the poles on each edge of the map ;) [1]

Or better yet, let's make the top of the map Galactic North, instead of Celestial North :P

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU

[1]https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/orientation-of-the-ear...

Re: This map is not upside down

#213

Post by olalonde »

buzzy_hacker wrote: post #20

I was taught in high school that during the Cold War, there were maps with the US centered and USSR divided on either side to imply American unity in the face of opposition. Example: https://ebay.us/m/tN1UfJ

In China, world maps have China more centered with America to the right. Some pics I took recently: https://gist.github.com/olalonde/d293e54c46143c3dd905da4c0eb...

Re: This map is not upside down

#214

Post by olalonde »

nemomarx wrote: post #133
jandrewrogers wrote: post #85

Putting the north at the top was an artifact of the need to select a standard orientation when the printing press enabled mass production of maps. It was going to be north or south, thanks to the widespread existence of the magnetic compass at the time, and the printing press was invented by people in the north.

What did maps from China look like around then? I assume they'd center their continent somehow

They still do. Took those pictures a few days ago in China: https://gist.github.com/olalonde/d293e54c46143c3dd905da4c0eb...

Re: This map is not upside down

#216

Post by nitwit005 »

Martin_Silenus wrote: post #209
nemomarx wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if they have the same handedness for writing and for other tasks or not, if practice writing rtl makes them on average more ambidextrous on average etc. Does it have any cultural impacts like how we had the "sinister" thing in English?

There is nothing cultural about an individual's ability to write with their right hand. Studies have been conducted on this subject: it is a physiological/neurological factor (which also applies to other parts of the human body). I know this because, well... I'm a left-handed writer and it interested me at one point (strangely enough, I find it very difficult to throw something with my left hand; and I'm right-handed…

In the past, left handed people were sometimes punished and forced to write with the other hand. Their right handed writing was an artifact of that culture.

Re: This map is not upside down

#217

Post by thomascgalvin »

DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote: post #176
hobs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so if two people or other creatures are fighting, one who is higher is generally at an advantage compared to one who is lower or lying on the ground Tell that to a BJJ fighter.

BJJ fighters still think higher up is an advantage. Body weight to press down on opponent, greater freedom of movement.

There are a lot of people who prefer to fight from guard.

Re: This map is not upside down

#218

Post by cyanydeez »

schoen wrote: post #54
hyperhello wrote: post #2

> Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’ This, of course, is the point of the article. It was so predictable that it made me wonder: who is telling me that top is good and lower is bad? The articles themselves.

At one point a character in Eco's Foucault's Pendulum says "archetypes don't exist, the body exists" and then gives some sexual and reproductive examples, followed by > And high is better than low, because if you have your head down, the blood goes to your brain, because feet stink and hair doesn’t stink as much, because it’s better to climb a tree and pick fruit than end up underground, food for worms, and because y…

It's probably even dumber than this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10676768/

Re: This map is not upside down

#219

Post by decimalenough »

tintor wrote: post #175
hidroto wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How is Australia part of Global North? :)

North is 0-127, South is 128-255. When you go south enough, the 8-bit counter overflows and that's how Australia becomes North.

Alternatively, "Global North" is just code for "white", with a few apartheid-style token "honorary whites" like Japan added.

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

Re: This map is not upside down

#220

Post by zokier »

gwbas1c wrote: post #210
perrygeo wrote: post #206

My favorite is the Dymaxion projection created by Bucky Fuller. It shows all seven continents as one roughly contiguous chain of islands from Australia to Antarctica, surrounded by a giant ocean. It's no more or less correct than "north up" projections. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Dymaxion...

The thing that I like about that projection is that it shows just how close North America and Russia really are.

Eyeballing distances is probably my biggest problem with dymaxion map, it is pretty difficult to do. Admittedly it is problem on many projections to some degree, but dymaxion is especially tricky
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