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This map is not upside down

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Re: This map is not upside down

#301

Post by HexDecOctBin »

shirro wrote: post #258

The thing I resent most is the terms Global North and Global South. It seems like an offensive classification no matter which side you are placed. China is an incredibly rich, highly developed industrial economy with a history that goes back thousands of years with massive cultural influence. They are firmly in the northern hemisphere. They have high speed electric trains and their cities look like something out of B…

> It seems like an offensive classification no matter which side you are placed.

If it was so offensive, both India and China would not be at loggerheads trying to posture themselves as a leader of the Global South.

Simple fact of the matter is that progress in modern world requires networked systems. Europeans and Euro-descendants were able to achieve this networking through racial bonhomie and colonialism. Non-western countries do not have that available to them, so they have to invent new narratives to facilitate that networking.

The fact that India may have orbital launch and Australia doesn't is the reason to reject Developing/Developed dichotomy and move to a different one, Global North/South seems to be the one gaining traction.

Getting offended over the existence of the idea of Global South just because it doesn't hew closely to some arbitrary parameter is similar to saying that G7 is natural but BRICS is dangerous. It's just a statement of rote comfort. If Australia is not a northern country by direction, it's not a western country by direction either; I doubt any Australians are in a hurry to classify themselves as an Eastern society and not a Western one.

Re: This map is not upside down

#303

Post by chatmasta »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #286
chatmasta wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first time I realized the Nile flowed from South to North, I thought someone was pranking me. It just felt fundamentally wrong. That’s probably because when you look at a globe, the Nile seems like it should be dripping downward…

But the Mediterranean is right there. Did you think the Mediterranean drains into some sinkhole in the middle of Africa?

Well I was about eleven years old, so I’m not sure I’d even heard of the Mediterranean by then.

Re: This map is not upside down

#305

Post by miki_oomiri »

a3w wrote: post #99
patternMachine wrote: post #48

The moralizing that always accompanies (not) upside down maps is so tedious. It's a genuinely interesting example of how something can look so wrong and yet not be wrong at all. To try to extend that "wrong" feeling to some kind of moral failure on the viewers part is just silly. You (or society) are not a bad or prejudiced person for thinking this way, it's just that nearly all maps produced have chosen a different…

For clarity, you cannot call north up: North is not up. That would make left west. When standing in front of a building, with map in hand, and asking people to go start going to the street in the south, then left, I mean left in direction of travel, which is east. Not left in direction of map conventions, which for people who cannot read a compass is probably west.

> North is not up. That would make left west.

Nope. You're confusing up and front.

Re: This map is not upside down

#306

Post by [deleted] »

stronglikedan wrote: post #116
paxys wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People read things top to bottom. If you have half a page worth of content will you put it at the top and leave the bottom half of the page empty or the opposite? If you are writing a TL;DR will you put it at the top or bottom of the page?

> People read things top to bottom. Even in Berber?

[deleted]

Re: This map is not upside down

#307

Post by llm_nerd »

shirro wrote: post #258

The thing I resent most is the terms Global North and Global South. It seems like an offensive classification no matter which side you are placed. China is an incredibly rich, highly developed industrial economy with a history that goes back thousands of years with massive cultural influence. They are firmly in the northern hemisphere. They have high speed electric trains and their cities look like something out of B…

> The thing I resent most is the terms Global North and Global South ... because white people invaded 200 years ago ... It is completely arbitrary, political and divisive.

There is nothing "arbitrary" about the classification, and it was created by aid groups originally based upon socioeconomic factors, later adopted by the UN and others as the term third-world went out of favour after the Cold War ended. It got the North/South bifurcation purely because most of the one set were Northern countries, and most of the other set were Southern countries, and most people don't have a defensiveness about the words North or South and aren't offended by it.

As an aside, acting as if the colonial countries aren't empirically successful because you want to push some umbrage is just super weird. Australia and New Zealand are both highly developed rich countries, regardless of whatever your rural area's infrastructure is like.

Countries in the Global South desperately want to be classified in that grouping because it means development funds and benefits that aren't available to Global North countries. China has rapidly risen over the past couple of decades and it's getting hard to still call it a developing country (and its foreign aid intake has been rapidly tapering off as it industrializes), though to be fair, it still has a GDP per capita 1/4 Australia or New Zealand. Similarly Russia is mighty close to losing Global North standing.

And for that matter South Korea and Japan are a part of the Global North. I guess they didn't get your memo that it's only for the white countries or some such social justice prattle.

And once I get to your final paragraph I'm firmly convinced you were just trolling, or at least I honestly hope you were. Delineating the world by socioeconomic conditions doesn't denote allies or enemies, and this bizarre take is nonsensical and has zero relevance to anything but some contrived taking of offense. The mere notion that it is "arbitrary" is so fantastically ridiculous that you have to be having a laugh.

Re: This map is not upside down

#308

Post by nomel »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #285

Apparently we're due for a pole flip [0] pretty soon. If that happens, do we stick with putting North at the top and all maps look like this, or do we stick with keeping the maps the same way up and putting South at the top? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

I suspect we will continue to do what we currently do: differentiate between magnetic north and "true" north, by applying a local correction, as is already required for navigation with a compass.

Re: This map is not upside down

#309

Post by JdeBP »

kccqzy wrote: post #228
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...

In college I wanted to buy a large printed Dymaxion map of the world to put in my dorm, as opposed to the usual movie posters. I could not find any place selling such a print.

Nowadays, people sell poster-size Dymaxion maps on Etsy. One of the good ways in which the world has changed, I think.

Re: This map is not upside down

#310

Post by themaninthedark »

blargey wrote: post #244
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.

Are you feeling down, or are things looking up for you? Do you have people to look up to, or do you spend more time looking down on others? Are you on top of the world, or working your way up from the bottom? Etc, etc. It's suffused throughout our language, and not just this one language, either.

It's up in the air, I could be High as a kite!
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