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This map is not upside down

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Re: This map is not upside down

#441

Post by mc32 »

rendx wrote: post #369
alabhyajindal wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. "Developing" what, and to what end? The term itself sounds absolute, where in fact it implies a relative order, but doesn't give away what (arbitrary) properties you include in the comparison. Take Gross…

I think migration patterns by people are a good indication of what people on the ground see as superior and inferior choices.

Slow and steady with a plan like Singapore or Taiwan wins the race. Shortcuts, seeking aid from China or the IMF only benefits the local caudilloes.

Re: This map is not upside down

#442

Post by buran77 »

Attrecomet wrote: post #396
vincvinc wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? I think the outrage over making the reader feel like "a bad or prejudiced person" that accompanies any invitation to challenge assumptions is so tedious. How come this culture war mindset infuses everything we do online now? Nowhere does this map or its description even imply you are a bad person. It's pure ... projection

"Deciding to put south, or north, at the top of maps is a decision of consequence. Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’ This can influence our interpretation of maps at both global and local scales." There it is, the implication that "North is up" is morally bad. Since it's an implication, it does not need to be read that way, but it's clearly there.

> Psychologically, we tend to view things nearer the top as ‘good’ and those lower as ‘bad.’

The oldest maps in the world and in Europe are oriented North at the top and the essential feature in the middle. For the Babylonians it was the Euphrates and Babylon itself. For the Europeans it was the Mediterranean. The implication that everyone sees up/North as better means that generations of Greek or Roman cartographers just accepted that the barbaric northernmost regions of Europe are "better", which is patently false.

Religions that use the cross as a holy symbol also use the Trinitarian formula (In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, amen) while making the cross. God the Son is the second in the trinity but is put at the bottom of the cross, while God the Holy Spirit is the third yet sits higher. This is also deeply rooted in people's psychology.

So I am not convinced of your argument.

Re: This map is not upside down

#443

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

mrighele wrote: post #362
vasco wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

West and east don't make sense on a globe. It makes a little sense as relative directions to some point. But it makes no sense to use them as topological area boundaries. It's a globe, nothing is "in the west". Things can just be "west of something" which really just is shorthand for "you'll get there faster going west than east".

Until just a few centuries ago most of the world population was split between Europe (West) and East Asia (East). Plenty of people genuinely believed that if you were to navigate to the West of Europe you would fall off the border of the world (well, some still do).

> Until just a few centuries ago most of the world population was split between Europe (West) and East Asia (East).

What about Africa? North and South America?

> Plenty of people genuinely believed that if you were to navigate to the West of Europe you would fall off the border of the world (well, some still do).

Did they? Who in particular are you referencing here? Are you perhaps falling for the myth of the flat earth[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

Re: This map is not upside down

#445

Post by bandie91 »

i'm wondering nobody raised an other obvious point where the carthography-patriarchy wants to keep all of us in the darkness (BTW, why being in the dark is bad? is not it arbitrary whether the light or the dark is the good? why can not be the good is bad and the bad good?) is that the Marcator and other sphere-to-plain projections distort landmass area!! so counties are bigger than they made you believe! and other countries are smaller!

/sarcasm

Re: This map is not upside down

#446

Post by TimPC »

The article fails to cover the main point. It's not just about putting the south at the top of the map but doing the projection from the south instead of the north which makes the south appear bigger and the north appear smaller rather than vice versa. I think top vs bottom for good vs bad is weaker than the bigger is better piece they fail to even mention.

Re: This map is not upside down

#447

Post by triceratops »

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?

Berbers are in the top half of the map so all good. /s

Re: This map is not upside down

#449

Post by bluGill »

Cordiali wrote: post #338
dylan604 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen the increase by five, but by twos when the odds/evens are separated across the street from each other. 101's next door neighbor is 103 while 102 is across the street next door to 104.

That's what the European sequential method is. We have that in Australia, odd numbers are on the left, even on the right. ...Although sometimes it's the opposite, from before it was standardised.

Most streets in the US are the same - there is an odd and even side of the road. Most are as said elsewhere also your house number is distance from the corner (most often in units of 100 feet) - I've seen half numbers before when houses when doors are close together, but normally they round.

However every development is different. The rules might be set by the city, but they change often enough that we can call this per development, others is really is the developer decides. Even where the city sets the rules, a "small fee" lets you choose your street name and address - which is why for most large companies their headquarters is "1 [company name] drive". Still the observation that in the US address are distance to corner with and even and odd size applies to the vast majority.

Re: This map is not upside down

#450

Post by jack_h »

travisjungroth wrote: post #273
whstl wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone from the southern hemisphere, the only thing more patronizing and infuriating than this is the insistence from the same moralizing group that my country isn’t part of “The West”, despite it being physically and culturally there.

The West only makes sense in the Northern Hemisphere. I’m in Peru right now, and people talk about the local cultures in comparison to Western culture and I find it kind of confusing. They’re certainly not Eastern here. It gets unconfusing if you realize it just means White.

It's no different than the South in the US which does not include Texas, New Mexica, Arizona, or any other states that are geographically South in the modern day US. Once you understand the historical aspect of the naming it makes sense. The category itself, regardless of its label, is useful.

In terms of Latin America being a part of the West or not, that's more interesting. I'm currently reading Samuel P. Huntington's "A Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" and in it he talks a lot about civilizations which he defines as the highest cultural grouping of people short of what makes us human. Language, law, and religion in Latin America largely derive from Europe, although there are other aspects like economics that tend can differ. Some people consider Latin America as part of the West, others believe it's peripheral to the West or its part of its own civilization as Huntington does.

As others have pointed out Russia is not part of the West and at least according to Huntington would be placed in the Orthodox Civilization. Interestingly Huntington also argues that Greece, despite being the center of Classical Civilization which is the bases for Western Civilization, is not a part of the West, rather they too are Orthodox.

Regardless of whether you agree with these groupings, I think distilling it down to skin color is incorrect and not useful. The West itself is not even remotely homogenous in this aspect. You wouldn't go to sections of the Deep South in the US and declare it as not being a part of the West anymore than you would include Belarus as part of the West.

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