61–70 of 117 posts
We need a constitutional amendment codifying the existence independent agencies like the Federal Reserve, CFPB, social security administration, and USGS. I wish Google and others weren't telling the emperor how regal his clothes look but it seems reasonable to remain synced with the USGS.
Independent from who? The voters?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey it's me, ur Google. If you didn't want geography to be politicized, why the hell did you elect the guy who politicizes canned fucking beans? Thank you for your attention to this matter.
In 2017 Sergey was seen protesting Trump’s signature Muslim Ban policy. A highly visible act of resistance against one of the things that Trump cared about the most. Does anybody believe that this would happen today?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
independent from the government, yes. Because government has its own perverse incentives that need to be checked (like redistricting).
So, who pays their salaries?
If you're suggesting a rogue government with the ability to deprive such independent organizations of funding as a means of control, you're not wrong. If the government and people united have enough of a majority (or enough lack of accountability), laws are as valuable as the paper it's printed on. Leaving the latter aside, it's also just models from the federal constitution that (nearly?) all state constitutions tend to be living documents. Nothing is truly set in stone and most mechanisms tend to have overridde mechanics with a majority or supermajority.
We need a constitutional amendment codifying the existence independent agencies like the Federal Reserve, CFPB, social security administration, and USGS. I wish Google and others weren't telling the emperor how regal his clothes look but it seems reasonable to remain synced with the USGS.
Independent from who? The voters?
I am mad at Google for a lot of things, but this is not one of them. A map should represent the current reality. Google Maps defaults to the user’s local reality, which seems reasonable to me.
I worked at a mapping company and we had similar setups for contested borders. You would get the map that your government accepts. It was not the company’s prerogative to weigh in on those issues.
Remember that if Google Maps has to weigh in on obvious nonsense, it will also need to weigh in on far trickier issues, and at their scale, it might affect the outcome. This sort of legal neutrality seems like a better line of conduct to me.
Anyone else worried that the next president (even Democrat, if they manage to get one) may well let some of the name changes be?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_Names_Information_S...
Though the US Gov renamed many places in 1962 (Kennedy), and again in 1974 (Nixon/Ford), they conspicuously left more than a few of them extant, as mentioned in the above article.