"And since we often, without thinking, use size as a proxy for importance or power, this subtly reinforces a sense of northern superiority over the global south." We also use position as a proxy for importance or power, so perhaps they should flip the map over as well. /s
The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
41–50 of 324 posts
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah… the US condemnations of the Axis powers is what really turned the tide, joining into the war later was really a post-script right?
Counterpoint: the Cold War was pretty much all about geopolitical symbols, e.g. the Berlin Wall, nuclear deterrence, the Space Race, counting Olympic medals.
Except the part where had to lift an old mainframe from that frozen shithole with a helicopter under fire. And like 10 different proxy wars that are still going on.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#43[flagged]
Well, unfortunately it's clubs of corrupt drunkards farting in chairs all the way down to 9-member housing association. The difference is in how much power each club is allowed to have and advertise at any given moment.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#44Oh, this is just getting started when it comes to upsetting traditionalists. I'd wager that the majority of map-reading happens on a screen these days, using software maps that can be rotated without changing the relative orientation of the labels.
...So why is it "Sub-Saharan Africa"? Why not "Super-Saharan Africa"? "Dexterous-Saharan Africa"? "Sinister-Saharan Africa?" It's all just convention (that just happens to favor Eurocentric notions). "Free your mind." -Morpheus
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#45Time to rename Mercator the “Map of America”.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#46I vibe-coded up an animated transition between Mercator and Equal Earth (using D3) the other day, if anyone's interested in that comparison: https://tools.simonwillison.net/equal-earth
Very nice!
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#47Robinson projection is a good enough, boring compromise, if the UN was interested in that.
Here's an image I made to show the difference between Robinson and Equal Earth: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_of_Equal_... Whichever you prefer, what matters is that we should all just stop using Mercator.
Why? Mercator is useful and familiar to billions of people.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#48It's kind of funny how the colonial convenience of having the 0 longitude line pass through Greenwich, UK ends up making Africa the most prominent place on the world map, since the centerpoint (0,0) is just off the African coast. This was true with Mercator as well, but Equal Earth emphasizes just how huge the African continent actually is.
For a while, France had its own prime meridian with 0 degrees passing of course through Paris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_meridian
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#49Robinson projection is a good enough, boring compromise, if the UN was interested in that.
“Robinson projection” makes me think of Canadian fasteners.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counterpoint: the Cold War was pretty much all about geopolitical symbols, e.g. the Berlin Wall, nuclear deterrence, the Space Race, counting Olympic medals.
> Berlin Wall, nuclear deterrence, the Space Race, counting Olympic medals I'm sure the guns trained on people trying to cross the Berlin wall to the west was just a "symbol", or the nuclear tests to prove that superpowers could kill everyone, or the people who died during the space race to send someone to the Moon. Olympics, sure whatever. Yes, a nonbinding UN resolution that does a stupid thing that no one has to c…
To some people the Berlin Wall was an immediate and terrible factor in their lives. But to most people in the world, it was a symbol of oppression rather than a physical manifestation of it.