Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

This map is not upside down

maps.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 540 posts

Re: This map is not upside down

#331

Post by Starman_Jones »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #282
alabhyajindal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time seeing this and it feels so offensive. I'm somewhat okay with the term developed and developing countries, though not too much [1]. But this just feels discriminatory. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness

Don’t bother trying to learn the new shibboleths. By the time the majority has accepted them, they’ll be outdated and the progressives will have moved onto another set. Before ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ we had ‘first world’ and ‘third world’.

We didn't, though! At least, not for that purpose. When India's PM Nehru said to the UN, "We are the third world," it was a profound statement that had absolutely nothing to do with economics. "Developing" and "developed" were introduced to the public conscious as a desperate attempt to stop the ignorant masses (including, at one point, me) from ruining a useful descriptor.

Re: This map is not upside down

#332

Post by kstrauser »

parineum wrote: post #330
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" is Western Europe and it's colonial/cultural derivatives. It hasn't been a directional term for centuries. Everyone intuitively knows this based on the usage but, every now and then, someone like you thinks they are clever and nobody else understands.

I think you got their point exactly backwards. Their country is western by the standard you described, but people tell them it’s not because it’s not Western Europe, or the North America.

Re: This map is not upside down

#333

Post by reverius42 »

nomel wrote: post #308
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.

A minor correction is quite different from literally flipping the poles.

Re: This map is not upside down

#334

Post by zeehio »

parineum wrote: post #330
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" is Western Europe and it's colonial/cultural derivatives. It hasn't been a directional term for centuries. Everyone intuitively knows this based on the usage but, every now and then, someone like you thinks they are clever and nobody else understands.

Oh shit I wasn't aware that this was the definition. Does this definition then include Philippines being from "The West"?

Re: This map is not upside down

#335

Post by cwmoore »

zeehio wrote: post #334
parineum wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The West" is Western Europe and it's colonial/cultural derivatives. It hasn't been a directional term for centuries. Everyone intuitively knows this based on the usage but, every now and then, someone like you thinks they are clever and nobody else understands.

Oh shit I wasn't aware that this was the definition. Does this definition then include Philippines being from "The West"?

Islands have their own directions.

Re: This map is not upside down

#336

Post by vasco »

j4coh wrote: post #329
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…

I don’t seem to even get this effect, the map looks upside down not mind blowing. If I turn a mug over it’s not a mind blowing new thing, it’s an upside down mug.

Also probably every single kid that ever played with a map has turn it around a million times, this is a very naive 2deep4u kinda post.

Re: This map is not upside down

#337

Post by vasco »

whstl wrote: post #186
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…

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.

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".

Re: This map is not upside down

#338

Post by Cordiali »

dylan604 wrote: post #127
bluGill wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes. I know of places in america where numbers are sequential. I know of other places where they a sequential but increase by five.

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.

Re: This map is not upside down

#340

Post by hdgvhicv »

nurettin wrote: post #324
BaardFigur wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Casually claiming a bunch of British territories

BOTs are a joke. Like, how is Cyprus British?

Cyprus isnt. There are two sovereign base areas of Cyprus which are overseas U.K. territories, I guess similar to midway.
Post reply on HN