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This map is not upside down

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Re: This map is not upside down

#361

Post by isqueiros »

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.

a mug cannot function when upside down and yet when you change the arbitrary orientation of a map it can still function the same you literally missed the point of the _title_ of the article, quite impressive

Re: This map is not upside down

#362

Post by mrighele »

vasco wrote: post #337
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.

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).

Re: This map is not upside down

#363

Post by benrutter »

amiga386 wrote: post #132
the-grump wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree completely. Your map should be bottom-heavy for stability.

No no no. We should put Asia at the top, Europe bottom left, Africa bottom right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map

You're all fools! We should put the north pole in the center so that Antartica makes a pretty frame around the rest of the world!

Re: This map is not upside down

#364

Post by j4coh »

isqueiros wrote: post #361
j4coh wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

a mug cannot function when upside down and yet when you change the arbitrary orientation of a map it can still function the same you literally missed the point of the _title_ of the article, quite impressive

I can turn my hand over and it still functions. I can turn lots of things over that still function. I can even set something on top of my upside-down mug. This is not mind blowing to me, your mileage may vary. I also don't seem to have this association with "the bottom of things is bad" so maybe that's why it doesn't seem so shocking or clever to flip things over.

Re: This map is not upside down

#365

Post by WA »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #358
jillesvangurp wrote: post #350

There's a practical reason for the map to be north facing. If you use a compass, the needle points north. So, if you then orient your self and your map facing the same direction, it's easy to figure out headings and bearings because they'll match what you see on the compass. Even in the southern hemisphere, compass needles still point north. So, orienting maps north seems like a pragmatic thing to do.

The needle is pointing to the magnetic south, which is near our geographic north.

Err, no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_magnetic_pole

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass

Re: This map is not upside down

#366

Post by [deleted] »

kens wrote: post #177
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.

I highly recommend the book "Metaphors We Live By", which discusses how metaphors are not arbitrary, but are part of schemas. For instance, there are whole classes of orientational metaphors that fall into the schemas: "more is up, less is down", "good is up, bad is down", "virtue is up, depravity is down", "rational is up, emotional is down", "having control is up, being subject to control is down", and so on. (Yes,…

[deleted]

Re: This map is not upside down

#368

Post by brainwad »

incr_me wrote: post #82
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

Offensive how? "Developing" and "things aren't so bad" are offensive because they obfuscate imperialist relations. That's the position of the theorists who use "Global North"/"South", anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South#... What do you mean by discriminatory?

As an Australian, I do find it a bit perjorative for countries north of us (many of them in the northern hemisphere!) to be deemed the "global south", while we are excluded despite actually being the only inhabited continent entirely in the south. It just reminds one that nobody cares about the southern hemisphere, and that northern hemisphere types think anything south of the mediterranean is "south".

North/South doesn't have anything to do with it, anyway, as you alluded to. What people actually want to talk about is whether a country is a former colonial master, a former settler colony or a former extractive colony (or possibly multiple of these, as with e.g. the US).

Re: This map is not upside down

#369

Post by rendx »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #104
incr_me wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offensive how? "Developing" and "things aren't so bad" are offensive because they obfuscate imperialist relations. That's the position of the theorists who use "Global North"/"South", anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_South#... What do you mean by discriminatory?

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 National Happiness or the Happy Planet Index, for example. You could very well call countries with a low but slowly rising GNH "developing countries". USA is 122/152 in the HPI, which sounds about right, and probably not "developing" but declining.

The point is that the imperial West defines what is "good" and "bad", and from that point of reference uses terminology that implies an absoluteness; as another example, as if "long life" is a universal goal of humanity, when in fact other cultures prioritize community over individuals. (There's no point in valuing a "long life" when you believe in reincarnation.)

To discriminate between developed and developing countries also means you assume some countries are somewhat "finished" where others can play "catch up", which is not how global economies actually work: Capitalism requires winners and losers.

I come, rob your house, take away most of what you have, and call you "savage". I then give you "development aid", telling you how to spend it and make you dependent on my services and "assistance", calling you "developing". How does that feel? Are we interacting on eye level, or am I looking down on you?

Re: This map is not upside down

#370

Post by jcattle »

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.

Your analogy is not quite appropriate. An upside down mug is "wrong". The mug looses its meaning and you have to turn it around to use it as a mug.

That's not the case with a map. An "upside down" map is just as valid as a right side up map.

The fact that it is upside down is not supposed to mind blowing, it's the fact that it isn't upside down at all. We are just used to it being represented this way up, but there's nothing in the physical world which prescribes north to be up.

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