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This map is not upside down

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Re: This map is not upside down

#401

Post by tikhonj »

For whatever reason, the Berkeley campus maps[1] have East at the top. And, for whatever reason, it always felt natural—probably because it matches the terrain (East is up-hill).

It's still surprising how much that has colored my mental orientation in Berkeley even 15 years later. I now consciously know to correct for it, but still think of campus "oriented" in that direction. For years I had to really think about it to remember that up-hill was not, in fact, North.

[1]: https://www.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/campus-m...

[1]: https://www.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/campus-m...

Re: This map is not upside down

#402

Post by 47282847 »

I feel like a lot of the discussions revolve around right or wrong in some absolute sense. I see it more as a question of authority: do you want me to respect your perspective, and are you willing to respect my perspective as equally “right“, respecting my authority on the same level as your own? I invite you to think about why it is important to you to make me agree, and consider how it feels like to you if I were to push my own values and ideas onto you.

Is it a sign of strength to require me to use your map, or is it a sign of strength if you adapt to mine, regardless of how many irrational or rational reasons I may give for my preference or not? Why, if somebody expresses discomfort or calls something oppressive or wrong, do you need to “set things right“ instead of just respecting their discomfort? What is the cost to you? This is meant as actual questions for exploration.

Remember that even Darwin meant by “survival of the fittest“ the one who is able to adapt, rather than the one who is sticking to some “principles“ and engaging in unnecessary fights. Unnecessary, in the objective sense of survival.

Re: This map is not upside down

#403

Post by bandie91 »

t-3 wrote: post #246
blargey wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you feeling down, or are things looking up for you? Do you have people to look up to, or do you spend more time looking down on others? Are you on top of the world, or working your way up from the bottom? Etc, etc. It's suffused throughout our language, and not just this one language, either.

It's wrong in any case. The center is the most important part.

there is no concept of "center" in the up-down paradigm discussed here. there IS center in other directionality-related abstractions however. like the center of the city, or the axis of the wheel, a centerpiece of an artwork. but the center-perimeter paradigm is very similar to the up-down one. if you want to put those 2 together you will get the vision of the mountain of which center is on the top, and its perimeter is at the bottom.

Re: This map is not upside down

#404

Post by Attrecomet »

reverius42 wrote: post #333
nomel wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And entirely unimportant for our maps' orientations. Why would we even flip maps? They aren't oriented along the magnetic poles right now!

Re: This map is not upside down

#405

Post by JadeNB »

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.

> 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.

I see the statement that the decision of orientation might seem neutral but doesn't turn out that way, but I think reading it as making a moral judgment about any particular orientation might be a stretch. At most, I see it as advocating for the importance of seeing multiple orientations to be able to see the world from multiple perspectives.

Re: This map is not upside down

#406

Post by dahfizz »

kqr wrote: post #375
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.

I try to say "countries around the northern Atlantic" because that's really what people mean by "West".

What about Australia?

I’m not sure there is one simple & correct definition of “the West”.

Re: This map is not upside down

#407

Post by matrss »

ndriscoll wrote: post #398
matrss wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you define "up" as the direction opposite to where gravity pulls things (which very much makes sense) then there is no possible situation in which north being up would be correct either. A compass needle never points up. You are mounting a map of something horizontal onto a vertical surface, it is just as correct - or depending on the alignment of the wall arguably even more correct - to put east up. You can o…

Obviously "up" is the direction of of the normal vector for Earth's orbit around the Sun. North is then tilted but mostly up.

/s, right? Since the path of earth's orbit around the sun lies on a plane your decision to make the normal vector point in the same general direction of "north" seems arbitrary too. You could just as well call the negative of that the normal vector, and then south would be mostly up instead.

In any case, within the reference frame of earth that seems to be a bad definition. Contrary to popular belief, I am pretty sure that Australian's look up at the sky, not down.

Re: This map is not upside down

#408

Post by Attrecomet »

felipeerias wrote: post #266

The main concern when making maps is not philosophical but practical. The usual orientation responds to the simple fact that two thirds of Earth’s land is in the Northern hemisphere. European and American maps place the Atlantic in the middle, because it minimises the distortions to those regions and makes them more visible. Asian maps put the Pacific in the middle for the same reason. Reading the article, I am remin…

>The usual orientation responds to the simple fact that two thirds of Earth’s land is in the Northern hemisphere.

Nope, just convention from the places that held cultural hegemony when our current map-making conventions were established.

Re: This map is not upside down

#409

Post by bandie91 »

davidczech wrote: post #15
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'd bet a lot of this behavior is heavily correlated with how we generally read top to bottom, which is in itself, probably an arbitrary decision made by ancient text writers.

> arbitrary

where is your writing-capable organ relative to your reading organs?

Re: This map is not upside down

#410

Post by jvanderbot »

JadeNB wrote: post #405
Attrecomet wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

> 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. I see the statement that the decision of orientation might seem neutral but doesn't turn out that way, but I think reading it as making a moral judgment about any particular orientation might be a stretch. At most, I see it as advocating for the importance of seein…

In this corner, evidence from the last decade of moralizing over minute historical choices ad nauseum, and in this corner, common sense literal readings in good faith.

These will never meet except in disagreement, and this thread is just more of that.

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