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This map is not upside down

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Re: This map is not upside down

#511

Post by mc32 »

rendx wrote: post #508
mc32 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think migration patterns by people are a good indication of what people on the ground see as superior and inferior choices. Slow and steady with a plan like Singapore or Taiwan wins the race. Shortcuts, seeking aid from China or the IMF only benefits the local caudilloes.

Sure, you turn my home into a warzone and I have to flee, plus I may buy into your propaganda of a better life, so surely that's a good indication of... what? Developed vs. developing? I'd perhaps call that cynicism.

Good governance helps a lot even if you had previously suffered invasion, we’re occupied or were a colony: see Taiwan (invaded, occupied), Panama (invaded), USA (colony and invaded subsequently).

It’s doable but people will have to want it. It doesn’t come free and it doesn’t come by listening to charlatans like Marx and his peddlers who promise utopia at no cost but the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. From then on it should be all roses in a land of milk and honey. No, sorry, it takes lots of work, delayed gratification and multi-generational effort to get to a good place like Singapore did or even Chile relatively speaking. You need someone with strong singular vision a a populace willing to follow it through. Why even Salvador after decades of civil war is able to overcome its difficulties and now enjoy great personal safety -the best in the western hemisphere. A country doesn’t have to stay stuck in a bad place.

Re: This map is not upside down

#512

Post by jama211 »

bandie91 wrote: post #413
jama211 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gravity is just a random natural process to pick for your point. You could just as easily say “bottom to top is natural because that’s the direction trees grow”. It’s all arbitrary.

yes and we daily see plants growing upward rapidly like 9.8 m/s²... maybe vapour and smoke going up are which we experience collectively as upward going things, but those are quite rare compared to like everything which falls to the ground.

I think you missed my actual point, which is that anyone can pick an arbitrary explanation.

Re: This map is not upside down

#513

Post by jama211 »

jmkd wrote: post #392
jama211 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sun doesn’t rise directly in the east though unless you live exactly on the equator, and it rises a different amount off of east every day. However, at noon, the sun is always either due north or due south depending on what hemisphere you’re in, so number 3 is quite arguable. Also the North Star being a thing is quite influential.

It does on both equinoxes, which along with the solstices have been universally marked days in every civilization. Consider those days as reliable calibrations for any kind of wayfinding or navigation system in ancient times. Aztecs, Mayans and Incans noted the sunrise position every day of the year in order to plan agricultural (and cultural) activity.

Sure, but you can find north/south at noon _every day_.

I don’t actually have a strong opinion either way, but I think it’s true that you can find arbitrary explanations for anything you lie here. At the end of the day we just gotta pick a standard and go with it and we have done.

Re: This map is not upside down

#514

Post by ajsnigrutin »

GuB-42 wrote: post #510

Like many people here, I dislike the moralizing aspect, so I tried thinking of it on a more technical perspective. Which led me to the question: Why are the tabs and URL on my browser on top while the OS bar is on the bottom? It looks like it would work if we flipped it over, in fact, on mobile, it would work better, and it is an option you can set! Another one: US style power outlets, the one with the ground plug. W…

Let's be fair, in some cases, is does look "upside-down"

https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/cadent/t...

:)

Re: This map is not upside down

#515

Post by GeoAtreides »

navane wrote: post #144
schoen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point a character in Eco's Foucault's Pendulum says "archetypes don't exist, the body exists" and then gives some sexual and reproductive examples, followed by > And high is better than low, because if you have your head down, the blood goes to your brain, because feet stink and hair doesn’t stink as much, because it’s better to climb a tree and pick fruit than end up underground, food for worms, and because y…

We print black on white. Does that mean that words are bad and only defile the blank sheet?

Socrates: Yes.

Re: This map is not upside down

#516

Post by hollerith »

f59b3743 wrote: post #181

[flagged]

>I would not have known that one could have oriented a map with a different direction at the top had a blog post not been written about it.

I think it is more likely you are being sarcastic or trolling than that you really would not have known. But I am not sure. (I don't know anything about you but this one comment.)

Re: This map is not upside down

#517

Post by xigoi »

taco_emoji wrote: post #457
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 mean I think we are all clearly prejudiced, given that our brains just immediately pre-judge such a map as upside-down. Nobody, or at least certainly not the OP, is calling us bad for doing so. It's the same as logical fallacies: you're not a bad person for falling prey to them, but they ARE something you should be aware of if you're trying to make logical arguments.

Following a convention is not prejudice. Conventions are generally a good thing.

Re: This map is not upside down

#518

Post by xigoi »

blargey wrote: post #244
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.

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.

What’s up with people thinking that the word “up” cannot have negative connotations?

Re: This map is not upside down

#519

Post by crtified »

For many years, local maps were my day-to-day work.

Regulations dictated that north should be at the page top, but exceptions were made so that the relevant land mass would efficiently fit on standard paper sizes. For example, you could fit a lot more detail onto a printed map of Japan with the paper as Portrait, rather than Landscape. So the practical aspects of the printed paper age have long been a side factor in map orientation.

And there was no doubt that the exceptions, where maps had north other-than-up, proved mentally more difficult for everybody to deal with. People not used to working with maps would struggle because it didn't align with other maps, and people used to working with maps would struggle because our minds were locked into the convention that came from 95% working with north-up maps!

Re: This map is not upside down

#520

Post by nopelynopington »

We're lucky enough where we live to have a surviving map of the area from the 1600s. On this map, north is at the bottom, and south is at the top, as there was no convention that said it should be otherwise. From the same mapping survey there are other maps that are not oriented merely south but also southwest, southeast, West entirely. The survey taken in the 1600s was not even consistent from map to map - it was enough to show a compass to indicate which way North is.
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