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Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

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Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#81

How do you make this? It doesn't seem to be like Wikipedia has coordinates or map boundaries for ancient empires, so there's no simple way to mine the data. And if you don't mine it from somewhere, how do you know what to include? How many people will have heard enough about every part of the world to even be able to research ancient borders?

It's a very fine-grained data, isn't it... Something like on August 24, 1652, 17:34 local, soldier X killed the last tribesman Y they were fighting and claimed the area for his king Z. And a lot of regions were/are disputed with no clear "ruler", e.g. the no man's land between North and South Korea.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#82
post #21
post #20

I always wanted something like a "History of human progress" which when zoomed out shows me something like this: -2000000 Stone tools -1000000 Using fire -6000 Metal tools -6000 Agriculture -4000 Writing 1550 Printing 1888 Telephones 1888 Cars 1903 Planes 1941 Penicillin 1941 First computer 1982 Homecomputers 1983 Mobile phones 1990 The internet 2001 Wikipedia 2004 Facebook 2007 IPhone 2022 ChatGPT And then I can zoo…

Facebook was not ”human progress”. Future historians will point to its founding as a pivotal point of regression of democracy and humanity.

The invention of radio brought us in short order the Volksempfänger or the German people's receiver, and its consequences...

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#84
post #75
post #20

I always wanted something like a "History of human progress" which when zoomed out shows me something like this: -2000000 Stone tools -1000000 Using fire -6000 Metal tools -6000 Agriculture -4000 Writing 1550 Printing 1888 Telephones 1888 Cars 1903 Planes 1941 Penicillin 1941 First computer 1982 Homecomputers 1983 Mobile phones 1990 The internet 2001 Wikipedia 2004 Facebook 2007 IPhone 2022 ChatGPT And then I can zoo…

I know it was just an example, but out of curiosity, why 1982 for home computers? Commodore 64?

Not sure why it was listed as '82, but if it was the C64, it makes sense. It's the most sold personal computer ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

Nuance around this fact would be completely lost in 100 years, let alone 1000 from now.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#85

The issue is that the timeline is built in a Eurocentric way. Europe (and the Near East) are shown as the starting point of history, while Africa, Asia, and the Americas only appear when Europeans make contact with them. This hides thousands of years of independent development in those regions—empires, and creates the false impression that they had no real history before Europe showed up. It repeats an old colonial s…

The most ignorant part of those types of projects is usually the projection of the idea of nation states defined by clearly communicated sphere of influence backwards way before the 1800s. That concept simply does not hold up. The uncertainty of borders was systemic before that and sometimes simply not a thing at all. Uncertainty visualization in geographic contexts never made it into mainstream visualizations and data formats so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala_(political_model)

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#86
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was not ”human progress”. Future historians will point to its founding as a pivotal point of regression of democracy and humanity.

The invention of radio brought us in short order the Volksempfänger or the German people's receiver, and its consequences...

Radio is a technology. Facebook is an application of technology. The internet would be a better comparison which arguably has overwhelming positive impact.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The invention of radio brought us in short order the Volksempfänger or the German people's receiver, and its consequences...

Radio is a technology. Facebook is an application of technology. The internet would be a better comparison which arguably has overwhelming positive impact.

Then surely the same complaint could be made about some particular radio stations.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The invention of radio brought us in short order the Volksempfänger or the German people's receiver, and its consequences...

Radio is a technology. Facebook is an application of technology. The internet would be a better comparison which arguably has overwhelming positive impact.

Radio and internet have both had positive and negative effects. One can also say they are only neutral platforms, and people have then created positive and negative things with them. Same can be said about Facebook or Reddit too IMO. At what point does the morality start, complex question.

Re: Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

#89
post #80
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gregorian calendar is the de-facto global calendar system today, even in cultures and states that are far removed from its Christian and European roots. You might as well complain about the text on the website being in English.

But he is not complaining that we use the Gregorian calendar. He is pointing out that is just one calendar among many, and we should be aware that it is a conscious choice the world has made to use it by convention.

> But he is not complaining that we use the Gregorian calendar.

Yes, he is:

>>> Yet this "world" history uses Europe's reference point [of BC/CE] as universal.

It wouldn't make sense to use any other than the Gregorian calendar for this map, and it also wouldn't make sense to mix different calendar systems.

> He is pointing out that is just one calendar among many […]

But it's not. The Gregorian calendar is the calendar in world wide use today. Giving dates in BC/CE is not an expression of Eurocentrism, it simply reflects reality.

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