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UN approves resolution in support of map that shows Africa's true size

21 points by pella 12d ago

cf100clunk 12d ago
From the article: ''United States was the only country to vote against''
- pella 12d ago
  "The United States, the only country to vote against the resolution, said it promoted an "ideological agenda" and was a distraction from the "genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations"."
- anigbrowl 12d ago
  Accuracy is too 'ideological' now. Sic transit gloria mundi.
  - xigoi 11d ago
    No projection is accurate. All of them have tradeoffs.
    - anigbrowl 11d ago
      This is a fallacy of composition. the tradeoffs vary. The equal-area projection has zero (or close to) size distortion globally, at the expensive of shape inaccuracy as you approach the polar regions; Antarctica looks particularly wrong if you know anything about its coastline. But most people don't, and nobody really lives in Antarctica besides penguins. It's not my favorite projection visually speaking but I can see why they would go with it since much of human history/ society/ economy etc. is a function of available land and so its kinda natural that people mentally prioritize size over shape. Shape matters a great deal too, but that's more at the local level. Nobody uses a global map for specific navigation or survey purposes outside of highly technical things like satellite navigation etc that occupy a negligible fraction of humans, and who as technicians are going to employ multiple projections rather than a single generic one.
deleted 12d ago
[deleted]
sxp 12d ago
Booo...they should have gone with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollweide_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollweide_projection
- xethos 12d ago
  I mean, flipping back and forth between Mollweide and Equal-Earth (what they went with), I see only minor differences, with distortion seemingly favouring Equal-Earth. What's the rationale for having such a strong preference, especially as either is such an improvement over the current map (which has it's principle advantage being for sailing between continents, which isn't exactly the most common use-case)?
  - sxp 12d ago
    Earth is round so the map should also be round.
pella 12d ago
https://x.com/MtnMapper/status/2095926090074034349 https://x.com/MtnMapper/status/2095926090074034349
xigoi 11d ago
How does an article about a new thing not show the thing?

21 points by pella 12d ago

cf100clunk 12d ago

From the article: ''United States was the only country to vote against''

pella 12d ago
"The United States, the only country to vote against the resolution, said it promoted an "ideological agenda" and was a distraction from the "genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations"."
anigbrowl 12d ago
Accuracy is too 'ideological' now. Sic transit gloria mundi.
- xigoi 11d ago
  No projection is accurate. All of them have tradeoffs.
  - anigbrowl 11d ago
    This is a fallacy of composition. the tradeoffs vary. The equal-area projection has zero (or close to) size distortion globally, at the expensive of shape inaccuracy as you approach the polar regions; Antarctica looks particularly wrong if you know anything about its coastline. But most people don't, and nobody really lives in Antarctica besides penguins. It's not my favorite projection visually speaking but I can see why they would go with it since much of human history/ society/ economy etc. is a function of available land and so its kinda natural that people mentally prioritize size over shape. Shape matters a great deal too, but that's more at the local level. Nobody uses a global map for specific navigation or survey purposes outside of highly technical things like satellite navigation etc that occupy a negligible fraction of humans, and who as technicians are going to employ multiple projections rather than a single generic one.

deleted 12d ago

[deleted]

sxp 12d ago

Booo...they should have gone with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollweide_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollweide_projection

xethos 12d ago
I mean, flipping back and forth between Mollweide and Equal-Earth (what they went with), I see only minor differences, with distortion seemingly favouring Equal-Earth. What's the rationale for having such a strong preference, especially as either is such an improvement over the current map (which has it's principle advantage being for sailing between continents, which isn't exactly the most common use-case)?
- sxp 12d ago
  Earth is round so the map should also be round.

pella 12d ago

https://x.com/MtnMapper/status/2095926090074034349 https://x.com/MtnMapper/status/2095926090074034349

xigoi 11d ago

How does an article about a new thing not show the thing?