6 ms·

Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have thei

Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have their view of it. But if 7 Billion people on planet earth grow up seeing one version of the border, it's what they will come to believe as 'true' and effectively support - particularly those in modern nations that might have influence. China is aware of this and they control any maps their citizens will ever see. "Of course all that ocean between Philippines and Vietnam belongs to China!" is what most Chinese citizens will assume, after all, they saw it on their maps growing up. While the rest of us will have seen a different map.

Piskvorrr 8y ago
Disputed territories are shown differently to each side: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/aug/10/google-maps-disputed-territories-palestineishere https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/aug/10...
- wwhitlow 8y ago
  Yes, but what I think OP is more so referring to is the idea that if an international organization tried to solve the dispute most would be in favor of what they have seen for the longest time. Which brings the question of how does Google decide which map it will show the rest of the world?
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Actually, I think people at the international level have probably a better grasp. Mostly the issue is populism. It doesn't matter what leaders think if their entire population thinks otherwise. And politicians will use said populism to their favour as well. And I also think there is room for objectivity and reason here.
    - wwhitlow 8y ago
      Thanks for the clarification I can see that is indeed the problem that can occur. I was speculating around the idea that none of these disputes are solved until those who have grown up scanning the world on Google maps are in power. In which case it would be both populism and to some degree world view.
  - SuoDuanDao 8y ago
    If past behavior is any indication, it will show two versions depending on the local consensus.
  - tomrod 8y ago
    Having seen much less impactful situations in large institutions: coin flips or even avarice.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
At the very least Google should show it as "disputed" for anyone not involved in the conflict. Which is another can of worms of course, e.g. for Israel supporters viewing it from the US.
deanCommie 8y ago
This problem didn't start with Google: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42823 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=...
- stevehawk 8y ago
  MS also hit this issue with Pakistan and India regarding Kashmir.
TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
It can be helpful to look at a map of the world with no borders drawn on it and remember that (apart from natural boundaries such as oceans) border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning. And also to look at past maps of the world when the borders looked quite different.
- DanAndersen 8y ago
  With that mindset, what makes oceans "natural boundaries" with any meaning? It's all just collections of atoms that humans socially assign meaning to.
  - mijamo 8y ago
    "meaning" is always socially assigned (or god's design for those you believe it). But there is a huge difference between natural boundaries and human boundaries: one can be measured and objectively represented. You can measure heights and make a map of the earth with different colors for mountains, oceans etc. It could all be done by a machine without any human intervention, and represents useful physical differences on Earth. On the other hand nobody could draw a map of countries' borders without talking with human societies, and no map can be objective or exact. In addition, those borders often are not even visible on the field, and in most border you can just cross and not even realize you are in another country (on roads you have border control, but most borders are just rivers, forests, fields, mountains, deserts without any remarkable feature).
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      Man-made boundaries can be objective, factual, reasonable.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning." The have plenty of meaning. Nations are not plots of geography - they are groups of people.
paidleaf 8y ago
> China is aware of this and they control any maps their citizens will ever see. Everyone is aware of it. Maps have always been political. Maps and borders are political creations. Why is it that whenever a controversial topic comes up, people always bring up china? Every HN thread that has a controversial topic, someone always sneaks in a reference to china? > "Of course all that ocean between Philippines and Vietnam belongs to China!" is what most Chinese citizens will assume, after all, they saw it on their maps growing up. While the rest of us will have seen a different map. You act like there are two maps. One china is pushing and another everyone else agrees to. China, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and every nation in ASEAN have their own maps. The issue with maps has always existed. Whether it is current - crimea (russia/ukraine), sea of japan/east sea ( japan/korea ) or historical - hawaiians/inuit/nativesc vs european colonizers. Or the remnants of colonization like india/pakistan or artificial nations created by european colonizers in africa and the middle east which has created ethnic border issues. Pretty much every nation today has map issues. Even within a nation there are map issues ( like the renaming of mount denali ).
- teh_klev 8y ago
  > The issue with maps has always existed. As an amusing aside, and whilst not wishing to introduce flammable politics into this discussion, there's a funny thing that goes on whenever the topic of the Scottish Independence debate arises in the media or on social media. It usually concerns the Scottish border between Scotland and England and usually heads along the lines of "rebuilding Hadrian's Wall" to keep us pesky Scots out of the rUK (or whatever the reason de-jour is) and is often repeated by unionists (and journalists) far south of the border who've likely never set foot in Scotland. Little do they realise (or they do and are playing along with the usual lazy stereotypes and tropes about Scotland) that Hadrian's Wall doesn't track along the Scottish border and is in fact up to 70 miles south of the border (at the eastern end). So they unwittingly in their minds donated a decent chunk of the north east of England to Scotland come independence day. Well, thank you :) So yes, people's ideas about maps and where borders lie are issues everywhere, not just in China.
  - monadgonad 8y ago
jakecopp 8y ago
This is why the world needs OpenStreetMap.org My understanding is that it shows multiple boarders labelled as disputed. Here's the wiki page about it: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes They also provide this guide to diplomats/officials where they essentially tell them to back off: http://www.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf http://www.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritori... " However, to remain neutral and to provide a practically useful service to a global community, we cannot delete base data to suit a particular legal jurisdiction. "
toomanybeersies 8y ago
This isn't unique to China, or to Israel and Palestine. There's also Ukraine and Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Thailand, India and Pakistan, and a whole swathe of territorial claims in other places. Borders, especially when not naturally delineated by something like a river, are messy things.
- paleotrope 8y ago
  Even rivers can change, making the borders delineated that way less unchanging then they would seem.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Piskvorrr 8y ago

Disputed territories are shown differently to each side: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/aug/10/google-maps-disputed-territories-palestineishere https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/aug/10...

wwhitlow 8y ago
Yes, but what I think OP is more so referring to is the idea that if an international organization tried to solve the dispute most would be in favor of what they have seen for the longest time. Which brings the question of how does Google decide which map it will show the rest of the world?
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Actually, I think people at the international level have probably a better grasp. Mostly the issue is populism. It doesn't matter what leaders think if their entire population thinks otherwise. And politicians will use said populism to their favour as well. And I also think there is room for objectivity and reason here.
  - wwhitlow 8y ago
    Thanks for the clarification I can see that is indeed the problem that can occur. I was speculating around the idea that none of these disputes are solved until those who have grown up scanning the world on Google maps are in power. In which case it would be both populism and to some degree world view.
- SuoDuanDao 8y ago
  If past behavior is any indication, it will show two versions depending on the local consensus.
- tomrod 8y ago
  Having seen much less impactful situations in large institutions: coin flips or even avarice.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

At the very least Google should show it as "disputed" for anyone not involved in the conflict. Which is another can of worms of course, e.g. for Israel supporters viewing it from the US.

deanCommie 8y ago

This problem didn't start with Google: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42823 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=...

stevehawk 8y ago
MS also hit this issue with Pakistan and India regarding Kashmir.

TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago

It can be helpful to look at a map of the world with no borders drawn on it and remember that (apart from natural boundaries such as oceans) border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning. And also to look at past maps of the world when the borders looked quite different.

DanAndersen 8y ago
With that mindset, what makes oceans "natural boundaries" with any meaning? It's all just collections of atoms that humans socially assign meaning to.
- mijamo 8y ago
  "meaning" is always socially assigned (or god's design for those you believe it). But there is a huge difference between natural boundaries and human boundaries: one can be measured and objectively represented. You can measure heights and make a map of the earth with different colors for mountains, oceans etc. It could all be done by a machine without any human intervention, and represents useful physical differences on Earth. On the other hand nobody could draw a map of countries' borders without talking with human societies, and no map can be objective or exact. In addition, those borders often are not even visible on the field, and in most border you can just cross and not even realize you are in another country (on roads you have border control, but most borders are just rivers, forests, fields, mountains, deserts without any remarkable feature).
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Man-made boundaries can be objective, factual, reasonable.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning." The have plenty of meaning. Nations are not plots of geography - they are groups of people.

paidleaf 8y ago

> China is aware of this and they control any maps their citizens will ever see. Everyone is aware of it. Maps have always been political. Maps and borders are political creations. Why is it that whenever a controversial topic comes up, people always bring up china? Every HN thread that has a controversial topic, someone always sneaks in a reference to china? > "Of course all that ocean between Philippines and Vietnam belongs to China!" is what most Chinese citizens will assume, after all, they saw it on their maps growing up. While the rest of us will have seen a different map. You act like there are two maps. One china is pushing and another everyone else agrees to. China, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and every nation in ASEAN have their own maps. The issue with maps has always existed. Whether it is current - crimea (russia/ukraine), sea of japan/east sea ( japan/korea ) or historical - hawaiians/inuit/nativesc vs european colonizers. Or the remnants of colonization like india/pakistan or artificial nations created by european colonizers in africa and the middle east which has created ethnic border issues. Pretty much every nation today has map issues. Even within a nation there are map issues ( like the renaming of mount denali ).

teh_klev 8y ago
> The issue with maps has always existed. As an amusing aside, and whilst not wishing to introduce flammable politics into this discussion, there's a funny thing that goes on whenever the topic of the Scottish Independence debate arises in the media or on social media. It usually concerns the Scottish border between Scotland and England and usually heads along the lines of "rebuilding Hadrian's Wall" to keep us pesky Scots out of the rUK (or whatever the reason de-jour is) and is often repeated by unionists (and journalists) far south of the border who've likely never set foot in Scotland. Little do they realise (or they do and are playing along with the usual lazy stereotypes and tropes about Scotland) that Hadrian's Wall doesn't track along the Scottish border and is in fact up to 70 miles south of the border (at the eastern end). So they unwittingly in their minds donated a decent chunk of the north east of England to Scotland come independence day. Well, thank you :) So yes, people's ideas about maps and where borders lie are issues everywhere, not just in China.
- monadgonad 8y ago

jakecopp 8y ago

This is why the world needs OpenStreetMap.org My understanding is that it shows multiple boarders labelled as disputed. Here's the wiki page about it: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Disputes They also provide this guide to diplomats/officials where they essentially tell them to back off: http://www.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf http://www.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritori... " However, to remain neutral and to provide a practically useful service to a global community, we cannot delete base data to suit a particular legal jurisdiction. "

toomanybeersies 8y ago

This isn't unique to China, or to Israel and Palestine. There's also Ukraine and Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Thailand, India and Pakistan, and a whole swathe of territorial claims in other places. Borders, especially when not naturally delineated by something like a river, are messy things.

paleotrope 8y ago
Even rivers can change, making the borders delineated that way less unchanging then they would seem.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]