> But no, the purpose of a chart is not as a practical aid to getting around. The purpose of a chart is for insecure white men to feel better about themselves.

> But no, the purpose of a chart is not as a practical aid to getting around. The purpose of a chart is for insecure white men to feel better about themselves. Obviously, what is being said is not that Gerardus Mercator designed, in the 1500s, a map with the express purpose of misrepresenting the relative size of places in order to further a 21st century geopolitical cause of eurocentrism. That would be a very stupid thing to say, and I'm sure you're not that stupid. It is perfectly possible, however, that a map projection originally conceived for navigation is (unintentionally) a misrepresentation of the world that does further such an agenda of eurocentrism and does misrepresent e.g. the size of Africa, in a way that is unsuited for educational purposes. I don't even understand the relevance of arguing "but it's so great for navigating if you're shipwrecked in the middle of the Pacific", which is obviously a vanishingly small use-case of this map.