The 'geocentric conceit' thing is just a moralized overinterpretation of people trying to be practical. Obviously if you're traveling out from and back to one

The 'geocentric conceit' thing is just a moralized overinterpretation of people trying to be practical. Obviously if you're traveling out from and back to one place over and over, the most sensible thing to do is to put that place near map center. It makes it easy to see all the other places in relation to your home, because how they relate to your home is what's relevant to you. Those are the distances and routes you want to be the most clear. When taking a sphere and mapping it to a rectangle there is no way to not do this - somewhere has to be the middle so you might as well choose somewhere practical. Sagan like many others often sells morality porn - the feeling of "I know better than those ignorant less moral ones". A lot of entertainment is like this these days.