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It’s pretty obvious why: Country 1 has a law saying that incorrect maps are illegal and Area A is part of country 1. Country 2 has a law saying that incorrect

It’s pretty obvious why: Country 1 has a law saying that incorrect maps are illegal and Area A is part of country 1. Country 2 has a law saying that incorrect maps are illegal and Area A is part of country 2. If you want to do business in both countries you have to play by their local rules. Which means showing the boundaries as that country defines it while within that country.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TheBlight 3y ago
IMO, it exemplifies what I see as a new emergent trend of no shared realities.
- nathan_compton 3y ago
  It is funny to call boundaries on a map a "reality." They are almost a perfect example of a purely fantastical notion. It isn't as if people are disagreeing about the charge of the electron.
  - TheBlight 3y ago
    National borders are very real to most nations. Similarly, someone's specific plot of real estate feels very real to them as well. You may not always be able to see them but you can't always see an electron either. That doesn't make them any less "real."
    - nathan_compton 3y ago
      Absolutely absurd. Boundaries, whether national or those of personal property, are absolutely and clearly social conventions and have no reality outside of social convention. I can't believe I have underline this point. We can argue about the utility of these social conventions, even about whether they constitute some kind of ideal reality, but in both cases they clearly fail to rise to the level of observable, objective reality. If all signs of human beings vanished, aliens arriving at earth could not tell where one state ended and another began even if the idea made sense to them because borders are not part of reality. At no time in history have national borders ever been a universally shared reality and frankly, they could only be such by coincidence, not as a reflection of any genuine physical state of affairs beyond the state of mind of every human on earth.
      - TheBlight 3y ago
        Whether or not a social convention is "real" or not is entirely the point of my original comment. If we throw out arbitrary sets of social conventions and call them fake we effectively operate in our own non-shared reality. My primary point is that this trend seems to be accelerating from my perspective so it's fitting for online maps to reflect this as well.
        nathan_compton 3y ago
        "If we throw out arbitrary sets of social conventions and call them fake we effectively operate in our own non-shared reality." No, we all operate in the same reality no matter what. That is kind of what "reality" is - the set of physical facts which obtain regardless of our particular state of mind or coordinate system, local velocity, etc. The idea that we should elevate some subjective opinions to the level of reality that we expect everyone to share is actually really damaging to the idea of truth and objective reality. No doubt accidentally, you're advocating for a subjective notion of what is real, not an objective one.
        harimau777 3y ago
        I think that you may be misunderstanding the terminology being used. When someone says that two people operate in a non-shared reality, they mean that their way of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting the world are so different that it becomes difficult for them to communicate effectively or operate effectively in the same culture. No one is saying that different people are subject to different natural laws. Nor is anyone saying that certain perceptions or interpretations of the world should be elevated to the level of natural laws.
        nathan_compton 3y ago
        Sorry, but its quite difficult for me to understand the assertion that a failure to agree upon borders is a breakdown of a shared "reality" as anything but an assertion that certain perceptions should be elevated to the level of natural laws. I don't dispute the utility of shared social conventions and rules. They are very handy, no doubt. But they aren't reality, and, in my experience, the people most vociferously asserting that they are are the jerks. If two nation states _agree_ on a border because it simplifies administration, then bravo. If two nation states disagree about a border then the problem isn't that one has lost touch with reality. The problem is just a dispute about power and suggesting its a problem with perception of reality is propaganda. At a fundamental level borders aren't real. If there is a conflict over them, the only recourse is to the human beings involved, hopefully through diplomacy, but unfortunately often through violence, but never via an objective process which reveals by experimental or theoretical action an objective truth. Confusion between that which is real and that which is not is the deepest, most destructive of intellectual maladies.
    - bastawhiz 3y ago
      > National borders are very real to most nations. Similarly, someone's specific plot of real estate feels very real to them as well The borders of plots of land are frequently disputed. There are plenty of places in the US where two or more deeds define overlapping properties (which should obviously never be the case, but here we are!). Country borders are no different, and it's unsurprising that they very frequently disagree. The US and Canada have disputed territory, even. To suggest that borders are "real" in any sense implies that there's one correct, canonical set of boundaries. But there's not and never has been. There's no singular authority that decides what the borders should be. Wars are literally being fought right now over borders.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    A border is much more real and tangible than an electron with its charge. Don't believe me? Try crossing one.
    - nathan_compton 3y ago
      People cross borders all the time, but the charge of an electron has been the same since moments after the birth of the universe and nothing anyone can do appears to be able to change it.
      - throwaway290 3y ago
        Great, so if you yourself ever crossed the border you may have noticed that guards are very real and their guns too. Electron meanwhile is only modeled and is not even possible to see.
        nathan_compton 3y ago
        The assertion that the charge of an electron is more real than the border between the US and Canada, for instance, is pretty compelling. What is the former assertion? I would suggest its most reasonable interpretation is that there exist a set of rituals which, when performed, regardless of who, where, or when throughout the observable universe and the vast majority of time, will always produce the same results and that these rituals furthermore imply a compelling ontology which is consistent, with maniacal precision, with a large number of non-ritualized phenomena throughout time and space. That is to say, less poetically, that an electron is a particular realization of the essential character of the universe, or, as physicist like to put it: particles are unitary representations of the Poincaré group. A border is, in comparison, next to nothing. Transient in time and nearly meaningless in space. Surely of consequence to human beings but only via other human beings. Indeed, the very fact that armed men are willing to kill for the transgression of such a pitiful thing is a brutal absurdity which does little to recommend us as a species.
        throwaway290 3y ago
- smfugit 3y ago
  It only matters to the empire builders and scale bots. They are the ones who are desperate for common reality to simplify their mindless goals usually planted in their head by some other dumbass. End of the day everyone has a 3 inch chimp brain. Its not designed for common reality. 2 brains growing in same environments, exposed to the same things through their live can turn out to have totally different beliefs. And thats just looking at my own family members. Its like planting 2 seeds in the same soil, giving them the same sun and water dont produce the same exact number of leaves, flowers or fruits.
  - TheBlight 3y ago
    Humans are inherently social creatures. That is why solitary confinement is a particularly cruel and dreaded punishment. In order to have social order there needs to be some semblance of a shared reality.
- euos 3y ago
  “Reality” had always been fragmented. People across the mountain range would have different beliefs, measurement units and traditions. E.g. talk to people from different countries which food is healthy or what to do to prevent cold.
  - TheBlight 3y ago
    I'd argue the trend since industrialization has been to standardize on social conventions. In the last decade, I'd further argue this trend is reversing.
notagoodidea 3y ago
And it is also why every company that works with countries having contentious borders tends to have multiple map decks depending yo whom you interact with. And some states are playing funny games with their geography restrictions like China : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_d...
mcculley 3y ago
It is also why "Don't be evil" was a silly thing for a corporation to claim as a motto. What is evil in one jurisdiction is required in another. Corporations that want to serve the global market have to decide between principles and profits.
- 0110101001 3y ago
  It's "don't be evil," not "do no evil." They're accepting of small amounts of evil so long as it doesn't come to characterize the company.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Every sprint, each engineer gets 7 story points and 3 evil points (less than 50% evil!). But if you're really ambitious, you can roll over your evil points and accrue them for a greater evil later. That's how we end up with things like privacy sandboxes and web integrity. Such launches are typically celebrated with ritualistic intern sacrifices and handlebar mustache stickers for the whole team.
- gretch 3y ago
  I agree “don’t be evil” is pretty naive, as if the world were so black and white. Do you believe the current state is problematic though? I don’t see what’s so wrong with showing each country their preferred map, as regulated. Who is being harmed? Also, wouldn’t it be weird for some international megacorp to start meddling in geopolitics by drawing lines the “right” way?
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    Well, what do you show to the rest of the world? I have seen and personally visited such places so I know about dotted lines, but its hard to not take any form of side and be truly neutral, even for google (it wasnt in places I checked).
    - euos 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TheBlight 3y ago

IMO, it exemplifies what I see as a new emergent trend of no shared realities.

nathan_compton 3y ago
It is funny to call boundaries on a map a "reality." They are almost a perfect example of a purely fantastical notion. It isn't as if people are disagreeing about the charge of the electron.
- TheBlight 3y ago
  National borders are very real to most nations. Similarly, someone's specific plot of real estate feels very real to them as well. You may not always be able to see them but you can't always see an electron either. That doesn't make them any less "real."
  - nathan_compton 3y ago
    Absolutely absurd. Boundaries, whether national or those of personal property, are absolutely and clearly social conventions and have no reality outside of social convention. I can't believe I have underline this point. We can argue about the utility of these social conventions, even about whether they constitute some kind of ideal reality, but in both cases they clearly fail to rise to the level of observable, objective reality. If all signs of human beings vanished, aliens arriving at earth could not tell where one state ended and another began even if the idea made sense to them because borders are not part of reality. At no time in history have national borders ever been a universally shared reality and frankly, they could only be such by coincidence, not as a reflection of any genuine physical state of affairs beyond the state of mind of every human on earth.
    - TheBlight 3y ago
      Whether or not a social convention is "real" or not is entirely the point of my original comment. If we throw out arbitrary sets of social conventions and call them fake we effectively operate in our own non-shared reality. My primary point is that this trend seems to be accelerating from my perspective so it's fitting for online maps to reflect this as well.
      - nathan_compton 3y ago
        "If we throw out arbitrary sets of social conventions and call them fake we effectively operate in our own non-shared reality." No, we all operate in the same reality no matter what. That is kind of what "reality" is - the set of physical facts which obtain regardless of our particular state of mind or coordinate system, local velocity, etc. The idea that we should elevate some subjective opinions to the level of reality that we expect everyone to share is actually really damaging to the idea of truth and objective reality. No doubt accidentally, you're advocating for a subjective notion of what is real, not an objective one.
        harimau777 3y ago
        I think that you may be misunderstanding the terminology being used. When someone says that two people operate in a non-shared reality, they mean that their way of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting the world are so different that it becomes difficult for them to communicate effectively or operate effectively in the same culture. No one is saying that different people are subject to different natural laws. Nor is anyone saying that certain perceptions or interpretations of the world should be elevated to the level of natural laws.
        nathan_compton 3y ago
        Sorry, but its quite difficult for me to understand the assertion that a failure to agree upon borders is a breakdown of a shared "reality" as anything but an assertion that certain perceptions should be elevated to the level of natural laws. I don't dispute the utility of shared social conventions and rules. They are very handy, no doubt. But they aren't reality, and, in my experience, the people most vociferously asserting that they are are the jerks. If two nation states _agree_ on a border because it simplifies administration, then bravo. If two nation states disagree about a border then the problem isn't that one has lost touch with reality. The problem is just a dispute about power and suggesting its a problem with perception of reality is propaganda. At a fundamental level borders aren't real. If there is a conflict over them, the only recourse is to the human beings involved, hopefully through diplomacy, but unfortunately often through violence, but never via an objective process which reveals by experimental or theoretical action an objective truth. Confusion between that which is real and that which is not is the deepest, most destructive of intellectual maladies.
  - bastawhiz 3y ago
    > National borders are very real to most nations. Similarly, someone's specific plot of real estate feels very real to them as well The borders of plots of land are frequently disputed. There are plenty of places in the US where two or more deeds define overlapping properties (which should obviously never be the case, but here we are!). Country borders are no different, and it's unsurprising that they very frequently disagree. The US and Canada have disputed territory, even. To suggest that borders are "real" in any sense implies that there's one correct, canonical set of boundaries. But there's not and never has been. There's no singular authority that decides what the borders should be. Wars are literally being fought right now over borders.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  A border is much more real and tangible than an electron with its charge. Don't believe me? Try crossing one.
  - nathan_compton 3y ago
    People cross borders all the time, but the charge of an electron has been the same since moments after the birth of the universe and nothing anyone can do appears to be able to change it.
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      Great, so if you yourself ever crossed the border you may have noticed that guards are very real and their guns too. Electron meanwhile is only modeled and is not even possible to see.
      - nathan_compton 3y ago
        The assertion that the charge of an electron is more real than the border between the US and Canada, for instance, is pretty compelling. What is the former assertion? I would suggest its most reasonable interpretation is that there exist a set of rituals which, when performed, regardless of who, where, or when throughout the observable universe and the vast majority of time, will always produce the same results and that these rituals furthermore imply a compelling ontology which is consistent, with maniacal precision, with a large number of non-ritualized phenomena throughout time and space. That is to say, less poetically, that an electron is a particular realization of the essential character of the universe, or, as physicist like to put it: particles are unitary representations of the Poincaré group. A border is, in comparison, next to nothing. Transient in time and nearly meaningless in space. Surely of consequence to human beings but only via other human beings. Indeed, the very fact that armed men are willing to kill for the transgression of such a pitiful thing is a brutal absurdity which does little to recommend us as a species.
        throwaway290 3y ago
smfugit 3y ago
It only matters to the empire builders and scale bots. They are the ones who are desperate for common reality to simplify their mindless goals usually planted in their head by some other dumbass. End of the day everyone has a 3 inch chimp brain. Its not designed for common reality. 2 brains growing in same environments, exposed to the same things through their live can turn out to have totally different beliefs. And thats just looking at my own family members. Its like planting 2 seeds in the same soil, giving them the same sun and water dont produce the same exact number of leaves, flowers or fruits.
- TheBlight 3y ago
  Humans are inherently social creatures. That is why solitary confinement is a particularly cruel and dreaded punishment. In order to have social order there needs to be some semblance of a shared reality.
euos 3y ago
“Reality” had always been fragmented. People across the mountain range would have different beliefs, measurement units and traditions. E.g. talk to people from different countries which food is healthy or what to do to prevent cold.
- TheBlight 3y ago
  I'd argue the trend since industrialization has been to standardize on social conventions. In the last decade, I'd further argue this trend is reversing.

notagoodidea 3y ago

And it is also why every company that works with countries having contentious borders tends to have multiple map decks depending yo whom you interact with. And some states are playing funny games with their geography restrictions like China : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_data_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_d...

mcculley 3y ago

It is also why "Don't be evil" was a silly thing for a corporation to claim as a motto. What is evil in one jurisdiction is required in another. Corporations that want to serve the global market have to decide between principles and profits.

0110101001 3y ago
It's "don't be evil," not "do no evil." They're accepting of small amounts of evil so long as it doesn't come to characterize the company.
- solardev 3y ago
  Every sprint, each engineer gets 7 story points and 3 evil points (less than 50% evil!). But if you're really ambitious, you can roll over your evil points and accrue them for a greater evil later. That's how we end up with things like privacy sandboxes and web integrity. Such launches are typically celebrated with ritualistic intern sacrifices and handlebar mustache stickers for the whole team.
gretch 3y ago
I agree “don’t be evil” is pretty naive, as if the world were so black and white. Do you believe the current state is problematic though? I don’t see what’s so wrong with showing each country their preferred map, as regulated. Who is being harmed? Also, wouldn’t it be weird for some international megacorp to start meddling in geopolitics by drawing lines the “right” way?
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  Well, what do you show to the rest of the world? I have seen and personally visited such places so I know about dotted lines, but its hard to not take any form of side and be truly neutral, even for google (it wasnt in places I checked).
  - euos 3y ago