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What's the material difference between this and Trump's "my button is bigger"[1] nonsense or the renaming of various bodies of water? I know the UN claims that

What's the material difference between this and Trump's "my button is bigger"[1] nonsense or the renaming of various bodies of water? I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. My personal favourite equal-area projection is something like Boggs eumorphic[2] because it doesn't distort the east and westmost polar regions quite as badly. The value of a geographic projection is in its utility for the task at hand, not whether it flatters the correct countries. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42549687 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42549687 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggs_eumorphic_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggs_eumorphic_projection

dgellow 24d ago
The main difference is that the UN didn’t force anything and isn’t unilaterally deciding what projection to use. The countries decided together to use a new default when showing the world map, that’s it. You can still use whatever projection you want, nothing will happen to you. > it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. That’s literally what the UN is for. The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts. It’s a forum for countries to discuss and agree on things, in practice that means mostly symbolic decisions pass. Which is fine, symbols and defaults matter
- Muromec 24d ago
  >The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts. It kinda is, it also have powers to authorize invasions. Not that any of this works in practice, but that's what is for.
  - hn993302 22d ago
    Huh, I didn't know it was actually used, but apparently they did it a few times like the Gulf War
- hn993302 23d ago
  Trump didn't unilaterally decide what the rest of the world calls two bodies of water, only the US
  - bigstrat2003 23d ago
    He doesn't even have the power to unilaterally declare what the US calls it. Names of geographic features are established by popular usage, not governments.
    - inemesitaffia 23d ago
      >established by popular usage, not governments. This is straight up wrong.
- bawolff 23d ago
  > The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts. The UN's explicit purpose is to try and prevent conflict. One of the requirements to join is to renounce the right to use force in international relations except in self-defense. They do that in a number of ways. One of those is to have these types of symbolic votes. The hope is that by having where everyone stands out in the open, whether on silly things or serious things, it will reduce conflict. Does it work? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Obviously world peace hasn't been achieved. It probably never will be. Nonetheless, that is the goal of the UN. They want to try to fix conflicts.
  - SiempreViernes 23d ago
    It aims at peace yes, but importantly it is an inter-national organisation, meaning it lives beside nations and doesn't have any formal power over them. In some cases the individual treaties negotiated at the UN result in the UN having some formal influence over member nations, but even then the concrete commitments are usually very limited. For examy the Paris agreement basically just says you have to make a few reports, with peer pressure being most of the enforcement. In contrast the EU is (partially) a supernational organisation: in some fields the EU holds formal power over what happens in the member nations (because the member nations changed their national law to give EU that power).
    - bawolff 23d ago
      We are getting a bit nit picky here, but formally it has all sorts of de jure powers (via the security council), just de facto not really. But from a practical perspective you are mostly right, although i think its important not to underestimate the soft power the UN has on behind the scenes things, which people significantly under estimate.
neuronexmachina 24d ago
> I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. This is kind of personally embarrassing, but due to seeing Mercator maps all the time growing up it wasn't until later in life that I realized that Greenland isn't actually a gigantic landmass the size of Africa. > The value of a geographic projection is in its utility for the task at hand Other than maritime navigation, I can't think of many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection.
- jubilanti 24d ago
  I'd bet a lot of money that Trump and all the others pushing for a U.S. "liberation" of Greenland also think it is a similar size to Africa, not 1/14th the size. Africa is 14x larger, but near the same size on the maps our leaders have grown up with for 80+ years. This has clearly influenced geopolitics. Which is the point of the UN. Which is just a container for what the countries of the world want to agree on. When the UN "doesn't work" for some thing it is because the countries of the world don't want to work together for that thing.
  - tekla 24d ago
    > This has clearly influenced geopolitics Citation needed. This feels like the entire hubub from leftists about how schools use the normal map because of racism and not because its actually useful. Of course they were lying the entire time.
- dnautics 24d ago
  > many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection. What sort of tasks besides a size measuring contest is an equal area projection good for?
  - hn993302 23d ago
    Besides size, there's distance. Like it's annoying how UK and France look much further apart than they actually are, and every sea/air route appears to not take the shortest path. I'd be fine with this change if it weren't about trying to make Africa look more important. They're just fixing a misleading map.
erxam 24d ago
It's not the most pressing issue in the world, but long-term, maps do shape conceptions about the world that we don't personally know. So it might be symbolic, but symbols are powerful.
- EA-3167 24d ago
  That must be why we all live in awe and fear of giant, mighty Greenland.
  - erxam 24d ago
    The fact that Greenland looks so big and impressive in a Mercator map has probably influenced Trump's obsession with taking it on some level.
sb057 24d ago
>I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. Symbols are arguably the most important aspect of geopolitics.
- EA-3167 24d ago
  Yeah… the US condemnations of the Axis powers is what really turned the tide, joining into the war later was really a post-script right?
  - neuronexmachina 24d ago
    Counterpoint: the Cold War was pretty much all about geopolitical symbols, e.g. the Berlin Wall, nuclear deterrence, the Space Race, counting Olympic medals.
    - tekla 24d ago
      > Berlin Wall, nuclear deterrence, the Space Race, counting Olympic medals I'm sure the guns trained on people trying to cross the Berlin wall to the west was just a "symbol", or the nuclear tests to prove that superpowers could kill everyone, or the people who died during the space race to send someone to the Moon. Olympics, sure whatever. Yes, a nonbinding UN resolution that does a stupid thing that no one has to care about is a symbol, just one no one cares about because its nonbinding.
      - poncho_romero 24d ago
        To some people the Berlin Wall was an immediate and terrible factor in their lives. But to most people in the world, it was a symbol of oppression rather than a physical manifestation of it.
    - Muromec 24d ago
      Except the part where had to lift an old mainframe from that frozen shithole with a helicopter under fire. And like 10 different proxy wars that are still going on.
frieseke 24d ago
The UN is a body that is intended to facilitate global cooperation. This symbolic change better represents the body's members and updates an incorrect visualization, which leads to better cooperation and representation. Trump's renaming changes serve his own whims and selfish ego, they perform the opposite effect and hinder global cooperation.
- antonvs 23d ago
  Happily Trump’s actions probably help global cooperation for all countries that’s aren’t the US.
- josephcsible 23d ago
  There's nothing incorrect about the Mercator projection, unless your definition of incorrect covers every flat map and calls only globes correct. Every flat map projection has to make some compromises.
lukeschlather 23d ago
For the purposes I use world maps for, correct relative sizing is the paramount thing I'm looking for in a projection. I generally use it to give me a rough idea of distances. Boggs seems inferior, at a glance I have no idea how far it is from NYC to London, for example. I feel like Mercator is similarly bad in terms of distances being uniform. What do you use maps for where Boggs is superior?

dgellow 24d ago

The main difference is that the UN didn’t force anything and isn’t unilaterally deciding what projection to use. The countries decided together to use a new default when showing the world map, that’s it. You can still use whatever projection you want, nothing will happen to you. > it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. That’s literally what the UN is for. The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts. It’s a forum for countries to discuss and agree on things, in practice that means mostly symbolic decisions pass. Which is fine, symbols and defaults matter

Muromec 24d ago
>The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts. It kinda is, it also have powers to authorize invasions. Not that any of this works in practice, but that's what is for.
- hn993302 22d ago
  Huh, I didn't know it was actually used, but apparently they did it a few times like the Gulf War
hn993302 23d ago
Trump didn't unilaterally decide what the rest of the world calls two bodies of water, only the US
- bigstrat2003 23d ago
  He doesn't even have the power to unilaterally declare what the US calls it. Names of geographic features are established by popular usage, not governments.
  - inemesitaffia 23d ago
    >established by popular usage, not governments. This is straight up wrong.
bawolff 23d ago
> The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts. The UN's explicit purpose is to try and prevent conflict. One of the requirements to join is to renounce the right to use force in international relations except in self-defense. They do that in a number of ways. One of those is to have these types of symbolic votes. The hope is that by having where everyone stands out in the open, whether on silly things or serious things, it will reduce conflict. Does it work? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Obviously world peace hasn't been achieved. It probably never will be. Nonetheless, that is the goal of the UN. They want to try to fix conflicts.
- SiempreViernes 23d ago
  It aims at peace yes, but importantly it is an inter-national organisation, meaning it lives beside nations and doesn't have any formal power over them. In some cases the individual treaties negotiated at the UN result in the UN having some formal influence over member nations, but even then the concrete commitments are usually very limited. For examy the Paris agreement basically just says you have to make a few reports, with peer pressure being most of the enforcement. In contrast the EU is (partially) a supernational organisation: in some fields the EU holds formal power over what happens in the member nations (because the member nations changed their national law to give EU that power).
  - bawolff 23d ago
    We are getting a bit nit picky here, but formally it has all sorts of de jure powers (via the security council), just de facto not really. But from a practical perspective you are mostly right, although i think its important not to underestimate the soft power the UN has on behind the scenes things, which people significantly under estimate.

neuronexmachina 24d ago

> I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. This is kind of personally embarrassing, but due to seeing Mercator maps all the time growing up it wasn't until later in life that I realized that Greenland isn't actually a gigantic landmass the size of Africa. > The value of a geographic projection is in its utility for the task at hand Other than maritime navigation, I can't think of many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection.

jubilanti 24d ago
I'd bet a lot of money that Trump and all the others pushing for a U.S. "liberation" of Greenland also think it is a similar size to Africa, not 1/14th the size. Africa is 14x larger, but near the same size on the maps our leaders have grown up with for 80+ years. This has clearly influenced geopolitics. Which is the point of the UN. Which is just a container for what the countries of the world want to agree on. When the UN "doesn't work" for some thing it is because the countries of the world don't want to work together for that thing.
- tekla 24d ago
  > This has clearly influenced geopolitics Citation needed. This feels like the entire hubub from leftists about how schools use the normal map because of racism and not because its actually useful. Of course they were lying the entire time.
dnautics 24d ago
> many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection. What sort of tasks besides a size measuring contest is an equal area projection good for?
- hn993302 23d ago
  Besides size, there's distance. Like it's annoying how UK and France look much further apart than they actually are, and every sea/air route appears to not take the shortest path. I'd be fine with this change if it weren't about trying to make Africa look more important. They're just fixing a misleading map.

erxam 24d ago

It's not the most pressing issue in the world, but long-term, maps do shape conceptions about the world that we don't personally know. So it might be symbolic, but symbols are powerful.

EA-3167 24d ago
That must be why we all live in awe and fear of giant, mighty Greenland.
- erxam 24d ago
  The fact that Greenland looks so big and impressive in a Mercator map has probably influenced Trump's obsession with taking it on some level.

sb057 24d ago

EA-3167 24d ago
Yeah… the US condemnations of the Axis powers is what really turned the tide, joining into the war later was really a post-script right?
- neuronexmachina 24d ago
  Counterpoint: the Cold War was pretty much all about geopolitical symbols, e.g. the Berlin Wall, nuclear deterrence, the Space Race, counting Olympic medals.
  - tekla 24d ago
    > Berlin Wall, nuclear deterrence, the Space Race, counting Olympic medals I'm sure the guns trained on people trying to cross the Berlin wall to the west was just a "symbol", or the nuclear tests to prove that superpowers could kill everyone, or the people who died during the space race to send someone to the Moon. Olympics, sure whatever. Yes, a nonbinding UN resolution that does a stupid thing that no one has to care about is a symbol, just one no one cares about because its nonbinding.
    - poncho_romero 24d ago
      To some people the Berlin Wall was an immediate and terrible factor in their lives. But to most people in the world, it was a symbol of oppression rather than a physical manifestation of it.
  - Muromec 24d ago
    Except the part where had to lift an old mainframe from that frozen shithole with a helicopter under fire. And like 10 different proxy wars that are still going on.

frieseke 24d ago

The UN is a body that is intended to facilitate global cooperation. This symbolic change better represents the body's members and updates an incorrect visualization, which leads to better cooperation and representation. Trump's renaming changes serve his own whims and selfish ego, they perform the opposite effect and hinder global cooperation.

antonvs 23d ago
Happily Trump’s actions probably help global cooperation for all countries that’s aren’t the US.
josephcsible 23d ago
There's nothing incorrect about the Mercator projection, unless your definition of incorrect covers every flat map and calls only globes correct. Every flat map projection has to make some compromises.

lukeschlather 23d ago

For the purposes I use world maps for, correct relative sizing is the paramount thing I'm looking for in a projection. I generally use it to give me a rough idea of distances. Boggs seems inferior, at a glance I have no idea how far it is from NYC to London, for example. I feel like Mercator is similarly bad in terms of distances being uniform. What do you use maps for where Boggs is superior?