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[–] 278 points 1 month ago (36 children)
  • [–] 175 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    And of course, nobody is surprised.

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  • [–] 73 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I'm more surprised that Russia voted Yes

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  • [+] 70 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 children)
  • [–] 33 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Wow, the US government is so paranoid, because how the fuck in your right mind can you find a reason to think “everyone’s out to get me” because others want to edit a map? It’s also funny how they never specify what this “radical ideology” is, despite constantly complaining about it like a child would about their mother not getting them an ice cream.

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    [–] 93 points 1 month ago (52 children)

    The Mercator map, which has been in common use since the 16th Century, has come in for criticism as it shows Africa as similar in size to Greenland, even though it is 14 times larger.
    Critics say this leads to the development needs and potential for countries near the equator to be minimised.

    I think that’s got more to do with the systemic legacy of colonialism than with which world maps people look at.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 month ago (42 children)

    The Mercator projection is also a systemic legacy of colonialism, so doing away with it doesn't hurt.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Every map projection has some inaccuracies and thing that they're good and bad at. The Mercator is good at preserving shape and distance, which used to be quite important for navigating around the world, which was important for colonization. Other maps have accurate size but inaccurate shapes. The Mercator projection isn't the worst, but less suited for the needs of today. We should all probably just use globes. The UN should also use globes.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago* (12 children)

    Mercator projection was favoured because it was useful for navigation due to preserving rhumb lines, representing them as straight lines on the map, and has been around for like 400 years.

    Given that barely anyone does navigation like this any more it's not that important to keep it as the default view for world maps that aren't used for navigation such as a simple wall map. Web maps and the use of pseudomercator have definitely kept it relevant in modern times and as the most recognizable projection.

    There isn't much basis to say it's used to "make colonial countries look bigger and Africa look smaller" except for people virtue signaling in blog posts over the last decade. If anything then it's a psyop by Big Greenland.

    As this post explains, you can just look at a globe if you want accurate size representation, because all map projections are distorted and there is always a tradeoff.

    E: Oops I can see several people already explained this since refreshing the post.

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    [–] 77 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    Why do we always have to vote the dumbest possible way in these things?

    "UN vote on whether we should eat glass: 99% against, US stands alone as In Favor ."

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    [–] 70 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Great to see the United States being humiliated internationally again.

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    [–] 55 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

    I'm sure that Google will quickly change their map projections from Pseudo-Mercator to Equal Earth projection as quickly as they changed the names of the bodies of water because President orange cheeto said so... right?... Riiiight?

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  • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Web Mercator is a special kind of abomination, even down to the way the map is cropped to be exactly square. But it is probably the most suitable for navigation, as Mercator itself was designed specifically for it.

    Buildings, streets and map features would be more distorted under Equal Earth projection than they already are with Web Mercator. Web Mercator also has the benefit that the cardinal directions are always straight respective to the XY grid, even though the Y direction is non linear.

    There is no perfect way of flattening a 3D spheroid into a 2D map, sadly.

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    [–] 54 points 1 month ago

    Even Israel voted differently to the US, that's way funnier than it should be

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  • [–] 50 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Oh, yeah, well Donald signed a new order changing every country’s name to America.

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    [–] 46 points 1 month ago (12 children)

    Mercator is bad as a world map, but the reason why it's used on most online maps is that those online maps are usually used as local maps, where Mercator is a very good projection. It would be good if online maps switched projections if you zoomed out beyond a certain level.

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    [–] 44 points 1 month ago (3 children)
  • [–] 37 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    WHY did the USA vote against it

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  • [–] 35 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Racism and white supremacy. Typical.

    Some critics of the Mercator projection suspect it has remained widely used because it enlarges and centers Europe, as well as other Western regions such as North America, perpetuating ideas of European superiority.

    The UN resolution notes “with concern that this distortion contributes to minimizing the perceived sizes of Africa, Latin America and South Asia, and perpetuating an unbalanced view of the world.”

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  • [–] 34 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    this is the difference btw


    to

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    [–] 34 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    I mean, the mercator map was meant for ship navigation, not as a geopolitical bat.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Exactly, which is why it really grinds my gears when people try to present the map as intentionally amplifying some countries at the expense of others. That's not the point, it's just a side effect of inventing the first map that could actually be used for long-distance navigation.

    For the UN it makes complete sense to use a different projection.

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  • [–] 31 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I hope they make the map of USA really small and Canada and Mexico really big.

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    [–] 30 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    The United States cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a “radical ideological project.”

    https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/09/1168284

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  • [–] 21 points 1 month ago

    I saw the US was against it an thought it had to be smth like this. Only americans can look at a problem like "you can't project a 3D sphere onto a 2D plane" and think "waow this is a little too political for me" (I know I'm oversimplifying but u get the gist)

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    [–] 21 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Did the US vote no, because they are smaller on new maps?

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    [–] 19 points 1 month ago

    Magastan voted no.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Why the us voted against? In the new map they look bigger than Canada, it should appease the baby in command.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 month ago

    They don't want Trump to see how small Greenland actually is. I think he reckons it's about half the size of the United States because he's an idiot. Not that this map projection is at all new, or has been a secret or anything, but trump isn't exactly the investigating type and so he probably hasn't seen it before, but if the information is shoved in his face he might become upset.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I guarantee you that Donny will make a freedom correct map of the world.

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    [–] 16 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Rare US-Israel disagreement

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    [–] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Maybe the US has a broken voting button, they would want to click "yes", but it ends up as "no" every time.

    /s

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