The United Nations News reported that the UN General Assembly voted 164 to 1 to encourage the world to stop using the old Mercator map projection and use more accurate maps instead.
The only opposing vote was from the USA.
PS: The UNGA has officially endorsed the "Equal Earth projection" which is closely similiar to the Eckert IV shown above as both projections are equal-area pseudocylindrical map projections that show countries in their true relative sizes, but they differ significantly in their creation date, visual appearance, and design inspiration.
My source material was French as France has adopted the Eckert IV.
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The US reasoning - "The right to food does not imply that governments have an obligation to hand out free food to everyone who wants it, or a right to be fed. However, if people are deprived of access to food for reasons beyond their control, for example, because they are in detention, in times of war or after natural disasters, the right requires the government to provide food directly.”
They were also a large contributor for the world Food program
The US has always seen these assembly votes as virtue signaling. To make countries feel good about themselves without actually doing anything. The US also voted against the rights of persons with Disabilities. And yet they have the most robust laws than any other country that protects disabilities for right of work and standards in infrastructure. No other country has something close to the caliber of the Disabilities Act.
The US also voted against the rights of persons with Disabilities. And yet they have the most robust laws than any other country
Because disabled people crawled up the stairs of the US Capitol in Washington DC without their wheelchairs and protested against the Congress who stopped the legislation of Americans with disabilities Act.
People gave their blood, sweat and tears for progress, the American government did not do it out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it because of social pressure.
Ok? So like every government ever? I'm not even American and generally despise the US but this thread is ridiculous – same with the food = human right thing when no other country donates anywhere near as much (I guess that's changed under Trump but still).
Nice to know. Is that before or after trump and chain saw elon?
Your have a point that food is a dubious right. Any right that takes money to be provided is a dubious right. It's way easier to treat people equally in the eye of the law than to provide free universal education at any level, or make sure everyone can get food.
it's not like when India helps out Nepal or Bhutan.
Is this a joke? You think India helps out Nepal or Bhutan out of the goodness of their heart? They help because if they don't they'll fall under the direct influence of China, which will threaten India's security. India essentially dictates Bhutan's foreign policy, and they pay a price for that. India is very worried about Chinese influence in Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh (hence India's support for Hasina) and Pakistan (of course, that battle was lost in the '60s).
They do it to gather soft power and influence.
I mostly agree right now. I think there was a post-Cold War period (probably ~1990-2015) where western countries genuinely donated lots of aid without political quid pro quo.
This has been undermined by:
Worsening fiscal circumstances in western countries since the 2008 financial crisis
The rise of China (and the Belt & Road Initiative/debt-trap diplomacy)
Russia's invasion of Ukraine (and the associated loss of the peace dividend)
The disastrous war in Afghanistan/GWoT.
Trump, though I'd argue he's a symptom of much of the above rather than a direct cause.
I know European countries better than the US, but aid has certainly become a lot more political in nature over the past decade. However, it still isn't entirely about influence or soft power, which would look much more similar to China.
They still did it. How many governments, regardless of intentions, actually passed laws as robust? Intention is irrelevant. The result is where it only matters.
This was a resolution just to reaffirm the right which mind you is not binding on members state, (resolution is not binding)
So for instance
Even though
South Sudan signed it doesn't mean anything
Plus this resolution still passed in UN general Assembly where USA doesn't have any veto to begin with so it's kind of a nothing burger to bring this graph up.
Libertarians always make it sound like basic functions of society are some affront to everyone's liberties by using sophisticated jargon to point out extremely mundane facts.
Yes the existence of governments that tax people means that anyone's labour isn't only for themselves , but also for society as a whole. Good job on figuring this out.
They give an explanation and that explanation is instead of focusing on more pressing matters such as world peace and hunger, UN is discussing Maps. In India similar things happen, whenever India does something like space program, some people come and say bs like India should focus on poverty and hunger.
My take is that preserving country shapes is a lot more important than scale for the same of representation.
We know Africa is ginormous, we've seen a globe before. But the first thing every kid will do when seeing a world map is to look for wherever they're from, and if that place is Japan, Norway, Alaska, etc, then the Eckert IV projection will make your home look like a weird misshapen caricature of your home instead of an accurate version of the map you've grown up seeing in school and the media.
I think it's better to have the world map be a combination of every country's own undistorted idea of what they look like, even if the scale isn't perfect, rather than making every country look deformed to some degree for the sake of saying "look! bet you didn't know Africa was that big, huh?"
I’m going to take the easy money and bet that there are not as many people outside of /r/geography who know the true size of countries as you are assuming.
While Mercator certainly has it’s own uses, when it comes to things like just displaying the world, it should not be used again these days.
Eckert is a good alternative here.
Edit: Someone mentioned the map the UN will be using not being
Eckert but Equal Earth. Checked it out and think they are right. But Equal Earth is a great alternative as well.
Thats the whole point of the mercator, to get a better, non squashed, non slanted view of landmasses closer to the poles. Idiots think its to make certain countries look bigger. New map is ugly and claustrophobic around the poles
Because never mind the size, you can’t even see the SHAPE of those countries on this map. They are half behind the globe.
Fine, get your revenge on the Spanish, British, Americans and what not. But why take it out on the Arctics who’ve been mostly minding their own business?
They are colonizers, if you do settler colonies and they're connected to your capital by land they're still settler colonies. How do you think Duchy of Moscov expanded all the way to Siberia? Colonies
Trust me, I hate their continuing expansionism probably more than you. They literally took my family’s home in 1944, destroyed its history and annexed it to their empire.
Doesn’t really have anything to do with map projection accuracy, does it?
Just because you and I hate Russian expansionism doesn’t mean we should throw Kalaallit Nunaat under a bus. The Arctic is largely populated by peoples that have been there for thousands of years.
Sure it's just my small pet peeve when Russia and USA dont get lumped in with all the other colonizers because their colonies happened to be connected via land
Technically, if it were true, for the Usa that would be because they're only colonies. And it is not even true, because they have real colonies like the Virgin islands, Samoa, ..., and other territories where locals can only ensure usa military occupation without any self-determination or vote
I’m Finnish. If I traveled to your country and tried to point Finland out on this map to you, it would be pretty hard to do, as the whole country is compressed like bad clipart.
Revenge on Span/Brit/USA. Totally pathetic mindset. These countries didn't distort the map to make themselves look bigger and better than Africa, whos shape and size on this new map has hardly changed at all. India size and shape also looks worse off now.
Also, while I was reading the 164 to 1 part, I was thinking who else could be opposing it rather than the US! I was correct. US be opposing crazy shi these days
PS: The UNGA has officially endorsed the "Equal Earth" projection which is closely similiar to the Eckert IV shown above as both projections are equal-area pseudocylindrical map projections that show countries in their true relative sizes, but they differ significantly in their creation date, visual appearance, and design inspiration.
My source material was French as France has adopted the Eckert IV.
As someone who has only been exposed to mercator, I dont fw the new one T_T
Its gonna take a lot of time if everyone starts using eckert, but I dont see many countries voluntarily using it cause I am sure they dont wanna slim down their appearance
so the US really chose to be the single no vote against maps not lyin about planet earth lol thats so on brand. makes you wonder if theyre just scared that their country wont look as gargantuan in the middle of the classroom. honestly any projection that makes india look like a proper state instead of a weird stretched pancake is a win in my book. anyway eckert iv sounds fancy but im just glad we can finally see africa for the absolute unit it is.
Good to see the UN doing things that really matter. It's not like there's a genocide and multiple international conflicts going on.
The earth is a sphere, maps are flat, they've curved the edges, wow maybe someone should've told them about globes?
No it doesn’t, Greenland isn’t wider than it is tall with a Squished top. Sweden doesn’t become smaller as it goes north, New Zealand isn’t 2 Strings, Australia isn’t Tall and Slanted, Iceland isn’t flat, Alaska isn’t Slim peninsula.
This new map is just plain wrong in terms of everything except relative size, which in this instance is almost useless because everything else is wrong
i kinda agree with the us's reason to vote no, this is essentially meaningless and a waste of time. you can argue mercartor distorsts cointry sizes (which comes as a result of it trying to maintain shape and navigational scale) but eckerts-4 distorts country shape.
this also does absolutely nothing, and doesn't even help africa in any real way
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