Brit not US
The map projection has nothing to do with it: the flaw is putting the centre of the world in Europe. Also, Region A includes France, which has one or two dishes beyond herring.
"Anti-Antifa" lol! I wonder whether they stopped to think what "Fa" stands for. I blame the Yanks for pronouncing it to rhyme with reefer instead of anti-fa.
Soviet Union leading the way
Harsh on Mercator - people who hate it definitely aren't into maps.
Yes, it's strange. I assume they're making a distinction between North and Central America.
The top half of the North American line is only about 500km.
Gall-Peters
In Mercator - like all projections - the hemispheres are the same size. Also, for years this projection has been called Gall-Peters, since Gall first designed it in the 1850s, Peters merely ripped it off. If you want to promote an equal-area map, surely Equal Earth is superior to this hideous map.
This is nonsense. Russia is wider than Africa, and well over half its size - almost twice as big as it is in this picture.
That figure would be taking a shortcut from one end of Russia to the other via the Arctic Ocean - Russia is a lot wider than Africa.
Chile is the undisputed champion of extreme country shapes.
All map projections are legit, but Gall-Peters (as it's now called, since Peters simply ripped off Gall's design from the 19th Century) is not exactly the most elegant equal-area projection. The new Equal Earth projection is much better, for instance.
Over 50 years ago, and boy were they interested at the time! Arno Peters was the supreme grifter: the one talent he had was for self-promotion.
If the point of the projection were to make certain countries bigger, then it would be useless as a map. Also, why would they make Europe dwarfed by the Arctic?
I don't agree. Nobody has ever thought big means more important until recently - quite the opposite: powerful countries are traditionally small, while big countries are dominated by deserts, mountains, tundra.
A very poor statement. Mercator hasn't made any students think that, unless those students didn't pay attention. Ignorance is no excuse.
Trans is a divisive issue on the left, they'd be mad to commit themselves one way or another - the idea is to have as broad a socialist movement as possible, not one that will shatter into a hundred factions before it even has a manifesto.
Keeping Europe in the centre also keeps Africa in the centre. Generally it makes sense to have the Prime Meridian in the middle.
Actually, historically they did the opposite: European imperialists were - and are - proud of how small their countries were and how huge the colonies they'd conquered were. British, Dutch, Portuguese etc. maps would often exaggerate the size of their colonies. "Big is better" is a very US mindset.
No, equal-area projections have been around since the 19th Century, not 1999, but their use is limited to size comparison, unlike Mercator. Mercator wasn't "found to be inaccurate": every map projection is inaccurate by definition because it's projecting a sphere onto a 2D image.
Ignoring the flags might be the best solution - they want a rise out of people taking them down so that they can have their tantrums.
Nonsense, a projection can't be racist.
Oops, I'm a bit slow. The rest is bullshit too.
The Mercator projection doesn't shrink anything: the equator is undistorted and everything else is enlarged.
Bizarre. Also, a compass is supposed to point north, whatever direction you're facing - that's the whole point of it.
I'm happy to read this. As a socialist and anti-imperialist I'm always saddened at the misconceptions about the Mercator projection, a work of genius. As a child in the 70s I had the wretched Peters projection on my wall so I'm thrilled that the far better Equal Earth projection is replacing it.
I doubt it: he's a conscientious objector, not fleeing torture or persecution as such - plus Israel is an ally with more clout than anyone so the British authorities take quite a dim view of antizionist protesters, Israeli or not.
Mercator doesn't shrink or squeeze anything, which is why the tropics look so realistic compared to other projections; the equator is undistorted - everything else is enlarged.
