This is a message directed to all newcomers to make you aware that r/TikTokCringe evolved long ago from only cringe-worthy content to TikToks of all kinds! If you’re looking to find only the cringe-worthy TikToks on this subreddit (which are still regularly posted) we recommend sorting by flair which you can do here (Currently supported by desktop and reddit mobile).
See someone asking how this post is cringe because they didn't read this comment? Show them this!
Be sure to read the rules of this subreddit before posting or commenting. Thanks!
Nah. Even that is too small. Renaming US states tho... That is truly the thing.
Can't wait until he decides to english-ify California"s city names or something.
2027: San Francisco changes name to "Saint America" while LA name change to "America's Angels" by the federal goverment just got the go ahead with a SCOTUS 5-4 decision without a written opinion. CA governor insists that the name won't change within the state while Trump orders federal workers to change road signals in interstates. Google decided to change the names in Google Maps 0.01839 seconds after Trump's 2am post, 2% sooner than the last time.
I immediately realized that I've never heard the word spoken aloud (that I remember), only read it. In my mind it sounds like mer-KAY-ter. How close am I?
In German we pronounce it similar to her (setting aside her accent of course), basically how we would pronounce the Latin word. Kinda makes sense to me, since it’s a latinized name of a Flemish guy.
~It's pronounced MER-cuh-tor, with the primary stress on the first syllable.~
~Edit: So she's pronouncing it correctly, while you aren't :S~
Edit 2: In English it seems to be "mer-KAY-tor". I was confidently wrong. Read my follow-up comment further down on the thread for other pronounciations and where they come from.
Fair question. According to nobody authoritative, as it turns out. I looked into it properly and I was wrong.
Mercator wasn't actually his original surname. He was born Gerhard Kremer/Cremer and Latinized his name to Gerardus Mercator. "Kremer" means merchant/tradesman, and Latin mercator means essentially the same thing.
Standard English dictionaries pronounce it mer-KAY-tor, with the stress on the second syllable.
I wrote MER-cuh-tor, with the stress on the first syllable. There is a historically relevant local Neo-Latin pronunciation of his name with first-syllable stress, roughly MER-ka-tor, which may be where I got confused - but that's still not what I wrote.
And Classical Latin doesn't save me either. Since his name is literally the Latin word mercātor, that would be roughly mer-KAH-tor, with the stress on the second syllable (which is how we pronounce it in Swedish). You could reasonably argue that's the most "literal Latin" pronunciation of the name, although Mercator himself lived in the 16th century, when regional Neo-Latin pronunciation differed from reconstructed Classical Latin.
So yeah: my specific claim that it's pronounced MER-cuh-tor was wrong. I confidently corrected someone while being wrong myself. My bad.
Hello, cartographer here while a lot of the things she says are right as someone who makes maps for a living I will never use the Equal Earth projection for a world map. The point of a world map is to easily see all ~180 countries at a glance. The new map is objectively worse at it because it basically shrinks everywhere but the countries on the equator and then speeds out. So that mostly means Africa and Oceania and South America stay roughly the same size. That means North America, Europe, and Asia are all a lot smaller and less legible. That’s like 80% of the world’s population you just made less legible. While true land scale is important it doesn’t necessarily mean it provides the best map. This is then exacerbated when whatever map in question is shrunk down to be a figure in a textbook. So frankly I just see this as political posturing with very little substance.
Furthermore if we did change it there are better options like Winkle Triple.
Interesting, in German I never heard the name (or the Mercator projection) pronounced in „English“ style. Here it’s „mer-kah-tor“ with an „a“ as in „task“, so the same as we would pronounce the Latin word. I‘m surprised the pronounciation got adapted in English, since it‘s a latinized name of a Flemish guy.
I get the feeling she has only read the word. Which is weird because I'm pretty sure we learned about projections ad nauseum in middle school Geography. Oh that's right...we're in America. They probably don't teach Geography anymore.
The only issue I have with the Winkle Triple is the curved meridian. Also it is neither conformal (shape-preserving), equal-area (size-preserving), nor equidistant (distance-preserving).
Maybe her point was a more accurate representation of the world map. Maybe not ideal for learning in school.
But you can’t use that map for orientation - meaning schoolchildren won’t know Europe is east of the USA, or Africa is south of Europe. That map is probably the worst possible map because besides making everything equal, it conveys no information about the layout of the world.
After browsing Wikipedia, I’d prefer the Hammer retroazimuthal, because I’m an asshole. Or the Eckheart IV because it has rounded edges and I like that.
Eckert IV is basically equal earth, they are both pseudo-cylindrical projections, Mercator is cylindrical, and then there are a million conical ones usually based on subadminstrative boundaries like states or provinces. I’d imagine about 90% of maps should be in one of those conical ones.
She also makes it seem like there was only Mercator until 2018 which everyone kept using for no reason (when it's mostly used in digital maps as the best option for a map that require zooming), and other equal-area or compromising prohections for world maps didn't exist and were never used
Doesn't the map you draw/use depend on the audience and what you want to use it for? Saying that you're NEVER going to use the Equal Earth projection is dramatic.
Yes that is true, I just think there are better projections than equal earth at what equal earth is trying to achieve. Like the point is to eliminate bias, but we are still using a North/South up/down when we could just eliminate the entire thing by using dymaxion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map
There are multiple issues with the Dymaxion map that make it not really practical.
- Printed on a textbook or a poster it's almost 50% wasted space. Not only does that look straight up ugly, it means you have much smaller countries in the same amount of space.
- Distances between land masses and relative position is absurdly hard to figure out, to South America in particular.
- You can't use cardinal directions with this map in any practicality, which is a given for basically every other map you ever see (not only world maps).
- It's too different from literally any other map anyone (other than cartographers and map enthusiasts) is used to seeing so there would be a lot of friction with transition.
This and other esoteric projections are only "better" in the same way as a software engineer I can tell people it's "better" to use a command line to use their computer and install programs.
So this might be a dumb question but why not just decrease the amount of water and blow the continents up a bit in scale?
I mean, sounds like theres different maps for different purposes anyways, so if the world map is for representative purposes, why not just make it good to show all the continents in a way thats more clear?
thats not at all 80% of the world population.
india, china, Africa, south America are all not affected. and its not like we can't see Russia, or Canada or Europe. it actually shows countries to scale by area more clisely instead of the European centric projection we had before
How work as a cartographer? Honestly thought it would be a dead job by now. What with satellite and internet and all. How many new maps are people really buying?
I mean we use the satellite and the internet to make the maps now. I'm not like hand drawing maps, its all on the computer. It is more widely used now then ever before. Its generally not like a retail transaction where I make a map and a bunch of people buy them, although that does exist for niche activities like hunting or backpacking.
My work specifically is in human services and ensuring the citizens have access to healthcare and support should they need it like food stamps, housing assistance, etc. This can include calculating time and distance to facilities to understand where new facilities should be place to maximize resources or to determine the density by legislative district to report to individual legislators about their district. Cartography is really just the last part where you actually make the map. Most of my job is ensuring the data that map is based off of is correct or has been calculated correctly.
It is generally more paired with Information Technology. Most of my colleagues are data scientists or researchers. I’m 15 years in though so mileage may vary. However it’s a really common tool that is used by other professions. Like biologists use it all the time, hydrologists and geologists all have special uses for it. Natural resources is probably the largest sector but there are businesses that use it a ton too like real estate and construction. So I’d recommend finding a niche that GIS is used for and learning that really well.
I have a BS, but only about ~20 units of it was specifically for GIS (Geographic Information Systems). I know people that are entirely self taught. There is also a whole subset of GIS folks that are essentially just web developers and you don’t need anything but a good portfolio for that.
You can buy a personal license for the software for like $100/year to learn. You just can’t make any money off it per the TOS. There are a few online Junior Colleges that offer associates degrees. If you already have a defeee think you just need a couple classes I don’t know that I’d even get the whole degree.
I might check it out. Doesn't hurt to look, right. Im mid 30s and manager of sales for retail. And I hate it. This temp high-school job has become my coffin. 😕
Yeah if you have managerial experience that is something that is usually needed. Most GIS people have little interest in managing people. We are generally scientists/analysts that want to be technical experts not management.
And most of us work really independently so managing us I don’t think is particularly hard.
I knew someone who was a cartographer. Out of genuine curiosity I asked him how he does his job - like, does he look at other maps and re-draw them? He got offended and just turned and walked away. I still don't know the answer, but I highly doubt he's out there on the high seas navigating with a sextant and what not.
We use computers and a lot of behind the scenes math. There are different levels too. Like someone can just be getting all their data from other sources (administrative boundaries, demographic data, road networks, etc) or they can be producing it themselves from their organizations historic data. Some maps dont require analysis, like a hunting map that shows hunters where their tag allows them to hunt.
The software looks fairly similar to a CAD software or Photoshop. We use python or r as programing languages to process large datasets and then use statistical analysis to determine patterns or trends that can inform decision making.
He drew his maps by hand - and I didn't see any computers in his work area. I think he was actually anti-computer, as I recall him making cracks about how his wife (graphic designer) would use one "to do her work for her."
This was back in the 1990s, and I knew him via a group of artist friends who were all very traditional in materials, etc. (I was the odd one out being a photographer, even being before digital photography). I have no idea who his clients were, but I imagine they were much more 'niche' than say, textbook publishers. It was just a funny interaction and the guy seemed to always have a problem with me after that.
Ahh ok yeah stuff where scale and accurate distance wasn’t as important as just the conceptual placement of things.
Yeah think he might just have been a weird dude cause I’m asked that question all the time. It was even more niche in the 90s so he was probably pissy with a lot of people!
It depends on what you want to map and for what purpose. There is still plenty fo on the ground measuring going on for stuff like local construction maps.
For cars you got self driving cars now.
A lot of stuff for farming or environmental measures etc is done with satelites with all kinds of different sensors.
Lidar satelites have for example lead to discovering a loth of not obviously visible enciant earthworks.
It's funny she mentions europe being in the center but also ignores africa being in the center but instead spends energy focusing on greenland/africa scale
The point is that a lot of people still move by sea not that people travel by sea, that’s just semantics. The fuck do i need a world map for if my ass is in coach napping?
Well what if both pilots have heart attacks and the flight attendants come over the intercom asking if there’s a diddlyfiddly on the plane that would be able to land it?!
Being able to read a map would be the least of my worries of somebody asked me to land a plane, but obviously since i am diddlyfiddly the savior of the universe i’d be able to land it no sweat. Either way the „ we don’t travel like this anymore“ argument was insanely stupid and i‘m not even arguing for the mercator projection, nor am i against the equal earth projection, i‘m simply anti stupid disingenuous arguments and pro not talking out of your ass, which is my problem with this video.
Ya she said the thing that would make her specific point stick. And (I’m gonna go ahead and say it) intentionally mislead anyone watching the video. If you care why I care about shit like that you can scroll up and read my previous rant.
I agree we usually fly when traveling internationally, but ships still do their share of shipping. I was able to find out by googling that it’s pretty much an even split of air sea and ground. I found a Forbes article that sums it up pretty well. Has some pie charts as well. Roughly 30% each with boats taking a slight lead.
Edit: please read it and see if I’m way off base or misunderstanding something.
So the old map made sacrifices for functionality, the new map for people's feelings. Please don't take this the wrong way but I wish everyone just knew the earth was round and the correct map is the other one she showed (the non square one)
Exactly. All of this is just people being nice to each other. Someone asked, and everyone said "Fine, have it, we don't care anyway!" (Except for the country that voted for a criminal and pedophile as president twice! But who cares what they think.)
And unless your flying at mach 1+ mecrator is still more usefull then a map that only gives you a locally acurate picture if you happen to live right no the equater. SHure mecrater is not great with size on a global scale, but it is really good at a local scale which is where you are using your GPS navigation. Google maps actualy used to zoom out to a 3d earth if you zoomed out enough that was a much better solution then this shit.
Thank you! Her pronunciation is killing me. Maybe it’s a pedantic thing to care about, but it can detract from the messaging if you cannot even be arsed to learn how to pronounce your subject material correctly.
Okay, but what does this actually accomplish? From what I understand, nobody besides the UN is required to use this new map. So what does it actually do?
This is what people call "virtue signaling". Literally how is saying "this is our new official projection" at the UN any different from Trump renaming bodies of water to try to appeal to his base?
They both do next to nothing and only morons are influenced by it, especially those without any ability to look at any other possible source of data (such as a different map, or a globe for that matter).
It wasn't worth voting on at all, Idc who abstained, voted yes, or voted no.
Reflecting the true size of countries is for me a more important property of an official UN map than representing latitudes and longitudes as straight lines. It’s of course not the most important issue, but it’s also not pointless in my opinion.
You can tell her entire reason for supporting it comes from the fact that she thinks it's western biased size wise and is mad that Europe's centred (despite Africa also being centred).
Lots of places centre themselves on their own maps, but we've reached a point where anything western countries do is automatically considered retroactively bad and has to be changed through some tenuous inconsistent bad faith arguments
I didn’t talk about her reasons to support it (and neither did the comment I replied to), but about why I think it’s not a bad idea and fundamentally different than Trump renaming bodies of water
I‘m not an expert in projections. I only wanted to add that I get why a map that represents areas more realistically might be preferable to a map that represents cardinal directions better, especially for organizations like the UN. What (apart from warped cardinal directions) does it sacrifice in comparison to Mercator?
And I know that there are projections that better represent true areas. But I guess there‘s also a benefit in having the map itself in a more „digestible“ format (e.g., square or oval-shaped) and not to break with all familiarities (that is, roughly, Americas left, Europe/Africa center, Asia and Oceania right, at least in the „western world“)? Equal Earth sticks to those principles but represents area better than Mercator, so I guess it’s a compromise?
Here's Trissot's Indicatrix of ee and Mercator and cahill keyes
Mercator was prized for so long because it keeps the rhumb lines straight. Which is mainly for circumnavigation, as you say.
But it also maintains the shape of the countries. This seems so much more important to me than their landmass volume. Especially considering landmass volume isn't a useful measure of anything.
The brass tacks of this all is that if you wanted to best reprisent volume of land, not distort the shapes to an unrecognisable degree and represent the earth as close to accurately as you can on a 2D plane, you would choose a projection like cahill keyes.
Ee does little well. It distorts the view of the landmasses. Stretching out everything close to the equator and squashing everything north or south of it.
The ee projection is not good. It squashes everything not on the equator to the ridiculous degree. It's no more accurate the Mercator, and it's less legitble and distorts the shape of countries. If you want accuracy, get a globe.
"We don't travel like this anymore." Dude I studied Mercator sailing on my first day of college, does she think we don't sail anymore or something?
I do fully approve of the change in map for the UN but I have been getting a little aggravated by everyone's ignorance in the reason that the Mercator was the norm for so long.
This information is straight up a middle school social science learning standard. Like I remember very clearly learning the arguments for and against the different projections in 7th grade.
“But it wasn’t until a vote yesterday that the UN approved it.”
Approved it for what? Is there even an offical “correct” projection to begin with?
Is the UN going to prosecute me for the equal area projection on my wall?
What would even change if the USA voted for it?
I’m sure any industry that relies on mapping will continue to use whichever projection suits them best.
I’m at a complete loss as to why this is newsworthy because there is so much missing context.
Edit: After some further research it seems that this would affect maps displayed in government institutions.
I don't like the framing of this. People are acting like the map was specifically designed to diminish the size of Africa due to racism when in reality it was specifically designed to make it convenient to navigate a round planet on a flat map and it specifically exaggerates the size of objects nearer to the poles, it doesn't diminish the size of Africa at all.
It’s the current administration. They hate anything “woke”.
Personally, I think this is a bunch of performative crap that won’t do squat to help Africa and South America. Who TF thinks that the reason Africa gets ignored is because it’s shrunk on some maps?
Besides, the new map distorts, too. Switch up the maps based on the topic and region being discussed. The UN has the ability to put a digital globe on their big screen, which is size and shape accurate.
It's only more accurate for surface area, but still distorts shapes, angles, and distances. Winkle-Tripel distorts the least of most projections, but still has some distortion. There is no perfect projection.
85% of major inventions came from one area for 500 years, there’s a reason it’s in the middle and nothing to do with perception. In fact arguably, it’s even more embarrassing at the new scale.
It's not a better representation, it distorts the shape of countries, the Mercator preserved shapes. Europe and the pacific Islands are squished and less legible to somebody trying to read it.
Why would I want to use a map that's harder to read?
The Mercator projection is good at preserving shape, there are other protection that are way better at preserving size, the new proposals is a really good compromise that is better for most purpose.
Maps are meant to be read, and this map is less legible since it squished everything not at the equator. To preserve the legibility of a map, stretching is preferred over squishing. Replacing a stretching map with a squishing map is a downgrade, not a compromise. Find a good stretching map that also makes Africa bigger, that would be a compromise.
It is not less legible. Or you could argue Mercator makes equatorial countries less legible. There's no qualitative difference between "stretching" or "squshing", as we're not aiming for a particular scale, but extent.
Geographyer here and before anything I don't play the sound but I get what the general feeling with all this is.
The Mercator map is not inherently bad or good. It's a particular projection and for other groups it will continue to be used. I believe the UN is switching to Equal Earth projection?
Either are fine but I get why the switch and I feel that if this happened 3 years ago it wouldn't have made such a splash
A map is a model and a model is only good if it serves its purpose. A model is by default not realistic. So if the new map is better for whatever purpose, fine. If it's only more accurate but less effective then I'd say we should stick with Mercator.
This is dumb all around. Africa isn’t overlooked because of the Mercator map, and it doesn’t hurt the U.S. at all to have the UN recognize a different map.
The UN can project digital globes on their big screen. Use those. They’re size and shape accurate.
•
u/AutoModerator 17h ago
Welcome to r/TikTokCringe!
This is a message directed to all newcomers to make you aware that r/TikTokCringe evolved long ago from only cringe-worthy content to TikToks of all kinds! If you’re looking to find only the cringe-worthy TikToks on this subreddit (which are still regularly posted) we recommend sorting by flair which you can do here (Currently supported by desktop and reddit mobile).
See someone asking how this post is cringe because they didn't read this comment? Show them this!
Be sure to read the rules of this subreddit before posting or commenting. Thanks!
##CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS VIDEO
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.