Why are we changing maps? (from The West Wing)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it in any thread on map projections and the Mercator distortion of country sizes, often calling it a favorite scene.
What it is
A short clip from The West Wing in which staffers meet a group advocating the Peters projection and challenge the Mercator map. It was shown as geography humor at a Salt Lake GIS user group meeting.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2021 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends gundmc · 2021-05 · on “The True Size of Africa (2015)”
This reminds me of my favorite scene from The West Wing where they talk about how misleading the Mercator projection is with regard to the size of Africa. [this video]
Recommends randcraw · 2023-06 · on “Maps Distort How We See the World”
There was a memorable scene from "The West Wing" on the biases imposed by most map projections, in particular, how Mercator makes North America look huge: [this video]
Recommends sircastor · 2024-05 · on “Princeton astrophysicists re-imagine world map (2021)”
Coincidentally, yesterday I saw (again) “The West Wing” scenes[1] that express this problem (and the related social issues). It was the first learned about map projections and I think if they aren’t already an explicit topic in school, they ought to be. I find it very interesting. [1] [this video]
Cites casefields · 2022-08 · on “The world map that reboots your brain”
Same here. I do remember the famous scene from West Wing which lead me to research the topic. Scene here: [this video]
Critical paganel · 2026-01 · on “Is liberal democracy in terminal decline?”
Hopefully, yes. Also hilarious how even on this downward trajectory the liberal order's main propaganda entities (like the FT here) run with geeky and nerdy stuff like charts (?!), that will show 'em!! A true sign that they know nothing of the real (ideological world). Just the other day they (the FT, that is) were also running with that mantra of "Trump is invading Greenland only on account of him getting messed up by the Mercator map projection!!", which was straight West Wing [1 ]heavy-liberal territory. Like I've said, they know nothing of the real world. [1] [this video]