
Boston public schools map switch aims to amend 500 years of distortion - kafkaesq
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/19/boston-public-schools-world-map-mercator-peters-projection
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Red_Tarsius
> " _The result goes a long way to rewriting the historical and socio-
> political message of the Mercator map, which exaggerates the size of
> imperialist powers._ "

> “ _This is the start of a three-year effort to decolonize the curriculum in
> our public schools..._ "

 _Decolonize_ is guilt-inducing newspeak for injecting propaganda into school
curricula. Also, my peers and I learned about Mercator's pros/cons and other
projections in elementary school.

> " _The Mercator projection had “fostered European imperialist attitudes for
> centuries”, creating an “ethical bias” for “western civilization” against
> the developing world._ "

Baseless statement.

Everything is viewed through the lens of oppression and race war. The real
reason of the ubiquitousness of Mercator is barely mentioned in the article.
From the comments "Mercator was made for mariners who navigated by dead
reckoning. Holding a compass steady course on a sphere will produce a curved
path. On Mercator it is a straight line." Gerardus Mercator was aware of his
map's shortcomings and merely followed the engineering rule _Form follows
function_.

