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PaperclipPerfector  8hr ago (text post)   205 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 10, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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It's not about measuring areas, it's about being able to look at a map and see how big (and consequently important) Africa is.

I see no reason why how big something looks should be more important to visually understanding a map than border and coastline length, relative position, shape, direction, or visual centrality.

Neither do I, but the Africans do. I believe they think that if children look at the map and see

america AFRICA asia

then they will be more attentive to Africa and less likely to consider it the arse-end of the globe.

I’ll be interested to see the reactions when white nationalists start using the new map to point out the relative sizes of Africa and Europe, before asking why the tiny continent should accept any immigrants from the massive continent.

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