Would geopolitics be different if all our maps were like this?

by phil on Saturday May 8, 2010 10:34 PM
geopolitics

I got generally negative comments when I asked reddit.

This is what I think:

I think it would be drastically different. At least, simply because if we changed one butterfly flapping its wings 600 years ago, who knows what would be different.

But beyond that, I still think there would be a profound effect. People read top to bottom, so whatever's "up" immediately has more attention. When I was a kid, I'd focus on Greenland before I'd focus on New Zealand, simply because it was at the top of the globe.

Also, "up" has a sense of being above and greater than, closer to the sky.

I think there would be enough of a connotative drift to how we perceive countries that it would change geopolitics.