When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps(twitter.com)
twitter.com
When old historic maps overlap with modern political maps
https://twitter.com/Valen10Francois/status/1524040709862576131
178 comments
What's heartbreakingly tragic about this? Your statements reads as if a county having a high percentage of African American residents is negative.
I think you're ignoring the mistreatment of Black people in the black belt. For example, recently when Alabama instituted its voter ID laws it closed every DMV in the black belt so that Black people wouldn't have access to get IDs and vote.
Well...the fact plantations were more viable due to soil conditions, does that by itself mean the slaves were treated worse? Could be, could be.
Plus I believe rural blacks in the South just want to work good land, which by this point they often own. It's an agricultural area, the most people live on the best land. And further, the weather is more similar to Africa, hotter sunnier more humid. Subtropical. And then plus they're segregating of their own accord, they like each other they go to the same churches they share recipes for soul and Creole food, cook that pig good, share the crops. Sing together. Elect black representatives to go to Washington for them, being in a majority, that's another thing. Electing black Senators, that changes the game. And for that they need to be together in one place.
Plus I believe rural blacks in the South just want to work good land, which by this point they often own. It's an agricultural area, the most people live on the best land. And further, the weather is more similar to Africa, hotter sunnier more humid. Subtropical. And then plus they're segregating of their own accord, they like each other they go to the same churches they share recipes for soul and Creole food, cook that pig good, share the crops. Sing together. Elect black representatives to go to Washington for them, being in a majority, that's another thing. Electing black Senators, that changes the game. And for that they need to be together in one place.
>...does that by itself mean the slaves were treated worse?
No, but specifically targeting Black people for marginalization by doing things like removing their ability to vote does count as being "treated worse".
>... just want to work good land, which by this point they often own.
If you think that the end of slavery automatically resulted in Black people owning land they farm on you need to read about what actually happens.
No, but specifically targeting Black people for marginalization by doing things like removing their ability to vote does count as being "treated worse".
>... just want to work good land, which by this point they often own.
If you think that the end of slavery automatically resulted in Black people owning land they farm on you need to read about what actually happens.
Most of African Americans who live in the BB are descendants of slaves. They didn’t want to be in the black belt.
Do they want to be in Africa? I doubt it. Slavery is bad, but that doesn’t mean it is tragic that the descendants of those slaves are living in America.
I think bag_boy was trying to highlight the tragedy that we can still see direct effects of slavery in the United States, not that it's tragic that descendants of Africans live in America
It isn't absolutely tragic, but there is surely some tragedy within the overall story, including in some lingering after effects.
>depositing rich organic deposits, which in turn allowed for plantations to thrive in those parts of the deep south.
that is to say, the rich organic deposits of the black belt allowed slavery in the plantation model, creating the black belt as a racial profile.
that is to say, the rich organic deposits of the black belt allowed slavery in the plantation model, creating the black belt as a racial profile.
It's the chattel slavery that's tragic.
The naming irony / play on words. It's tragic because of this fertile 'black belt' slavery was able to exist profitably in that region.
> heart-breakingly tragic
African Americans are glad to be living in the US, and they're deeply enmeshed in the fabric of American society. Slavery was a bad part of history (and of the present where it still exists) but it's not more "heart-breakingly tragic" that a large number of African Americans today live on fertile land in the Old South any moreso than a large number of Aficans living on all sorts of land including not-so-fertile in Africa.
African Americans are glad to be living in the US, and they're deeply enmeshed in the fabric of American society. Slavery was a bad part of history (and of the present where it still exists) but it's not more "heart-breakingly tragic" that a large number of African Americans today live on fertile land in the Old South any moreso than a large number of Aficans living on all sorts of land including not-so-fertile in Africa.
I did not know that African Americans got together, had a vote, and decided that they’re happy to live in the US!
Or that they voted that living in the South is tragic!
In fact, let's take a step back instead of escalating the point. OP used a weird term for the context without qualifying the tragedy. Yes, slavery and other systemic abuses existed and we see echoes and displays of it today. That is tragic. But the simple fact where people live isn't tragic. It's the why they live where they live, to a degree.
In fact, let's take a step back instead of escalating the point. OP used a weird term for the context without qualifying the tragedy. Yes, slavery and other systemic abuses existed and we see echoes and displays of it today. That is tragic. But the simple fact where people live isn't tragic. It's the why they live where they live, to a degree.
no vote necessary, Americans overwhelmingly are glad to live in America, and African Americans are not different.
I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where we can just refer to people as Americans, instead of just some <subset>.
Huh, didn't realise that the Voice of African Americans was a member of HN.
I encourage people to read about Liberia. It's one of those hilarious episodes of American- African American relations that makes learning about history so interesting (and they will never teach it at school).
Any keywords or a summary to kick off the readings?
Whenever I see this kind of persistence, it underscores how important path dependency is when trying to understand how things got to be the way they are.
From legacy software to political systems, when there's cruft or weird behavior there's almost always some environmental factor that shaped the decision to build it that way, even (especially) if the people who made the decision weren't conscious of why.
From legacy software to political systems, when there's cruft or weird behavior there's almost always some environmental factor that shaped the decision to build it that way, even (especially) if the people who made the decision weren't conscious of why.
From Tristram Shandy:
"Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a half-penny matter,—away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it."
"Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a half-penny matter,—away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it."
Chesterton's fence.
I admit that when I was younger I was much more eager to just tear it all down and start anew...but with experience I have come to see things are never quite so easy. Things are the way they are for a reason, and it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things.
I admit that when I was younger I was much more eager to just tear it all down and start anew...but with experience I have come to see things are never quite so easy. Things are the way they are for a reason, and it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things.
The problem with a naive interpretation of Chesterton's fence is that it encourages stasis in cases where we don't have the knowledge or resources necessary to "fully" understand the reasons (or whether any even exist) for the current state of affairs. And in fact, there's no way to guarantee that we "fully" understand all reasons for the current state of affairs. Thus Chesterton's fence essentially deteriorates into the precautionary principle, which is bad epistemology. This quote from Wikipedia's section on criticism of the precautionary principle applies just as well to Chesterton's fence:
"of the two available interpretations of the principle, neither are plausible: weak formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is permissible) are trivial, while strong formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is required) are incoherent." [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#The_pr...
"of the two available interpretations of the principle, neither are plausible: weak formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is permissible) are trivial, while strong formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is required) are incoherent." [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#The_pr...
> it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things.
People misinterpret Chesterton's fence as an argument against changing things, but it's actually just about what I quoted above. It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. It just argues that you should make a strong effort to figure out why it is how it is before attempting to do so.
I'd argue that if you don't at least do the exercise your attempts to change things will probably fail, since whatever you try to do will likely fail to capture something necessary in the old system.
Keep in mind though that it doesn't always work. Sometimes the reason for the fence is forgotten. Sometimes the reason is deeply perverse and there never was a good reason. Sometimes the reason is obsolete.
People misinterpret Chesterton's fence as an argument against changing things, but it's actually just about what I quoted above. It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. It just argues that you should make a strong effort to figure out why it is how it is before attempting to do so.
I'd argue that if you don't at least do the exercise your attempts to change things will probably fail, since whatever you try to do will likely fail to capture something necessary in the old system.
Keep in mind though that it doesn't always work. Sometimes the reason for the fence is forgotten. Sometimes the reason is deeply perverse and there never was a good reason. Sometimes the reason is obsolete.
Yup. I've often seen Chesterson's Fence trotted out as an argument to never change anything. Or at least place onerous burden of proof on the new change to prove itself.
However, some times the circumstances that gave rise to the fence are gone! You still need to do the work to show that this is true, or at least some best effort. But if after a cursory check there is no compelling reason, retorting "ah but there may still be some use, go search the wisdom of the ancients further" is a terrible response. That is how you calcify debt and become unable to adapt to changing circumstances.
There is a balance between preserving out of an abundance of caution and tearing it all down because it was inconvenient or "new is better."
We already have plenty of innate status quo bias. We don't need to heap more on top without good reason.
However, some times the circumstances that gave rise to the fence are gone! You still need to do the work to show that this is true, or at least some best effort. But if after a cursory check there is no compelling reason, retorting "ah but there may still be some use, go search the wisdom of the ancients further" is a terrible response. That is how you calcify debt and become unable to adapt to changing circumstances.
There is a balance between preserving out of an abundance of caution and tearing it all down because it was inconvenient or "new is better."
We already have plenty of innate status quo bias. We don't need to heap more on top without good reason.
The problem with Charleston's fence is that most of the time the reason the fence needs to be removed isn't "I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.", but that the fence is actively a problem.
Unfortunately, I've seen this play out too many times. There is a trivial fence in the way of solving an expensive problem. Instead of taking action, months, or years pass trying to over- analyze the different ways to take down the fence. Since no one takes any action, the fence falls down on its own, causing severe outages and thousands, or millions of dollars in collateral damage.
Unfortunately, I've seen this play out too many times. There is a trivial fence in the way of solving an expensive problem. Instead of taking action, months, or years pass trying to over- analyze the different ways to take down the fence. Since no one takes any action, the fence falls down on its own, causing severe outages and thousands, or millions of dollars in collateral damage.
I think plenty of people err on either side of this question. It's an eternal controversy, and as you say, there is a balance.
That having been said, I also think you're underestimating the degree to which it's easy to verify the value of legacy practices.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret...
Search for the phrase "And then there’s manioc. This is a tuber native to the Americas." Read the extended block quote afterwards and the first few paragraphs after the block quote. If anything, Chesterton's Fence is insufficient--if a certain practice works, it sometimes works for reasons that even the practitioners can't explain.
Furthermore, I can point to numerous examples of catastrophic failure directly caused by insufficient status quo bias, like tearing apart cities because it's the 20th century and we need to build freeways straight through the middle of them, or communism. So it's a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be.
That having been said, I also think you're underestimating the degree to which it's easy to verify the value of legacy practices.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret...
Search for the phrase "And then there’s manioc. This is a tuber native to the Americas." Read the extended block quote afterwards and the first few paragraphs after the block quote. If anything, Chesterton's Fence is insufficient--if a certain practice works, it sometimes works for reasons that even the practitioners can't explain.
Furthermore, I can point to numerous examples of catastrophic failure directly caused by insufficient status quo bias, like tearing apart cities because it's the 20th century and we need to build freeways straight through the middle of them, or communism. So it's a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be.
All those anecdotes are cute, but has there been any attempt at systematically determining whether the net result of all instances of a particular culture’s practices which are justified by “do it this way because it has always been done this way”? This seems difficult to analyze, but it’s critical to the validity of any argument that invokes these cute anecdotes. Isn’t it plausible that generations of repressing people’s curiosity in experimenting with food preparation had a net negative effect?
Interesting point. I think you could characterize "being conquered by the Portuguese in the first place" as a negative outcome, so there's a plausible argument that the Portuguese were more willing to embrace innovation, which is how they gained the ability to conquer the Tukanoans in the first place.
On the other hand, if you dig into the history of colonization, indigenous cultures had a massive home field advantage, and it was common for Western colonies to utterly fail, either starving to death in the same lands that indigenous people were able to survive in or in some cases, completely defecting from their original culture and joining indigenous populations.
On the other hand, if you dig into the history of colonization, indigenous cultures had a massive home field advantage, and it was common for Western colonies to utterly fail, either starving to death in the same lands that indigenous people were able to survive in or in some cases, completely defecting from their original culture and joining indigenous populations.
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Okay but then what is your version of Chesterton’s fence actually saying? It just sounds like “don’t do something unless you think it’s okay to do.”
some years ago I had to take a break from my startup to consult, partner had a consultant come in to do some stuff, consultant wanted to redo a bunch of things to their liking - one of things he redid was to redo how products were found to be based on navigating by brand - without evidently taking time to consider that many sources of data we had, had a very poor understanding of what constituted a brand and that a brand might very well be some escaped xml and unreadable unicode glyphs, the letter A, the exact same text as the product name, the word Shirt, or a number of other things, including in some instances the actual brand.
In other words he did something because he thought it was okay to do it, he did it because he didn't like the way it was done, but he did not consider that in this case there might have been a reason why it was done the way it was and not the way he wanted it.
There were many things he could have changed, and improved things, but since he didn't bother finding out why things were they way they were changing things for the better was at best a random outcome.
In other words he did something because he thought it was okay to do it, he did it because he didn't like the way it was done, but he did not consider that in this case there might have been a reason why it was done the way it was and not the way he wanted it.
There were many things he could have changed, and improved things, but since he didn't bother finding out why things were they way they were changing things for the better was at best a random outcome.
I most commonly apply Chesterton's Fence in the context of new employees / managers. In that instance, it's more about naivety or ego ("I know better"), and less about needing to read the ancient runes to fully understand something.
I've seen so many people jump into a business, want to prove themselves, and start changing things without understanding the context in which that thing was built. (Similarly, though less often, businesses expanding into new products or markets.) "Tell me what will change if you stop doing X" is thus added to "Tell me what will change if you start doing Y".
To be fair, citing Chesterton's Fence just make me sound wise (and/or a little curmudgeonly); the better story for the point I'm making is the hospital bed where someone dies every Thursday morning at 10am ... only for video footage to reveal the cleaner unplugging machinery to plug in their vacuum cleaner every week.
I've seen so many people jump into a business, want to prove themselves, and start changing things without understanding the context in which that thing was built. (Similarly, though less often, businesses expanding into new products or markets.) "Tell me what will change if you stop doing X" is thus added to "Tell me what will change if you start doing Y".
To be fair, citing Chesterton's Fence just make me sound wise (and/or a little curmudgeonly); the better story for the point I'm making is the hospital bed where someone dies every Thursday morning at 10am ... only for video footage to reveal the cleaner unplugging machinery to plug in their vacuum cleaner every week.
> It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed.
Hard disagree. The difficulty of discovering the reasons for Chesterton's Fence and the impossibility of ever being certain that you have discovered them all means that it actually is a general prescription for caution / against change.
Of course, as always, it comes down to a judgement call. Do you understand the reasons for Chesterton's Fence well enough? Unfortunately, that's exactly the same situation one was in before the Chesterton's Fence metaphor was brought up, so either the metaphor is completely useless (by way of being disclaimed into oblivion) or it is a general prescription for caution / against change.
Hard disagree. The difficulty of discovering the reasons for Chesterton's Fence and the impossibility of ever being certain that you have discovered them all means that it actually is a general prescription for caution / against change.
Of course, as always, it comes down to a judgement call. Do you understand the reasons for Chesterton's Fence well enough? Unfortunately, that's exactly the same situation one was in before the Chesterton's Fence metaphor was brought up, so either the metaphor is completely useless (by way of being disclaimed into oblivion) or it is a general prescription for caution / against change.
I think the way you're conflating "for caution" and "against change" is a bit of sleight of hand though. I would definitely agree that it's a prescription for caution, but not necessarily against change.
the bias you detect is actually the bias of the changers; from experience we learn that the people who agitate for change are overwhelmingly likely to not look into the reasons things are the way they are.
It isn’t against change, it’s about making the correct change and correct amount of change to achieve the desired result, which can often be no change.
It’s against wanton and unwise change.
Considering nuance in qualification “disclaimed into oblivion” is needlessly derisive.
It’s against wanton and unwise change.
Considering nuance in qualification “disclaimed into oblivion” is needlessly derisive.
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One thing that's become very interesting to me is whether there's a way to formalize the presence of these kinds of path dependencies in models (sociological, psychological, epidemiological, system, whatever) so they don't become these kind of implicit ghost (butterfly?) effects that are mismodeled and misinterpreted. How do we avoid overlooking them? Seems like it's something that happens a lot.
Isn’t that the point of version control? Just make a list of (encountered problem) -> (enacted solution) mappings to keep track.
Brings to mind the 5 monkeys experiment: https://www.proserveit.com/blog/five-monkeys-experiment-less...
This experiment is one of my pet peeves, at least in terms of how it's usually used as a parable. Yes, in this particular situation, the monkeys are being irrational. But they are only being irrational because they are in a completely artificial environment that was deliberately constructed for the purpose of gaslighting them.
Sadly, all that will come from this article, is that a PHB who knows nothing about our field, will read a random tech ad (which is written as a blog/review/article), and proclaim that product X is perfect, whatdayamean it's not usable for us, it's not even helpful?!, just deploy it or you're fired, you stupid monkeys.
You’d love Freud
Ironically, the first map with Poland although very popular (it comes up on Reddit on a weekly basis) doesn't explain much.
It's the part not shown there that matters. The Russian partition (and to a lesser extent Austrian one) was the cause of the area in blue being poor and underdeveloped.
There was nothing particularly great in being under Prussian (German) occupation. It's that Russian occupation was so much worse, hell bent on robbing Poland on everything of any value.
It's the part not shown there that matters. The Russian partition (and to a lesser extent Austrian one) was the cause of the area in blue being poor and underdeveloped.
There was nothing particularly great in being under Prussian (German) occupation. It's that Russian occupation was so much worse, hell bent on robbing Poland on everything of any value.
It seems you make a claim in the first paragraph... Then provide reasoning to dispute it in the second?
makes a claim in the first paragraph (eastern half is the way it is because russian occupied) and provides clarifying context in the second (and not because there was anything good about german occupation in west)
Claim:
> the first map with Poland [...] doesn't explain much.
Reasoning that disputes it:
> The Russian partition [...] was the cause of the area in blue being poor and underdeveloped
For these to be contradictory statements, the Russian partition must refer to something meaningfully different than what the map with Poland refers to. Is that true? I'm no history buff, I'll leave it up to others to say.
> the first map with Poland [...] doesn't explain much.
Reasoning that disputes it:
> The Russian partition [...] was the cause of the area in blue being poor and underdeveloped
For these to be contradictory statements, the Russian partition must refer to something meaningfully different than what the map with Poland refers to. Is that true? I'm no history buff, I'll leave it up to others to say.
Quite funny, when I read the title before checking the link, I first thought exactly about Poland voting preferences.
For anyone interested: the difference in voting exists, because the east part of Poland is less developed and more rural in general. I remember that it is so in part because of how the Russian occupation was mostly of “steal as much as we can” variety, especially compared to Germans. It is also one of the reasons that the west side has much denser railway network.
For anyone interested: the difference in voting exists, because the east part of Poland is less developed and more rural in general. I remember that it is so in part because of how the Russian occupation was mostly of “steal as much as we can” variety, especially compared to Germans. It is also one of the reasons that the west side has much denser railway network.
The territory that today is western poland was part of Germany pre-1939. It wasn't an occupation, it was just that territory of that country. Afaik, most of what was eastern Poland pre-1939 and was occupied by the Russians, nowadays is no longer Polish territory. The boundaries migrated west.
Yes indeed.
The Poland of after WWII has a similar area with the Poland of before WWII, but it has moved a lot towards West.
So the winners have been the Russians and the losers have been the Germans.
Poland was lucky because its large territorial losses to the Russian invaders have been somewhat compensated with territories taken from Germany.
The other Western neighbors of Russia have been much less lucky. The larger neighbors (Finland, Czechoslovakia, Romania) have lost large territories stolen by Russia without any compensation, while the smaller neighbors (the 3 lesser Baltic countries) have been incorporated completely in the Soviet Union.
I have written "the 3 lesser Baltic countries" because prior to WWII Finland was counted as the 4th Baltic country, since all 4 countries occupy the Eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, and they all form an enclave between Germanic-speaking people to the West and Slavic-speaking people to the East (the main languages in Finland and Estonia are Uralic, while the main languages in Lithuania and Latvia belong to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages).
For example, in the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact from 1939, the Russians have written explicitly their intentions to occupy all the 4 Baltic countries (Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia) and also Romania, and the Germans agreed with this, while the Russians agreed that the countries of Western Europe should belong to Germany.
The Poland of after WWII has a similar area with the Poland of before WWII, but it has moved a lot towards West.
So the winners have been the Russians and the losers have been the Germans.
Poland was lucky because its large territorial losses to the Russian invaders have been somewhat compensated with territories taken from Germany.
The other Western neighbors of Russia have been much less lucky. The larger neighbors (Finland, Czechoslovakia, Romania) have lost large territories stolen by Russia without any compensation, while the smaller neighbors (the 3 lesser Baltic countries) have been incorporated completely in the Soviet Union.
I have written "the 3 lesser Baltic countries" because prior to WWII Finland was counted as the 4th Baltic country, since all 4 countries occupy the Eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, and they all form an enclave between Germanic-speaking people to the West and Slavic-speaking people to the East (the main languages in Finland and Estonia are Uralic, while the main languages in Lithuania and Latvia belong to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages).
For example, in the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact from 1939, the Russians have written explicitly their intentions to occupy all the 4 Baltic countries (Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia) and also Romania, and the Germans agreed with this, while the Russians agreed that the countries of Western Europe should belong to Germany.
The german territories were given to Poland by USSR, not taken by Poland.
With regards to eastern territories, Poland may reclaim some of those right now if it is insistent :)
With regards to eastern territories, Poland may reclaim some of those right now if it is insistent :)
Russian troll detected.
Seriously though, all of these russophobic eastern european countries are like: "Russia took our lands".
First of all, it was not Russia but USSR who took your lands; second, USSR did not give these lands to Russia (even in the form of RSFSR) but to other russophobic eastern european countries.
You are grown-ups now. Sort it out between yourselves.
First of all, it was not Russia but USSR who took your lands; second, USSR did not give these lands to Russia (even in the form of RSFSR) but to other russophobic eastern european countries.
You are grown-ups now. Sort it out between yourselves.
The Russian delusions around WW2 are astonishing.
They (USSR was Russian-lead) were literally allied with Nazi-Germany and agreed to split Europe with them. They executed 20000+ Polish people in Katyn alone.
They (USSR was Russian-lead) were literally allied with Nazi-Germany and agreed to split Europe with them. They executed 20000+ Polish people in Katyn alone.
Yes, USSR had a pact with Nazi Germany. Until it hadn't.
So?
So?
So USSR was exactly as guilty in WW2 happening as Nazi Germany. USSR was not one bit better.
And why are we discussing this different topic out of sudden?
USSR was actually much worse than Nazi Germany. They had much more time to do bad things.
And even if we only account WWII timeline, people in territories between Germany and USSR preferred to be conquered by Germans, purely because their soldiers were more disciplined than the ones from USSR (which were just peasants, frequently even without boots, equipped with weapons).
> people in territories between Germany and USSR preferred to be conquered by Germans
Dear krzyk! Do you consider jews people?
Dear krzyk! Do you consider jews people?
Are you a Jew that was there during the start of WW2?
Russians (USSR, potato-potato) at that time were exterminating most of people that had any kind of education - because those were potential "traitors".
Most Jews were intelligence class, which was considered enemy of the "working class".
Russians (USSR, potato-potato) at that time were exterminating most of people that had any kind of education - because those were potential "traitors".
Most Jews were intelligence class, which was considered enemy of the "working class".
Which is tragic considering that the Nazis did not see any future for those people other than dead or slaves.
Somehow people forget that the Nazis wanted to kill or enslave all Slavs[1] within their "lebensraum" territories.
[1] They also considered Estonians and Finns as "Mongoloids" and as such subhuman although both were elevated to "Aryan" status following the winter war.
Somehow people forget that the Nazis wanted to kill or enslave all Slavs[1] within their "lebensraum" territories.
[1] They also considered Estonians and Finns as "Mongoloids" and as such subhuman although both were elevated to "Aryan" status following the winter war.
Nazis wanted to enslave Slavs, not kill them. USSR wanted to kill anyone that had above elementary school education - basically killing the head. Which was much better end strategy, because there wouldn't be anyone to revolt.
If you focus only on the non-jewish civilian population of Poland, then I guess you could argue Soviet was worse... But in any larger context, Nazi-Germany were much, much worse.
By larger context you mean what?
Choosing between Jew or Polish population?
Or maybe lets see what happened in Ukraine which was under USSR occupation before the WW2 - Holodomor which resulted in up to 3 - 5.5 million people dead, which is close to Holocaust numbers.
When Soviet army marched everyone hid their daughters and wifes, to this day our grandparents tell stories how they were in the basements, or escaped to the west just not to be taken by Soviet soldiers.
On the other hand some parts of Poland were consider by Nazis as their land and they didn't rape or kill citizens, but they had obligatory conscription of capable man - many of them tried to hide and died if they were found.
Or maybe lets see what happened in Ukraine which was under USSR occupation before the WW2 - Holodomor which resulted in up to 3 - 5.5 million people dead, which is close to Holocaust numbers.
When Soviet army marched everyone hid their daughters and wifes, to this day our grandparents tell stories how they were in the basements, or escaped to the west just not to be taken by Soviet soldiers.
On the other hand some parts of Poland were consider by Nazis as their land and they didn't rape or kill citizens, but they had obligatory conscription of capable man - many of them tried to hide and died if they were found.
Russia is officially the successor state of the USSR. So legally yes, the USSR is Russia in so far as anyone cares for the purposes of assigning blame.
I don't really want to get involved in this argument, but I think this is a situation where there's just a little bit of missing historical background that might help you two understand one another. What the upstream commenter is referring to is the fact that the land that was historically eastern Poland isn't part of Russia now -- it's part of Ukraine and Belarus. Sure, the USSR (of which Russia is the successor state) is what performed that land transfer, but the land was not transferred to what is now Russia.
> the land that was historically eastern Poland isn't part of Russia now -- it's part of Ukraine and Belarus
The Belarussian / Polish border today is almost exactly the border between Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. So "historically eastern Poland" is not right there. Some like to think of the whole Commonwelth as Poland, which really dominated there. But in this case whole Belarus and Ukraine are "eastern Poland".
That's what poles tried to restore when got chance to recreate their state after WWI, as I understand. The full commonwealth. But only got to the borders we know as the pre-1939 Poland.
BTW, Ukraine is mostly the part of the GDL annexed by the Kingdom of Poland during the Union of Lublin. The todays Belarus / Ukraine border goes by this line.
There are overlap maps in wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Co...
Going deeper in history of GDL, Russia and Poland uncovers more.
The Belarussian / Polish border today is almost exactly the border between Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. So "historically eastern Poland" is not right there. Some like to think of the whole Commonwelth as Poland, which really dominated there. But in this case whole Belarus and Ukraine are "eastern Poland".
That's what poles tried to restore when got chance to recreate their state after WWI, as I understand. The full commonwealth. But only got to the borders we know as the pre-1939 Poland.
BTW, Ukraine is mostly the part of the GDL annexed by the Kingdom of Poland during the Union of Lublin. The todays Belarus / Ukraine border goes by this line.
There are overlap maps in wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Co...
Going deeper in history of GDL, Russia and Poland uncovers more.
Part of it was, yes. But going by the image from the tweet, there are many regions recovered, that belonged to the Second Polish Republic and still contained quite sizeable Polish-speaking population. [0]
[0]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GUS_languages1931_Po...
[0]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GUS_languages1931_Po...
well, it depends on how far back you look in history. poland was split up between prussia, austria and russia in the 18th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland#/media/File:Rzeczpospol...
Traveling around the Balkans, the old political divisions are absolutely striking.
The longer the rule of the Ottoman empire, the less developed the region tends to be. With the exception of Istanbul proper, of course, it was the main beneficiary of all the plunder.
Edit: I am writing this from a vacation in Slovenia, which is basically a Slavic-speaking Austria, with the exceptions of cities like Koper and Piran, which look like a Slavic-speaking Italy.
The longer the rule of the Ottoman empire, the less developed the region tends to be. With the exception of Istanbul proper, of course, it was the main beneficiary of all the plunder.
Edit: I am writing this from a vacation in Slovenia, which is basically a Slavic-speaking Austria, with the exceptions of cities like Koper and Piran, which look like a Slavic-speaking Italy.
I’m sceptical, it’s too easy to cherry-pick data to make it look supportive of one’s political agenda. Not saying it’s the case here, I just wouldn’t trust too much "obvious" patterns and easy to understand maps from a twitter thread. More often than not, such threads are omitting data that doesn’t support the view of the author. Reality is rarely obvious and simple.
Absolutely right to be skeptical. The regional demographics in many of these overlapped regions have gone through comprehensive changes over centuries under drastically different regimes. The map about English posessions in 1154 vs. first round of French presidential election is just an absolute straw-grasping joke. ~900 year's worth of cultural, demographic, and economic shifts reduced to basic visual pattern recognition AKA the thing that causes people to see Jesus on a piece of toast.
The map about Charlemagne's empire vs. 6 original members of the future EU is a joke too. The latter was a product of the reality of post-WWII European politics (Iron Curtain, Allied occupation of Germany and Austria, and Spain being a neutral country ruled by de facto dictatorship). It's fun to look at patterns and think they are neat. It is absolutely not fine to pretend these resemblances somehow have a direct & causal relationship without properly navigating the long and complex multi-faceted history behind them.
The map about Charlemagne's empire vs. 6 original members of the future EU is a joke too. The latter was a product of the reality of post-WWII European politics (Iron Curtain, Allied occupation of Germany and Austria, and Spain being a neutral country ruled by de facto dictatorship). It's fun to look at patterns and think they are neat. It is absolutely not fine to pretend these resemblances somehow have a direct & causal relationship without properly navigating the long and complex multi-faceted history behind them.
It's more of a weak indirect correlation between historical map -> economic prosperity -> political preferences. The modern political maps for France, Germany, Portugal and Romania at least are essentially proxies for GDP per capita (not sure about the others).
One might add something to the front of your analysis, as maps don't form out of thin air. In fact, those lines on a map are formally called "political borders."
historical governance -> historical map & economic prosperity -> political preferences
historical governance -> historical map & economic prosperity -> political preferences
Political borders also don't just happen to be drawn on a piece of paper. They tend to snap to physical barriers, mostly rivers and mountain ranges.
Oh, come on: he had numerous examples from all over the world where the political implications are quite different. The author's view was simply that old political boundaries have lingering effects, and he demonstrated that very well.
As I said, I’m not saying it’s the case here. It’s just collateral damage of the disinformation age we live in. I’m not trusting "trends" in data unless I spend 1 or more hours looking it up myself and hoping I can avoid being mislead.
Here I guess it didn’t help that the first map was trying to convey a link between Macron voters and British inhabitants. Anytime I see suggested links between voters, culture, immigration, etc. I’m prudent. It’s surely interesting in its own, but I can’t resist asking myself "why is the author mentioning this? Did he came across this data and then found interesting correlations? Or was he looking for trends that would bring support to some views he has? It’d be ok-ish if such approach was open, like, "here’s my thesis, and here’s data supporting this thesis." But when there’s no thesis, just "interesting trends", pretending it’s up to the reader to make his own conclusions… More often than not, it’s a dishonest cherry-picking with some more or less forced untold conclusions waiting to be made.
So, I just stay away from such articles, even if I know some of them aren’t dishonest. It’s collateral damage of the disinformation war.
Here I guess it didn’t help that the first map was trying to convey a link between Macron voters and British inhabitants. Anytime I see suggested links between voters, culture, immigration, etc. I’m prudent. It’s surely interesting in its own, but I can’t resist asking myself "why is the author mentioning this? Did he came across this data and then found interesting correlations? Or was he looking for trends that would bring support to some views he has? It’d be ok-ish if such approach was open, like, "here’s my thesis, and here’s data supporting this thesis." But when there’s no thesis, just "interesting trends", pretending it’s up to the reader to make his own conclusions… More often than not, it’s a dishonest cherry-picking with some more or less forced untold conclusions waiting to be made.
So, I just stay away from such articles, even if I know some of them aren’t dishonest. It’s collateral damage of the disinformation war.
I totally assumed the examples to be cherry picked but it's still fun to look at. Not every past border is visible on modern maps, but still some are clearly the consequence of those, for example the german maps where the old GDR is the reason for the high rate of atheism or popularity of more extreme parties.
I think that often past borders are the consequence of different demographics, which clearly translate into modern differences.
I think that often past borders are the consequence of different demographics, which clearly translate into modern differences.
By definition the examples are cherry-picked. I noticed he didn't pull up old Visigoth ranges, nomadic farmers or Babylonian borders.
That doesn't take away from the insight that certain political histories still resonate today.
Just as you can find examples of geologic features (like mountain ranges or rivers) influencing political divides, so too can you find examples of geologic features not influencing them. Doesn't mean the former is "misleading" or something.
That doesn't take away from the insight that certain political histories still resonate today.
Just as you can find examples of geologic features (like mountain ranges or rivers) influencing political divides, so too can you find examples of geologic features not influencing them. Doesn't mean the former is "misleading" or something.
When I was reading through the examples I sort of wondered why sometimes these geopolitical phenomena persist, and other times not.
For example, at one time long ago in the US, politics were dominated by "frontier-interior" versus "urban-coastal" dynamics, and then as the US grew, and the civil war came about, it established a lot of the geopolitical patterns evident today (although I'd argue the urban-rural distinction is maybe reemerged in a more distributed way today).
To explain cherry-picking versus something else, you'd want a theory for why patterns sometimes change and other times remain the same.
For example, at one time long ago in the US, politics were dominated by "frontier-interior" versus "urban-coastal" dynamics, and then as the US grew, and the civil war came about, it established a lot of the geopolitical patterns evident today (although I'd argue the urban-rural distinction is maybe reemerged in a more distributed way today).
To explain cherry-picking versus something else, you'd want a theory for why patterns sometimes change and other times remain the same.
Pretty much this. Without deep historical analysis, this doesn't mean anything. It's like amateur etymology that is based on how similar certain words are, which typically gets things laughably wrong.
In a way it would be surprising if we didn't see trends like this.
Reminds me of this quote:
Everything is what it is because it got that way. - D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On Growth and Form
Reminds me of this quote:
Everything is what it is because it got that way. - D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On Growth and Form
I had the same thought. What, do people think the politics of a region gets routinely shuffled without any influence from geographical or historical context?
I saw this phenomenon in practice in the Czech Republic... You see, Czechs and Slovaks are almost the same people with almost the same language. The historical difference? The Czech Republic was part of the Holy Roman Empire while Slovakia was part of Hungary for most of the same period.
Almost certainly what you see in Poland is not persistence of old but fresh settlement. After WW2, Poland recovered these western lands from Germany but lost others in the east to USSR. A lot of people moved from there.
https://twitter.com/Valen10Francois/status/15240407292108881...
Why these political maps are more likely to be caused by internal migration and not historical holdovers? Because the Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO, yellow-orange on the map) received more votes in areas with more (internal) immigration. Not just in the west but also in the cities in the east.
While these aren't unrelated, this is a long-time rooted vs freshly settled divide more than it is historical.
https://twitter.com/Valen10Francois/status/15240407292108881...
Why these political maps are more likely to be caused by internal migration and not historical holdovers? Because the Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO, yellow-orange on the map) received more votes in areas with more (internal) immigration. Not just in the west but also in the cities in the east.
While these aren't unrelated, this is a long-time rooted vs freshly settled divide more than it is historical.
There's an interesting one linking geology and politics in the north of France, kinda like the Alabama one:
A coal basin [1] predicts low revenues [2] and political votes for far right [3].
I'm no political or demographical historian, but the gist of the story IMHO is that there was a coal boom. People settled there, and not much else was invested in the region. So when coal mines went bust, no other industry could convert the workers; it created low revenue zones and it fed discontent, which can be seen in the votes.
"Au nord, c'était les corons", as the song says. [4]
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassin_minier_du_Nord-Pas-de-C...
[2] https://www.comeetie.fr/galerie/francepixels/#map/revenus/Rd...
[3] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/elections/infographies-resultats...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coron_(house)
A coal basin [1] predicts low revenues [2] and political votes for far right [3].
I'm no political or demographical historian, but the gist of the story IMHO is that there was a coal boom. People settled there, and not much else was invested in the region. So when coal mines went bust, no other industry could convert the workers; it created low revenue zones and it fed discontent, which can be seen in the votes.
"Au nord, c'était les corons", as the song says. [4]
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassin_minier_du_Nord-Pas-de-C...
[2] https://www.comeetie.fr/galerie/francepixels/#map/revenus/Rd...
[3] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/elections/infographies-resultats...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coron_(house)
Much of the recent book "There's Nothing For You Here" by Fiona Hill talks about some of this effect in her northern England upbringing.
You can see this more locally in the US with places that had redlining.
> Research published in September 2020 overlaid maps of the highly affected COVID-19 areas with the HOLC maps, showing that those areas marked “risky” to lenders because they contained minority residents were the same neighborhoods most ravaged by COVID-19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
> Research published in September 2020 overlaid maps of the highly affected COVID-19 areas with the HOLC maps, showing that those areas marked “risky” to lenders because they contained minority residents were the same neighborhoods most ravaged by COVID-19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
This seems to be complete BS to me: all I see in these maps is a lot of confirmation bias, the author really sees what he wants to see.
Some maps do overlap very well but in that case it only looks interesting because we want to see a causation link where there is correlation.
So sorry for the harsh words but I actually find this upsetting.
Some maps do overlap very well but in that case it only looks interesting because we want to see a causation link where there is correlation.
So sorry for the harsh words but I actually find this upsetting.
Just because the author used only confirmatory evidence doesn't mean that there isn't a correlation or a causal factor at play. The author didn't posit a theory; he merely pointed out that the maps are interesting. Which they are.
Sure, you could probably pick arbitrary political boundaries from different times and create maps that show the opposite trend. However, I would be surprised if there weren't correlative or causal factors, given that historical people reproduced and, in the case of many agrarian peoples, didn't migrate. It's possible that our collective ignorance of history makes this appear to be a novel fact, when we shouldn't be too surprised.
Sure, you could probably pick arbitrary political boundaries from different times and create maps that show the opposite trend. However, I would be surprised if there weren't correlative or causal factors, given that historical people reproduced and, in the case of many agrarian peoples, didn't migrate. It's possible that our collective ignorance of history makes this appear to be a novel fact, when we shouldn't be too surprised.
I completely understand your point. Misinterpreting correlation with causation is something that frequently bothers me in writings and discussions. In this case, however, I did find the correlations the author pointed out interesting. I did not interpret this as causal (the author may have made that claim, but I was more interested in the maps).
I still found it really cool to see how much an impact geography and path dependence has on our current state. I may be over generous, but when they show maps like the Alabama one where an ancient sediment deposit is correlated with farm size, racial makeup, and election results I think they are giving an example of how there can be common causes tied to geographies over long periods of time.
You're completely correct that simply overlaying the Austrian Empire's borders on a map of Romania's election results does not prove a causal link. It is much more likely that there is an underlying common cause (geographic feature, ethnic makeup, etc.). Pointing out these correlations is fun to me, as I'm able to speculate on the possible common causes.
I still found it really cool to see how much an impact geography and path dependence has on our current state. I may be over generous, but when they show maps like the Alabama one where an ancient sediment deposit is correlated with farm size, racial makeup, and election results I think they are giving an example of how there can be common causes tied to geographies over long periods of time.
You're completely correct that simply overlaying the Austrian Empire's borders on a map of Romania's election results does not prove a causal link. It is much more likely that there is an underlying common cause (geographic feature, ethnic makeup, etc.). Pointing out these correlations is fun to me, as I'm able to speculate on the possible common causes.
I don't quite think you understand. The data presented here absolutely does not allow for the conclusions you make particularly in your second paragraph. In fact the reality could be exactly the opposite way (i.e. geography has no influence on things like modern election results whatsoever) and you wouldn't know it based on this data.
Think about the countless numbers of ways you could overlay any sort of historical map over some map representing any kind of relevant statistic. A smaller but still countless number of them will have strong correlations by pure chance alone. This is a simple fact of statistics.
The author here is filtering out exactly those that happen to have those kinds of correlations backed by some preconceived ideas the author has about how the causality is supposed to work and uses them to fuel his hypotheses, while ignoring the uncountable number of map overlays that don't show these correlations.
This is bog standard selection bias.
Think about the countless numbers of ways you could overlay any sort of historical map over some map representing any kind of relevant statistic. A smaller but still countless number of them will have strong correlations by pure chance alone. This is a simple fact of statistics.
The author here is filtering out exactly those that happen to have those kinds of correlations backed by some preconceived ideas the author has about how the causality is supposed to work and uses them to fuel his hypotheses, while ignoring the uncountable number of map overlays that don't show these correlations.
This is bog standard selection bias.
You're correct. I was saying that correlation implied either causation or at least a common cause, and you correctly point out that there can be (edit: and frequently are) spurious correlations. The desire to see causal effects is strong in us humans, and it is easy for us, me especially, to fall prey to this logical fallacy.
For people who would like to see a demonstration of the effect yolo69420 is pointing out, you can visit the website below [1]. It, among other things, shows how Nicholas Cage movies are correlated with swimming pool drownings.
I completely agree that the Twitter post does not prove there is a direct causal relationship between the maps they compare, nor even that there exists a common cause. I would contend that this is a very high standard to hold for interesting content on the internet. If you would like to hold to this standard, you will likely come to more robust and defensible conclusions than myself.
I find it fun to speculate on possible common causes. If I had any actual ability to change things based on my conclusions, I'd likely increase my burden of proof to a much higher level like you suggest.
[1] http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
For people who would like to see a demonstration of the effect yolo69420 is pointing out, you can visit the website below [1]. It, among other things, shows how Nicholas Cage movies are correlated with swimming pool drownings.
I completely agree that the Twitter post does not prove there is a direct causal relationship between the maps they compare, nor even that there exists a common cause. I would contend that this is a very high standard to hold for interesting content on the internet. If you would like to hold to this standard, you will likely come to more robust and defensible conclusions than myself.
I find it fun to speculate on possible common causes. If I had any actual ability to change things based on my conclusions, I'd likely increase my burden of proof to a much higher level like you suggest.
[1] http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Is this actually different from when Matt Parker discovered ancient alien wisdom by plotting the lines between Woolworths stores?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JwEYamjXpA&t=2461s)
Some of these maps are for time period not that distant from each other where the correlation is pretty straightforward, and those are probably telling at-least-partly-true narratives. For others, it's less clear. How many different modern and ancient maps are there which could conceivably have interesting (spurious) correlations?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JwEYamjXpA&t=2461s)
Some of these maps are for time period not that distant from each other where the correlation is pretty straightforward, and those are probably telling at-least-partly-true narratives. For others, it's less clear. How many different modern and ancient maps are there which could conceivably have interesting (spurious) correlations?
In academic language this is called "the many labels you can put to a population density chart".
English historian Robert Tombs has lots of good examples of this for English history. Typically I can't find a good picture now but English Civil War vs Brexit voting patterns is a good example: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/files/2018/03/Screen-Shot-201....
I'm not sure what I am supposed to be concluding from this map.
Is the claimed correlation between Parliamentarian or Royalist support and Leave/Remain?
As an example: two Remain areas - Oxford and Brighton - one consistently royalist, the other consistently parliamentarian. Cornwall - supporting leave - consistently royalist, Kent - also supporting leave - consistently parliamentarian.
Is the claimed correlation between Parliamentarian or Royalist support and Leave/Remain?
As an example: two Remain areas - Oxford and Brighton - one consistently royalist, the other consistently parliamentarian. Cornwall - supporting leave - consistently royalist, Kent - also supporting leave - consistently parliamentarian.
I thought that "political maps" simply meant sovereign state borders (as it does in Czech, German, and possibly other languages as well), and that this would be about unchanging borders. For example Bohemia has had some pretty stable natural borders. But in this case "political map" means a map of election results? Is that a common usage in English?
As a native English speaker “political map” means to me both specifically “sovereign state borders” and generally “a map that relates to politics”. If I’m on Google Maps and there’s a button that says “show political map”, I would expect country borders, but if someone tells me “here are some political maps” then I’m expecting anything that has to do with politics.
To clarify what was said by the other respondents, "political maps" referring to sovereign state borders is a term composed of two words (and is probably one word in some other languages?), while "political maps" referring to maps of politics is two terms composed to express a modification of the idea of a map (which is almost always a political map in the first sense unless otherwise stated).
In English it has in my experience just referred to maps that emphasise human layers more than geological ones. Like you would see national borders, state or county borders, settlements marked on the map, rather than contours, terrain etc. I guess this does make it suitable for looking at electoral results but I think the “political” here refers to this - administrative divisions, not election or polling
In many cases, because both overlap with geographical features: the Carpathians in Romania, the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Ukraine, the green mountainous Portugal north of the Tagus vs the flat "montado" landscape to the south.
>because both overlap
It's easy to see why old empires/countries were divided by geographical features due to military reasons. But why would it affect the current-day political climate directly?
I think the causal relation is more like
Edit: on a second thought, I think a factor that supports your point is that geographical feature would affect corresponding industries in certain area regardless of "historical divisions". Maybe this is what you mean?
It's easy to see why old empires/countries were divided by geographical features due to military reasons. But why would it affect the current-day political climate directly?
I think the causal relation is more like
Geo -> old empire -> (more things) -> current day politics
Geo -> old empire
Geo -> current day politics
Edit: on a second thought, I think a factor that supports your point is that geographical feature would affect corresponding industries in certain area regardless of "historical divisions". Maybe this is what you mean?
Putting it in these terms, what I'm trying to say is something like:
geography → economy → old empire
geography → economy → current day politics
geography + current tech → agriculture/commerce/industry/military → economy/culture → politics
Makes sense.
When you said geography features, I was more thinking of natural barrier (like rivers, mountains): they were very crucial in shaping the old country border, but should have less impact today if both sides are already in the same country. So it's interesting that some of political division are still present around them, which makes me think history has its (unproportional) influence than the geography itself. But I guess it's always multi-factor and hard to tell in vacuum.
It doesn't help that in most of examples in OP, the major difference between two (old) countries is the economic one, so a certain degree of Matthew effect is there.
When you said geography features, I was more thinking of natural barrier (like rivers, mountains): they were very crucial in shaping the old country border, but should have less impact today if both sides are already in the same country. So it's interesting that some of political division are still present around them, which makes me think history has its (unproportional) influence than the geography itself. But I guess it's always multi-factor and hard to tell in vacuum.
It doesn't help that in most of examples in OP, the major difference between two (old) countries is the economic one, so a certain degree of Matthew effect is there.
It's been true throughout history and is still pretty true that most people never leave the area they were born in. This would cause geography, history, and internal politics to overlap in somewhat non-obvious ways.
If you look at human genetic populations, particularly several haplogroups prevalent among the first peoples to re-settle Europe after the ice age, and the Middle Eastern peoples they came from, as well as a later Y DNA group associated with the Germanic expansion in prehistory, the low prevalence areas today basically still outline the borders of the Roman Empire at its peak.
I don't really get why this annoys the author though?
In the end, culture and values change surprisingly slowly.
The fascinating thing about the Poland example is that the Germans living in modern fay west-Poland were moved out and into what's now Germany. So the culture and people are gone. What you see are the political effects of better infrastructure.
Sort of, but it is more like echoes. In the first and possibly most well known case the previously Prussian areas of Poland had all of the ethnic Germans forcibly removed. Because of this abrupt and extreme change there must be something else going on since the culture and values in fact changed quite suddenly and yet differentiation endures.
True, but they do change; if e.g. an empire hangs around for long enough, the original culture will be lost or assimilated. See for example Christianity throughout Europe, plenty of examples of erased or merged cultures to the point where nobody knows what happened before. Or the lasting influence of colonization throughout the world. Or the change of culture and language that the US has throughout the Hollywood media-consuming world; listen to random people in western Europe and count how many Anglicisms they use in their native language.
Some more examples:
- apparently ancient Egyptians had this problem with their own past, but I don’t remember where I read this. If anyone has a source, I would be thankful.
- pre-indoeuropean language families in Europe, only Basque remained that we know of
One interesting takeaway here is that it's somewhat likely that your own political convictions might be pretty different if only you had come to live elsewhere - sometimes not even that far away.
Probably... But this assumes there's no biological (or other) component that isn't stronger.
You can see the result of the 123-year partitioning of Poland on many maps, to the extent that it has become a meme:
1. the population of deer and boars: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
2. the modern railway network: https://ziemianarozdrozu.pl/artykul/2861/mamy-%E2%80%9Enie-p...
3. the percentage of flats without a bathroom: https://www.miesiecznik.znak.com.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/...
4. the percentage of companies in the real estate sector: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
5. unmarried couples with children: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
6. the area of asbestos roofing: https://wbdata.pl/mapa-azbestu-w-polsce/
7. families where kids get gifts for Easter: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
8. the name for Santa Claus: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/posts/123501...
9. town names starting with the letter A: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
10. average farm size: https://biqdata.wyborcza.pl/biqdata/7,159116,22094987,polski...
1. the population of deer and boars: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
2. the modern railway network: https://ziemianarozdrozu.pl/artykul/2861/mamy-%E2%80%9Enie-p...
3. the percentage of flats without a bathroom: https://www.miesiecznik.znak.com.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/...
4. the percentage of companies in the real estate sector: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
5. unmarried couples with children: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
6. the area of asbestos roofing: https://wbdata.pl/mapa-azbestu-w-polsce/
7. families where kids get gifts for Easter: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
8. the name for Santa Claus: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/posts/123501...
9. town names starting with the letter A: https://www.facebook.com/kartografiaekstremalna/photos/a.153...
10. average farm size: https://biqdata.wyborcza.pl/biqdata/7,159116,22094987,polski...
The partitioning of Poland or its « migration » to the West ? Because as far as I'm aware, the split is due to the Western part being formerly German (including its population) rather than the Polish people itself having been split.
Polish people are welcome to correct me, I'm not too familiar with history in this region aside from the broad stokes.
You are referring to the idea that some of these phenomena might not be due to the era of partitioning that ended in 1918 [1] but to the territorial changes after WW2 [2], in which people from former Eastern territories were relocated and mixed with the population of the "Regained Lands" in the West.
Interesting observation. It is hard to tell it apart, because it is the same line but different time.
I am no historian, so I shouldn't even try explaining. But for me, the "partitioning" explanation makes more sense, because during the communist time after WW2 there was a strong trend towards the unification of the country. If not for that, we would see even stronger divides at the other sides of the partition lines.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered_Territories
Interesting observation. It is hard to tell it apart, because it is the same line but different time.
I am no historian, so I shouldn't even try explaining. But for me, the "partitioning" explanation makes more sense, because during the communist time after WW2 there was a strong trend towards the unification of the country. If not for that, we would see even stronger divides at the other sides of the partition lines.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered_Territories
Only parts were strictly German. And the German population was moved out to new borders, and Polish population from east (parts of current Ukraine, Belarussia and Latvia)
That's pretty dank alright.
Some examples, especially the one about the "English" possessions in 1154 vs. elections results in 2022 vs where Brits are living in 2020 look very fishy. You have to try really hard if you want to see (or invent) a correlation between those, because they really don’t match at all.
England and France in 1154 are practically different nations with very different cultures compared to England and France in 2022, not to mention nine centuries' worth of evolving relations between those two.
Any pattern can resemble each other when they are approximated on large enough scales because then all differences would be wiped out. Geopolitical boundaries do often survive in some forms throughout history, as we can see some resemblances of the divisions in Medieval France vs. modern French departments. However this is the product of mainly geographical divisions (terrain such as rivers, mountains, plateaus, etc.) and in Brittany's case, an ethnic culture historically unique relative to the rest of France.
Any pattern can resemble each other when they are approximated on large enough scales because then all differences would be wiped out. Geopolitical boundaries do often survive in some forms throughout history, as we can see some resemblances of the divisions in Medieval France vs. modern French departments. However this is the product of mainly geographical divisions (terrain such as rivers, mountains, plateaus, etc.) and in Brittany's case, an ethnic culture historically unique relative to the rest of France.
The work is just awesome. i'm not a fan of twitter, but i just subscribed.
It's very interesting to see with evidence that history even centurys old weights a lot. Having the feeling it does is one thing, seing proof is another.
Another example of such overlap is readily found in contemporary South Korea. The southwest provinces of North and South Jeolla were the core of the ancient state of Baekje that disappeared in 660 CE, at the hands of its rival to the east, Silla, based in the current Gyeongsang provinces. The border between the two -- the Seomjin River -- still marks a striking linguistic, culinary, and political boundary between the more progressive Jeolla and conservative Gyeongsang.
One other way to think about this particular map of Poland/Germany is in context of 19th century industrialization. After WW2 the entire western half of Poland benefitted from remnants of a robust industrial infrastructure - especially rail. Here in Lower Silesia we still benefit from it in many ways.
Geopolitical version of technical debt.
The issue I have with analyses like this is that it's binary in some instances - if a district votes conservative 50.1% vs. 49.9% it's given the same weight as one that votes 99.9% vs 0.01%. The color coding skews the underlying dynamics.
Those are some cool maps. I love the Paris one.
Shows how relatively static we are in class, location (often driven by class), and geographic connections (family). Not a lot of movement on the whole
Shows how relatively static we are in class, location (often driven by class), and geographic connections (family). Not a lot of movement on the whole
Not sure I totally buy the Mexico one. The correspondence just isn't as strong as in some of the other ones, and in some places is confounded by modern state borders.
I don’t know that these are all cause and effect, but just interesting overlays. The Mexico one is clear to Americans - people who immigrate from Mexico choose to stay nearer to Mexico. Similar cultures, weather, etc. The areas previously being a part of Mexico is just coincidence.
There were a substantial number of people of Spanish-Imperial descent (of a variety of conditions) who didn't just move south when the border moved. Even now you see old families who identify as Mexican with the submotto "we didn't cross the border, the border crossed us". Keep in mind that much of that area was under Spanish and/or Mexican control for almost twice as long as it has been in the US (~1550-1846 vs 1846-present).
Do we have any numbers for how many Mexican-Americans are of this descent?
I don't (I'd imagine it's of a similar quality to people in the US northeast whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower). However, I wouldn't be surprised at the finding that their presence has had a network effect (and a cultural effect) that encouraged people coming from Mexico more recently to settle in that area rather than (for example) spread into the Louisiana Purchase territory, for the same reasons that immigration from other countries also tends to settle and self-perpetuate in enclaves.
Sure, I just mean that the line is a lot fuzzier than most of the other examples. Like if you showed me just the modern Polish map in the first one, I could clearly draw a pretty accurate approximation of the historical German border. But I don't think you could get nearly as accurate of a historical Mexican border from the modern population map. And in few areas where you can, it's also a modern border (Texas-Louisiana for example).
It's just a less compelling example than the others.
It's just a less compelling example than the others.
In that same vein of thought, try overlaying a map of US slavery use (preferably on the county level) with a modern map of Republicans vs Democrats lol
I was kind of hoping for some maps showing the influence of the Soviet Union’s westward displacement through Central Europe after WWII. They took bits of the Eastern frontiers of Poland and Czechoslovakia and then gave those countries chunks of German as compensation. The mass displacement of people because of these border shifts was unprecedented. Pretty much anyone of German ethnicity anywhere in Central Europe that wasn’t Germany or Austria had to move to Germany or Austria. The Eastern border of Poland was always kind of fluid so I don’t think there was that much westward movement there (beyond the anti-Communists who fled Eastern Europe in general in the 1945–8 period). I don’t know about what happened with the people who lived in the parts of Slovakia that became part of Ukraine. Czechoslovakia was always kind of oddly agglomerated country, so I don’t think many, if any of them would have traveled to the new Czech lands in the West and after the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993, thanks to the westward expansion of the USSR they ended up with less territory since the internal boundary between Slovakia and the Czech Republic remained the same through all of this.
So what came first? The people who live there and their opinions or observations and borders?
I wonder if things are going to change significantly with all of the covid related movement.
Anecdotally, the movement I've seen largely results in consolidation of 'like-minds', rather than a culture-mixing diaspora that results in a greater balance of varied perspectives. I hope my limited experience isn't the norm, but I suspect it is.
I agree, from a US perspective.
Prior to COVID, it seemed like most people who moved long distances did so either for financial opportunity or to “come back home”. During COVID (and up to now) it seems like a lot of people are moving to places they’re more politically/ideologically/socially comfortable.
I think part of that is due to the expanded availability of remote work - but not all. My social circles are predominately conservative, and several of them have left jobs and took a significant cut in pay to move to more rural areas because they wanted to be away from the city. A couple of the more liberal people moved the opposite direction for the opposite reason.
Prior to COVID, it seemed like most people who moved long distances did so either for financial opportunity or to “come back home”. During COVID (and up to now) it seems like a lot of people are moving to places they’re more politically/ideologically/socially comfortable.
I think part of that is due to the expanded availability of remote work - but not all. My social circles are predominately conservative, and several of them have left jobs and took a significant cut in pay to move to more rural areas because they wanted to be away from the city. A couple of the more liberal people moved the opposite direction for the opposite reason.
Great... Now do the Middle East. That one should be fun.
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's.. the seljuk turks
That's really cool.
I take exception with it being regarded as a pet-peeve. I think people who are broadly similar should be effectively represented, and sometimes that means having a seperate government.
To make the point clear (but not to say anything specific about socio-economics): it is fairer for socialists to have a socialist government, and hardcore capitalists to have a capitalist government- and not have to end up fighting constantly.
So, I'm happy that the people pictured are able to be represented independent of each other.
I take exception with it being regarded as a pet-peeve. I think people who are broadly similar should be effectively represented, and sometimes that means having a seperate government.
To make the point clear (but not to say anything specific about socio-economics): it is fairer for socialists to have a socialist government, and hardcore capitalists to have a capitalist government- and not have to end up fighting constantly.
So, I'm happy that the people pictured are able to be represented independent of each other.
The author seems to be a French speaker living in Paris. His usage was probably unintentional.
At some point i read that the reason the south-west of England is a stronghold for the Liberal Democrat party is due to the soil: i think it was that the soil there is suitable for dairy farming, and something about the economic structure of dairy farming led its well-off population to support the Liberals rather than the Tories, and that has persisted. But i can neither remember the explanation clearly, or find a source for it now. Sorry!
Thanks for sharing OP
It's just a misleading graph.
It looks like several territories that were once ruled by Austria tend to vote more to the right, if I'm reading the maps correctly. Is that a coincidence, or is there anything specific about the history of the Austrian Empire that (seemingly) caused generation-spanning right-wing resentment in its populace?
Those who want to dive deeper into the interrelation between history, geography, sociology and mentalities, I want to point to the Annales school[1], a group of French historians that formed in the late 1920s and had a big impact on historical studies, first in France and later world-wide. They are famous for their interest in what they called the "longue durée"[2], long-term historical processes.
However, one must be very careful not to draw too hasty conclusions from supposedly simple geographical correlations. Two example from the Twitter thread:
"West Germany (1949-1990) was extraordinarily similar to Germania as planned by Caesar Augustus c. 1 AD, to East Francia at the Treaty of Verdun in 843 AD, and to the Confederation of the Rhine in 1808." -- Whether there existed really an elaborated, dedicated plan to extent Roman rule up to the Elbe, is quite controversial among historians. Be that as it may, the Romans where not successful anyway, so hypothetical borders East and North of the limes could not have had any practical impact. -- The borders of the Treaty of Verdun are indeed quite similar to those of West-Germany. But it lasted only 27 years (from 843 to the Treaty of Meerssen in 870), when its Western border moved more Eastwards (and even more in 880 with the Treaty of Ribemont). -- The Confederation of the Rhine was a short-lived alliance of Napolionic client states. It was formed in 1806, its extent in 1808, Mecklenburg and Saxonia, does not really fit the borders of later West-Germany and by 1812 Napoleon incorporated the Netherlands and all of North-West Germany up to the Elbe into France. -- So this similarities are simple coincidences. There are geographical elements (the Rhine, the Elbe, ...) which played a role in defining borders from time to time. But there are really a lot of them during the centuries, with the borders constantly changing.[3] So it is no wonder that one finds something that roughly fits modern borders at some time in the past.
As to the maps of "Catholicism and Nazism" (or rather Protestantism and Nazism): This maps clearly show that the election results from 5 March 1933 of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) correlate with Protestantism. However, the conclusion that Protestants were on average more responsible in Hitler's coming to power is not compelling. Even though Hitler had already become Reichs-Chancelor on 30 January, the NSDAP received "only" 43.9 % of the votes. What finally established his dictatorship was the "Enabling act" of 24 March 1933. Only the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) voted against it.[4] (The Communists were already been arrested or in hiding.) If you now look at a map of the opposing SPD's election results from 1933, you will see that it is also confessionally correlated, but this time with Protestantism.[5] To understand all this, one has to consider that there existed a dedicated Catholic party, the Deutsche Zentrumspartei (or short: "Das Zentrum"), that had a considerable loyal following of voters. This party played no role in the Protestant parts of Germany. Alas, when it become dangerous to oppose Hitler, this Catholic party sided with Hitler and only the (more "Protestant") SPD resisted.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annales_school
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longue_dur%C3%A9e
[3] Just look at this map from showing the extent of the "Holy Roman Empire" during the early 13th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire#/media/File:...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933#Voting_on...
[5] https://www.wahlen-in-deutschland.de/wuKarteSPD.htm
However, one must be very careful not to draw too hasty conclusions from supposedly simple geographical correlations. Two example from the Twitter thread:
"West Germany (1949-1990) was extraordinarily similar to Germania as planned by Caesar Augustus c. 1 AD, to East Francia at the Treaty of Verdun in 843 AD, and to the Confederation of the Rhine in 1808." -- Whether there existed really an elaborated, dedicated plan to extent Roman rule up to the Elbe, is quite controversial among historians. Be that as it may, the Romans where not successful anyway, so hypothetical borders East and North of the limes could not have had any practical impact. -- The borders of the Treaty of Verdun are indeed quite similar to those of West-Germany. But it lasted only 27 years (from 843 to the Treaty of Meerssen in 870), when its Western border moved more Eastwards (and even more in 880 with the Treaty of Ribemont). -- The Confederation of the Rhine was a short-lived alliance of Napolionic client states. It was formed in 1806, its extent in 1808, Mecklenburg and Saxonia, does not really fit the borders of later West-Germany and by 1812 Napoleon incorporated the Netherlands and all of North-West Germany up to the Elbe into France. -- So this similarities are simple coincidences. There are geographical elements (the Rhine, the Elbe, ...) which played a role in defining borders from time to time. But there are really a lot of them during the centuries, with the borders constantly changing.[3] So it is no wonder that one finds something that roughly fits modern borders at some time in the past.
As to the maps of "Catholicism and Nazism" (or rather Protestantism and Nazism): This maps clearly show that the election results from 5 March 1933 of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) correlate with Protestantism. However, the conclusion that Protestants were on average more responsible in Hitler's coming to power is not compelling. Even though Hitler had already become Reichs-Chancelor on 30 January, the NSDAP received "only" 43.9 % of the votes. What finally established his dictatorship was the "Enabling act" of 24 March 1933. Only the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) voted against it.[4] (The Communists were already been arrested or in hiding.) If you now look at a map of the opposing SPD's election results from 1933, you will see that it is also confessionally correlated, but this time with Protestantism.[5] To understand all this, one has to consider that there existed a dedicated Catholic party, the Deutsche Zentrumspartei (or short: "Das Zentrum"), that had a considerable loyal following of voters. This party played no role in the Protestant parts of Germany. Alas, when it become dangerous to oppose Hitler, this Catholic party sided with Hitler and only the (more "Protestant") SPD resisted.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annales_school
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longue_dur%C3%A9e
[3] Just look at this map from showing the extent of the "Holy Roman Empire" during the early 13th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire#/media/File:...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933#Voting_on...
[5] https://www.wahlen-in-deutschland.de/wuKarteSPD.htm
Peeve: To cause to be annoyed or resentful. synonym: annoy.
These are not pet peeves at all, they are the persons pet loves. All examples are a type of "look at this great example, designed not to annoy or cause resentment at all, just the opposite! Aren't they cool and amazing?"
These are not pet peeves at all, they are the persons pet loves. All examples are a type of "look at this great example, designed not to annoy or cause resentment at all, just the opposite! Aren't they cool and amazing?"
Author admits his mistake:
François Valentin @Valen10Francois · 16h I realize that I've used that word completely incorrectly for ages!
https://twitter.com/Valen10Francois/status/15241607219023544...
François Valentin @Valen10Francois · 16h I realize that I've used that word completely incorrectly for ages!
https://twitter.com/Valen10Francois/status/15241607219023544...
Thank you for the link. I too was confused how this could possibly be a pet peeve. I wonder what term he actually meant? Pet project?
I was very confused by that thread. I kept scrolling to find where he explained why it was a pet peeve of his.
Same. Lets not tell any SEO/journalists this technique for keeping us reading an article we might have otherwise dismissed!
I studied French for four years and I'm sure there are all kinds of things that I say in that language that would confuse native French speakers as much as François Valentin confused us with an errant use of "pet peeve".
I think he probably meant to say, "pet projects".
I think he probably meant to say, "pet projects".
My favorite is when a French colleague wanted to send some "demands" to a customer. He meant "questions", "demander" = "to ask", he didn't realize that "demand" has a very different implication in English. Fortunately this was caught before he sent that email.
Another more serious mistake is that further down the thread he refers to the DDR as a "former Soviet Republic", which it absolutely was not.
Thank you. The overlays are enlightening, and I was confused by the title and the lack of negative commentary accompanying these maps.
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My theory is that he misinterpreted https://xkcd.com/1138/
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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_(geological_formati... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_in_the_American_Sou... [2] https://politicartoons.livejournal.com/4422659.html