politically-loaded maps: sputtering flemishly

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > politically-loaded maps: sputtering flemishly

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

ComradeCosmobot posted:

I'm not sure if that's the best part, or the obvious "MUSLIMSSSSS" down in Morocco.

The best part is the Ottoman Empire cutting off their own head.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2013 19:30

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 11:00

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Kurtofan posted:

I'm actually surprised at France being so blue since a recent poll had something like "69% thinks there are too many immigrants".

I think the colours are relative to each other. That's why Belgium is listed as dark blue, even though we're everything but welcoming. You're all just worse.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2013 16:51

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Berlin.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2013 14:58

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

We're too busy squabbling over internal borders here in Belgium. Also, negotiating with the Netherlands about anything is annoying as hell - see the Westerschelde.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2013 15:29

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Koramei posted:

Hey well at least they got Rwanda right.

The hilarious part is that they went: 'well, they're all in the same ethnic group? Can't have that. We'll just make some up, then.'

# ¿ Aug 28, 2013 10:27

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

GreyjoyBastard posted:

Basic imperialist doctrine! Also it's not necessarily settled that it was entirely colonialist action, to my knowledge. Has something new come out in the last [since whenever forums user GreyjoyBastard bothered to update his memory]?

Which is to say, all I recall is that it was a prominent / the most probable theory for the whole Bantu-related sub-ethnicity thing.

I'm not sure. I basically always heard that it was a class divide turned into an ethnic divide thanks to Belgo-German pseudoscience.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2013 19:53

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

twoot posted:

They were separate tribes beforehand, but you couldn't tell them apart afaik. Belgian colonists started separating the people into the two groups based off of physical appearance mostly. One group was made to be short in stature, round face, flat nose. The other was tall in stature, angular face, long pointed nose. I can't remember which was which though. The Tall group was elevated into positions of power within the colonial regime, the colonists saw them as being closer to themselves, and the other group was restricted to being farmers/peasants and other such stuff.

That wasn't exactly what I was referring to, though. They were different tribes in that they generally lived in separate communities (which seems logical if you have nomadic herdsmen and farmers), but they were essentially the same ethnic group. Moreover, you could switch between being a Hutu or a Tutsi by simply taking up the lifestyle of the other group, which did happen. IIRC, the herdsmen were the upper class and the farmers were the lower class. Then the Belgians came (after they took Rwanda from the Germans) and said: well, this wont' work and suddenly they were ethnic groups. They did try to use physical appearance to divide them, but not all the tall, angular faced people were necessarily herdsmen and not all short, round faced people were farmers. The pseudoscience wasn't even consistent. Though generally, the groups did conform to those physical markers, because the lifestyle/diet of herdsmen generally generates tall, skinny people, while farmers tend to be more stocky. Something like that.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2013 13:04

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

'Hmm, yeah, all that research is probably bullshit because it just doesn't feel right,' said a bunch of people on the internet.

Canada is a major player in the energy and resource market, as is Norway. Britain's just up in everyone's poo poo and many countries in the Middle East (especially Iran) are pretty obsessed with Britain. This isn't just about major news articles either - business pages count too. Anyway, there's nothing particularly shocking about the map.

e: I'd also like to point out that Canada and Norway are blue because nobody gives a poo poo about Canada and Norway in terms of politics, so economics take over.

R. Mute fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Sep 19, 2013

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 02:24

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

dethslayer666 posted:

So are Kazakhstan and Venezuela. On the other hand, Pakistan and Somalia are not.

That's... cool? I was talking about international players, though, not just having a shitton of resources.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 02:38

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Fojar38 posted:

I'd wager Canada has more international clout than pretty much all the African nations who are the same color on that map.

Well, you'd very much be correct. However, I think you're not really getting what the map's depicting, do you?

I mentioned that Canada is insignificant in political terms, because this is about them appearing in media. If Canada appears in any international media, they rarely get a say in important political matters. However, when it's about economical news, they get mentioned all the time for ruining and exploiting so many countries. I wasn't trying to put down Canada or make it a dick-waving contest between nations - seeing as that's not what the map's showing -, I'm just explaining why Canada might be linked to the Middle East.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 02:48

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Fojar38 posted:

Er, hold on. When I think "countries that have exploited others" Canada and Norway aren't really high on the list. I'm Canadian myself and I am completely unaware of any sort of disdain for Canada economically in the international media.

Pay closer attention, then. Just some things off the top of my head:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/guatemalans-can-sue-hudbay-in-canada-judge-rules-1.1370459
http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/03/03/CanMining/
http://www.focusonline.ca/?q=node/503

There's also a bunch of cases where Canada sues poor countries for not sticking to their deals. These things won't make huge headlines, though.

quote:

Second, if that's what it's measuring then it doesn't make sense for the great powers such as the US, China, and Russia to be grouped the way that they are. When I think China I don't really think "positive reputation" or "positive links with its neighbours."

I don't think the map is measuring what either of us think it is.

It measures connections in media and then identifies them as positive or negative. If two countries or two regions are mentioned in the same articles all the time, they're going to be linked on that map. As to China, they're actually talking about the entire Asian region - which does get decent press. Also, if they didn't just stick to western media, China gets a lot more positive articles in - say - Africa and the Middle East. I'm not sure how they measure positive or negative, though. There are bound to be a lot of 'neutral' articles, I guess.

e: oh, the paper's actually online. I'll check it out.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 03:05

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

So, the sources it uses seem to be the New York Times since 1945 and about 100.000 web based articles - all in English. (which should skew the results a certain way, at least)

As to the positive/negative thing:

quote:

Sentiment mining counts up the number of words in a document that appear in precompiled dictionaries of �positive� and �negative� words to determine the density of emotional language and its overall �tone.� A document with many words like �terrible�, �awful�, and �horrific�, and few words like �good� or �nice� would be given a highly negative score by the algorithm, while one with more positive language would be given a more positive score.

Not the best method, but there we go.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 03:13

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Fojar38 posted:

What's Norway's reason for being so negatively viewed then?

Norway doesn't just produce oil, its oil companies have interests all over the world. Oil trade's a messy business.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 14:25

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

I think I remember a poll saying that plenty of Walloons wouldn't mind joining France, if staying part of Belgium wasn't an option. There's close to zero support for joining the Netherlands in Flanders, though. Except maybe Siegfried Bracke.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2013 13:48

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

the jizz taxi posted:

This is just anecdotal, obviously, but I used to live in a large student dorm with a lot of foreign students, and in my experience, the students who were the absolute worst at foreign languages were the Spanish

Italians tho

the jizz taxi posted:

Dutch-speaking media always use subtitles.

Except with children's shows, obviously. Although that isn't entirely true either. Things like the Simpsons are subbed, which is incidentally how I already had a solid grasp of English at 12.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2013 15:00

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Phlegmish posted:

I'm always amazed at how well all those Germans and Scandinavians in the Upper Midwest seem to have been assimilated. What with all the isolated farming towns, you'd think there'd be more of a cultural legacy besides Lutheranism.

Being German in the US became very unpopular in the beginning of the twentieth century and then even less popular halfway through the century... for some reason.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2013 16:38

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Arglebargle III posted:

but I guess their failure to effect the same outcome in the Balkans means the wars are literally America's fault.

I don't want to be mean and say this after this entire discussion, but cheerfullydrab's post - the one that you quoted - didn't say that America was at fault for all Balkan wars. It said that America's response to the conflict in the 90's was flawed because of assumptions about tribal conflicts and incredibly complex situations. So I guess your spirited defence of America's honour wasn't really necessary.

Cheerfullydrab's right when he says that the Balkans aren't really that much more complicated than any other conflict. The same problem is present when people talk about conflicts in Africa or the Middle East. The words "tribal" or "complex" pop up instantly and are usually just a way of saying 'we're too lazy to understand this conflict'. It's not because the conflict isn't between literally Hitler and literally Jesus with nobody else involved that it's complicated.

Also, to add to Belge-chat: okay so we haven't been ethnic cleansing each other, but if you think there haven't been any conflicts in the Low Countries over the past hundred years (even ignoring the actual world wars) then you haven't been paying attention. We just keep it political and clandestine and such, even if we don't usually openly murder each other. (which has more to do with the surrounding countries not letting us and also because of economics)

# ¿ Nov 16, 2013 19:11

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Phlegmish posted:

Belgium - mostly post-nationalistic country

Do you even live here?

# ¿ Nov 16, 2013 19:40

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Phlegmish posted:

If it's the last place you'd think of, I don't even know what to say...but there's no point in getting into arguments over vague concepts. Everything is relative.

If it's too vague a concept to argue about, maybe you shouldn't be using it in your argument in the first place.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2013 21:27

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

The thing you're citing isn't about being nationalist or not, it's about a bunch of values - and I'd love to see the methodology used to get those results.

Anyway, my source is I live here (as do you, right?) and I can plainly see Flemish nationalism taking the place of Belgian nationalism, as well as ordinary nationalism taking on a different form - because there's nothing to suggest that nationalism can't take hold in the top right area of your little graph there. Maybe it won't be as obvious as nationalism in the bottom left, but that doesn't mean it's not nationalism.

e: also, 'not as bad as 1960' is a pretty low bar to set for yourself

R. Mute fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Nov 16, 2013

# ¿ Nov 16, 2013 22:11

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 11:00

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Phlegmish posted:

North Brabant is Flanders Reloaded and you should just give it to us already. It even has 'North' in the name.

Why would we want it.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 18:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > politically-loaded maps: sputtering flemishly