maps etc

[gfish]

I've been thinking how it's likely that the skill of map reading will die with our generation. (Except for weirdo hobbyists, of course, like people who teach themselves celestial navigation today. [Yes, I'm included in that group.]) It follows that physical maps will eventually die out as well, which suddenly strikes me as a much odder thought. Phone books are even more obviously doomed. None of the entire combined index of our reality will be tangible. Now that I'm watching the new Survivors remake, it makes me wonder what post-apocalyptic fiction will look like in a couple of decades. Imagine being surrounded by resources but not being able to find out where they are, or how to get there. How bizarre.

Also, why didn't anyone tell me about the Survivors remake? It's already into its second season!

Also also, sorry I haven't been updating much. It's been a weird couple of weeks. I have some non-news to share which I thought I'd have the final clearance to post about some time ago. Waiting for the go ahead (which will almost certainly take the form of official word I wasn't selected) has given me a weird mental block on updating LJ. I should at least have a cool project update or two to make asap.

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

While I think you're right about map-reading (and maps) mostly dying out, I think that post-apocalyptic fiction about that vanishing, would only be relevant to people to whom the maps themselves were relevant. I was thinking about something related the other day when we were taking a tour of a mission house, and the woman noted that when the missionaries were teaching bible verses to the indigenous people, they'd learn the verses, and entire chapters, by rote rather than by reading, and they'd do it overnight. They were pre-literate and used to memorizing, but once they had an alphabet, everyone stopped caring or even noticing that nobody could still memorize an entire chapter of the bible overnight. It wasn't on their mental map. So, too, with maps themselves, I'm guessing: it will be a sufficiently foreign thought that it won't even register.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Typically, when I am intruducing star charts to my students by analogy to earth maps (representing the celestial sphere on a flat map being the same issue as representing a spherical earth on a flat map) none of my students have so much as heard of a Mercator projection. Only when I have an over-40 "non-traditional" student does anyone have a clue.

I find the inability to read a map scary--a kind of perceptual blindness that I can't even imagine from the inside.

[hpapillon.livejournal.com]

But doesn't the use of Google Maps mean that people know at least a little of how to read a map? (if fairly straightforward ones, with directions)

I tend to carry google map printouts with me whenever I go anywhere new. Partly because I don't own a handheld device that would be suitable for displaying such a thing, but also Big and Able To Take Notes On helps.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this for a while this afternoon, whilst out running the lathe, and I wonder about the idea of maps going out of style. Preliterate societies made maps, if we mean didactic graphical representations of the physical relationship of objects. That seems to be part of how our brains work.
But the idea of purchasing atlases and rolled maps -- probably children being born now are going to think they're an affectation, like absinthe spoons.

[avhn.livejournal.com]

Maps do not require power and do not break as easily. Also, GPS devices frequently fail if there is construction or temporary road blocks. People who continue to use maps (in addition to other technologies) should have the advantage when navigating. Which will become an evolutionary advantage when I set up my navigational challenge with which I determine who gets to reproduce. (Don't tell anyone about my plan to take over the world, please.)