It's all relative

[garote]

So my sister and I were discussing a switch between cell service providers, because of recent billing shenanigans. I was wondering what the Verizon coverage map looked like. The base map they use for their coverage overlay is "Open Street Maps."

Out of curiosity I went browsing around other places. Japan, etc. Check out this map of North vs South Korea:



Unsurprising, I guess. In North Korea, you gotta keep a tight lid on information to preserve a dictatorship, and cellphones are a nuisance for that. But then I zoomed in closer on North Korea...



This feature, at the end of a road called "Gulag 16 Rd" does not appear on Google or Apple Maps. It must be too politically embarrassing, or maybe just unsavory. Mega-corporations don't want their map users to get bad vibes. (On the other hand, absolutely zero people are going to ask for driving directions to a freaking gulag, so...)

Googling that road reveals it to be the Hwasong Concentration Camp.

We know it’s there, we know there are ~20,000 people being slowly murdered there, and it’s apparently nobody’s problem.

Meanwhile I’m here worrying about "I wonder if I can save a few bucks on my cell bill"...

Sure, it's apples to oranges. For one, that place is over 5,000 miles from me, across an ocean so large that 100 years ago, people only crossed it when they were going to war. And of course there’s the mountains and the cultural and language barriers and so on.

I guess what’s really startling to me is that I can know about it. When I was in college there was a famine going on in North Korea, but I was ignorant of it, along with everyone around me. Now it’s almost too easy to find out about atrocities happening on a global scale.

Hey, did you know that Michael Palin did one of his travelogues about visiting North Korea? Apparently it's quite an interesting series, but not nearly as popular as his others, for obvious reasons. He does his best to get people alone and away from his handlers and have real conversations with them, but he’s thwarted almost all the time.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Wow, thanks for the hint regarding Michael Palin.

The world is like this. People like the opportunity to torture other people, when allowed.

[sassa_nf]

I think another important thing to bear in mind, is that you aren't the Sun, and even the Sun can't warm everyone in the world.

I think just keeping your side of the street tidy is work enough...

[garote]

Good way of putting it.

[sassa_nf]

https://maps.app.goo.gl/auWGFQpyT45e26cS7

Don't know. Here it shows up as Gulag 16 road, and the concentration camp is there, too.

[garote]

Interesting! So Google Maps does know about it, but places the search result on the first set of buildings. I was looking at the buildings farther up the road, which had no labels. I guess they deserve more credit than I was willing to give them.

That just leaves Apple as the cowards.

[sassa_nf]

You still have a point, though, that our perception of the world is shaped by our fact-checking habits.

If all we do is Google it...

In recent news - Google doesn't appear to distinguish Russian from Ukrainian, even if the spelling is clearly Ukrainian. The difference is that Russian text is more likely to be misinformation - but more popular!

[garote]

I know someone who used to work on their Russian translation infrastructure, but he's (mostly) retired now. I guess they never found a good replacement...