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Australian Bushfire Map Superimosed Over America Sows Disbelief

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @07:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the let's-measure dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Which is larger? Yours, or mine? Australia or the United States of America, that is. With the bushfires in Australia out of control incinerating large swathes of the country a map was produced to visually depict how widespread the fires are. For emphasis the map was overlaid on top of America to give people an idea of the scope of the problem Australia is dealing with. Americans responded with disbelief that Australia was just as large as the USA. People were also in shock over how large an area, measured by size of US states, are currently burning. Responses on social media show how shocked and dumbfounded people were learning this.

  • Area of Australia = 7.692 million km2
  • Area of USA, excluding Alaska = 7.653 million km2

Here is the image under discussion.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Booga1 on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:12AM (3 children)

    by Booga1 (6333) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:12AM (#940967)

    You have a fair point, but so does the thread grandparent.

    You can't expect people to make any kind of smart choice in politics(or anything, really) if they don't even understand where they are on a map.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @10:25AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @10:25AM (#940986)

    You can't expect people to make any kind of smart choice in politics(or anything, really) if they don't even understand where they are on a map.

    Why? So if someone doesn't know exactly how large every country is, they can't, say, have an informed opinion about universal healthcare?

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:32PM (#941026)

      > So if someone doesn't know exactly how large every country is, they can't, say, have an informed opinion about universal healthcare?

      If we back off from your extreme statement to something like this: "about how large most countries are", then I'd say,

      Yes, anyone without a general sense of the relative size of countries probably won't have an informed opinion on health care either.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:47PM (#941210)

      You confuse entitlement and capability. Any human being is entitled, whether they're capable is another matter.