• porksnort@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      I love this image. The choice of coloring schemes and the fractal nature of the patterns is mesmerizing.

    • blarghly@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      So do all the watersheds that don’t go to the seas just end in salten lakes?

      Also, what’s up with the areas with parallel lines? Open desert?

  • Krono@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    It says “no regard to history or ethnicity” but actually they were highly sensitive to ethnic differences when drawing borders.

    They explicitly said the ideal was 3 ethnic groups inside the borders, with a 50:40:10 ratio. They would give power to the ‘10’ in the minority, who would ally with their western oppressors to maintain their position of privilege. The ‘50’ and ‘40’, now the underclasses of society, would often devolve into sectarian violence.

    Imperial powers found that this model gives them the maximum control over their colonies with the least amount of investment and intervention. It was brutally effective.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The best part of this exercise is the presumption that one corner of Africa isn’t part of Africa but rather the Middle East.

    It’s arbitrary borders all the way down.

    • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Upper Egypt - Something that hasn’t happened in thousands of years: Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt have been divided

      The Greater Levant - mostly Arab but with many minorities, and the greatest religious diversity: sunnis, shi’as, catholics, jews, alawites, druzes, coptic christians, etc.

      Greater Iraq - mostly shi’a, but with an important sunni minority, and various ethnicties: Arabs, Persians, Azeris, Kurds, etc.

      The others - I don’t know enough to say much confidently. I need someone else to chime in.

  • blarghly@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I propose dividing the area in a grid of 1m squares, and making each its own nation state. Then we wait…