Google Maps War

So right off the bat, I will say it is kind of a hyperbolic title.

That's what all the news publications said at the time.

And because we want people to click on our show, that's what we're going to call it as well.

So I will just say it did get pretty heated.

So like no question about it.

And troops were deployed with weapons across border from each other.

So like it was not some like, oh, oopsie daisy kind of thing.

It became an international incident and incident and could have sparked something wider.

And then the other piece of hyperbole is that this conflict in this region goes back 150 years before any Google product ever came into being.

So let's get into it.

Now, Google Maps today and even back in 2010 was one of the most ubiquitous mapping applications in the world.

It was extremely widespread, but there's a catch.

Google Maps shows human inventions, that being borders, and borders are notoriously not set in stone unless you're China and you build a giant wall to set your border.

They change.

They're hard to interpret.

If you ever read a treaty from the 1850s that sets a border, and it shall be set at the 45th parallel next to the tree stump over by the rock.

And everyone's just supposed to understand what that means.

And things like, you know, they say it's at this river and rivers change.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And sometimes these borders disputes, sometimes they're, they don't have a lot of controversy, you know, cool heads get together and they hash it out.

Other times there's a lot of great controversy.

And Google Maps tries to walk the line, but the problem is that while it is ubiquitous, it is not authoritative.

And we'll see how that appears.

I alluded to this before, but this story starts all the way back in the 1800s.

So right off the bat, I will say it is kind of a hyperbolic title.

That's what all the news publications said at the time.

And because we want people to click on our show, that's what we're going to call it as well.

So I will just say it did get pretty heated.

So like no question about it.

And troops were deployed with weapons across border from each other.

So like it was not some like, oh, oopsie daisy kind of thing.

It became an international incident and incident and could have sparked something wider.

And then the other piece of hyperbole is that this conflict in this region goes back 150 years before any Google product ever came into being.

So let's get into it.

Now, Google Maps today and even back in 2010 was one of the most ubiquitous mapping applications in the world.

It was extremely widespread, but there's a catch.

Google Maps shows human inventions, that being borders, and borders are notoriously not set in stone unless you're China and you build a giant wall to set your border.

They change.

They're hard to interpret.

If you ever read a treaty from the 1850s that sets a border, and it shall be set at the 45th parallel next to the tree stump over by the rock.

And everyone's just supposed to understand what that means.

And things like, you know, they say it's at this river and rivers change.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And sometimes these borders disputes, sometimes they're, they don't have a lot of controversy, you know, cool heads get together and they hash it out.

Other times there's a lot of great controversy.

And Google Maps tries to walk the line, but the problem is that while it is ubiquitous, it is not authoritative.

And we'll see how that appears.

I alluded to this before, but this story starts all the way back in the 1800s.