For example, Google shows different info about the Kashmir region depending on whether you are in Pakistan or India or external to both, because of how the Indian and Pakistani governments define the borders and names of the region. If the US government changes a thing's name, then Google will change that thing's name within the US. Google mostly doesn't choose names, it uses externally-supplied mostly-governmental name databases. Governments have the power to name their own regions.
I don't want Google to choose what things are called, so I think they are doing the right thing here, and the USG is doing the dumb thing.
One alternative would be for Congress to create more barriers for name changes.
Not in America. The First Amendment means private entities, individual or organization, are free to draw maps and name things however they like and the government may not tell them what to do. The government can decide how it does its own maps, and society at large can decide whether they wish to use a different product or not.
>I don't want Google to choose what things are called
Tough shit. Google may choose for a variety of reasons to go along with what the USG decides is the naming, and in this case it has, but they can't be compelled by force to do so. And other private entities can choose differently should they wish. And of course everyone is entitled to comment or criticize it, and then comment and criticize the comments and criticism in turn, and make use and spending choices accordingly and so on. That's the vibrant market of ideas we're founded on.
Correct.
Also this is a very politicised name change. Ergo, in the USA it will be embraced by supporters of the orange one, whilst everybody else in the USA will continue to call it "Gulf of Mexico".
As this was clearly done to stir up controversy, I can't think of anything more ridiculous. The job of a head of state is to unite a people, not divide them.
"Head of state" is very much a job where you get to define your own mission and duties, including "sell cryptocurrency to suckers" and "sow division to exploit". Defining internal and external enemies is a very effective technique for retaining power.
Most Americans support ‘the orange one’. There was a poll conducted on this quite recently.
You mean Surrenderland? I anxiously await whatever new moniker our leader comes up with for your country, but that's my bet.
I guess I just should be glad the Navy wasn't involved somehow.
edit: Well looking on the map Panama is not in the gulf. I guess they are safe.
I wonder what OSM will do?
That specific case would have been quite minor (in the Trumpian show) except that it comes at the same time as USA (... sorry for all non-Trump supporter, but now that he's your POTUS, he represents all of you) suggest to invade (euh... "take back" ?) Panama and Groenland !
Right now, from outside of the USA, the USA is starting to be seen more as a wannabe-invader than an trusted ally...
So the renaming... that could have been just another Trump-ery (french play on word ;-) )... is taken quite seriously
I was thinking something very similar, even before I heard the Gulf-name news.
Not sure what I should do with this belief, I don't want it living rent free in my head: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/making-beliefs-pay-rent
Trump seems to have a thing for McKinley - he has talked about him, which is interesting because I don't consider Trump much of history buff.
McKinley was big on tariffs and territorial expansion. It was the Gilded Age of concentration of wealth and corruption. And he was assassinated in the first year of his second term.
Can someone clarify this bit? What does "both" refer to: the local name and ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym
Different groups can have different names for the same thing. For example, country names change depending on the language.
Edit: However, as far as I can tell, there IS no endonym in this case, so it should be exonyms all round?
Based on local news, what they will actually do is have Maps display Gulf of Mexico for Mexican users, and Gulf of America for US users. Everyone else gets both.
Maybe we can just take solace in that he didn't rename it Gulf of Trump. Yet.
USA may as well change it's name to "Trump land", and Germans will still call it Vereinigte Staaten and Iranians will call it Great Satan.
I guess the other odd thing about this is how quickly the change appears to have been adopted.
Silicon Valley is fully on board with the Trumpian "vibe shift."
The Czech Republic is still the Czech Republic; it is also now known as Czechia. "Czech Republic" is the full official name of the country, like "United States of America". "Czechia" is the official short or informal name for the country, like "United States".
Most likely add an American English name, leaving the English name as Gulf of Mexico.
But I didn't read all 108 comments in the discussion.
What won't happen, is that visitors from the US will see that new name, at least in most OSM apps and websites. OpenStreetMap is not limited to one renderer or app, and anyone who builds one can choose how to handle localisation. But to support this name based on the tags proposed now such an app would have to prefer official names over common names, or explicitly choose this local alternative over the common name.
This is what the relevant name tags could end up looking like soon (other languages omitted for brevity):
name=Golfo de México
name:en=Gulf of Mexico
name:es=Golfo de México
official_name:en_US=Gulf of America
alt_name:en_US=Gulf of America
A really simple map might only render whatever is noted in name. A map which takes the user's locale into account, or which explicitly chooses a base language or locale, would use a cascading fallback, which for en_US looks like:
* Try name:en_US,
* If missing, use name:en
* If missing, use name
So for now that would not yield 'Gulf of America', because usually neither alternative nor official names are considered for rendering.
In any case, the sea can be found using search under all those names.
Like encyclopaedia, most reliable real-world maps document what it is, not what the author thinks it should be (obviously this is a possible use of maps; see China's nine-dash-line bullshit). So you wouldn't be making your own translations. At most, you would transliterate names in scripts not readily understood by your target audience.
So yes, there are only exonyms.
I'm not aware of any other places where there is the case in English but looking at places in India it seems the exonym just appears on a different line above the endonym.
So I would expect to see
Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of America
over the body of water when this is updated.
King Charles III, all his modern predecessors and all other European Royal heads of state would rather disagree with that statement! As would the constitutionally elected presidents of most other countries of the world. The citizenry would get rid of them if they thought otherwise. Royals included.
No means of getting rid of a sitting president, other than impeachment (which isn't going to happen either) or, you know, the other one.
Is "gets to rename any geographical feature in the general vicinity of the country on a whim" a usual power of the US President? I genuinely don't know the legalities around this, but given that, I would bet that most people who voted for Trump also didn't think they were giving him that power. (Whether they would have chosen to do so is a separate question.)
Answering your question: yes, the executive branch can change geographical names in the US. Obama did that too with Mt Mckinley. This power extends solely to the names as accepted by the United States. If Mexico wants to change the gulf's name to "Gulf of the Aztecs" or "Gulf of qetwyetwdhxysysheussg", it can do that too.
SHOULD they do it? Now that's a different question.
In your grandparent post, you simply stated that more than half the country support Trump; viciousvoxel was refuting that by pointing out that less than half the country voted for him.
How many actively opposed him is immaterial to your initial statement.
Brazilians, Mexicans, Argentinans etc are all "Americans" technically. I think the name change was silly but "Gulf of America" is a better name.
As an American not from the US who lives in America but not in the US, the only Americans I have heard calling US citizens "Americans" are people who live in the US, be them US citizens or not. Many of them acquire a cuban accent, btw (florida effect)
The regular gentilice we use for US citizens is "gringo" I don't know the origin, but it is not used as an offence. Calling them "Americans" does sound odd and a little offensive, ironically!
Maybe my language was imprecise, I could agree with you there, but I don’t think the other people matter.
This isn't some minority view committing a coup. This is a pretty-damn-near majority using the electoral process to give itself a thumb on the scale to win.
It may not be "what America really is", but it's also not not who America really is. It's fair to say that this is who the world should continue to expect us to be, and that we'll continue to think that this is a democratic country. (Not just that 49.8%, but a large majority, even most of those who oppose the present government.)
I completely agree with your later points -- my point was that that is not only who we are, and Trump winning doesn't mean everyone else now has to hold their tongues.
My point re: most Americans voted for the President is Trump winning the popular vote. Which is shown on Wikipedia, but I’m not going to cite it. :)