- cross-posted to:
- til@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- til@lemmy.world
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There’s one continent, it’s called the crust of the Earth. There’s some water on top of it in some places.
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Continental crusts are an observable and measurable thing
They contain higher concentrations of aluminum whereas you find higher concentrations of magnesium outside of those crusts.
They are geological features and should be categorized accordingly. Eurasia makes way more sense than Europe being its own special thing… Except Europe, historically, likes to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist in their concepts and as such always considers itself special
Oceanic crusts are also much denser than continental crusts, and obviously not as thick. When they collide the oceanic crusts subduct back into the mantle due to being denser.
Seems like stamp collecting to me
The oceans are just a big lake.
The big salty lake I call it.
Afroeurasiastraliameritarctica
Duck
Pluto was always a continent!!!
The continents are white and gold, Yanny, and Bouba.
I don’t believe in continents. I’m incontinent.
Honestly, the biggest two problems I’ve encountered are:
- “Oceania” is not a continent. It’s like seven smaller continental plates. Zealandia is more of a continent than Europe is. Similarly, Greenland is also more of a continent than Europe is.
- if you’re going to count Europe, you also have to count India, and in reality, we should probably just talk about cratons and plates, not “continents”.
Okay, new scheme: Every continental shield is a continent. Everything not on one is terra incognita. Continental platforms are just delusional sea floor.
Certainly that classification won’t lead to any confusion.
You seem to be assuming that continents are defined based on plate tectonics? Which they definitely aren’t since they predate our understanding of plate tectonics by centuries.
Yes it’s a flawed system. In particular it’s Europe-centric and kind of breaks down with Asia’s borders with Europe and Oceania being relatively arbitrary. But trying to retroactively make it fit some kind of “objective” definition is IMO the wrong approach. We don’t need the 5-ish continents to be “fixed” because their definition is unserious and of little consequence. As long as we’re cognizant we can just move on with our lives and use more precise descriptors (e.g. “The Middle East”) when needed.
No, you misunderstand: I am claiming that the only valid way to define continents is using the best available scientific understanding at the time. The idea of “continents” as defined by laypeople is bullshit because it does not conform with consistently-defined parameters.
There is a geological definition of a continent, which is, effectively, “a portion of a tectonic plate which is thicker and less-mafic than oceanic crust, formed by volcanism and accretion.” This definition has utility.
To pretend that definitions can’t change is ridiculously prescriptivist. It’s just a failure of the educational systems available that few learn a better definition than “whatever old dead white guys said was a continent”. Are you suggesting that we should have come up with a new name besides “element” when early chemists started realising that “fire”, “air”, “earth”, “water”, “wood” and “metal” were not, in fact, the most basic building blocks of reality? Old outdated terms can and should be applied to new classifications which better comport with our best understanding of reality.
When plate tectonics was developed, the geological community quickly accepted, for instance, that Europe was no longer its own continent, but also that New Zealand was. I am suggesting that anyone claiming there are six or seven continents is precisely like someone claiming there are nine planets, or four elements. It’s not only not based off of the best available scientific classifications, it’s also so reductivist as to be literally useless. Anyone who doesn’t know that fire is not an element needs to retake secondary chemistry, because their understanding of the world is flawed at a basic level. Anyone who thinks there are five, six or seven continents needs to be introduced to better, more up-to-date definitions.
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Well, it’s in Asia and Europe. Big country. If Siberia alone was a country, it would still be the biggest country in the world.
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A country cannot be in/on two different continents.
Says who?
Heck Australia is it’s own continent and also claims part of Antarctica as territory.
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Probably not, but there are homes in two different countries.
Seriously? I thought you would at least be able to come up with a funny explanation to support your nonsensical statement.
So if France conquered all of Africa? Africa wouldn’t be a continent anymore? Would we just continuously move the continental border?
If the US conquered Australia, Australia would become part of North America?
How about you slow down and think about this one for a few minutes.
Russia is a transcontiental country. The Ural Mountains are considered the boundry between Europe and Asia thus, Russia is about 75 % in Asia and 25 % in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia
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Also Turkey is an example. It’s in Asia and Europe
Khazakhstan, Egypt
A country cannot be in/on two different continents.
False. French Guyana in South America is considered a part of France. Not a territory or whatever, it’s in the EU as a part of the country. So yes, Brazil borders the EU, for example, and any number of other hilarious facts.
This man today has learned that transcontinental countries exist. And yes I fap to My Little Pony
Clarifying ocean and sea is rather arbitrary. I mean what makes the Indian Ocean different from the pacific ocean, or the north sea, or white sea, different than the atlantic?
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Inland seas sure. But I mentioned a couple of seas that are really part of the ocean. The North Sea, and White sea for instance.
But also what makes the Indian Ocean different from the pacific ocean? It’s arbitrary.
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I always assumed North America was Canada, America was the USA/Mexico and South America was Brazil/Venezuela.
If you accept the 7 continent model, there are 23 countries in North America.
Makes sense. You are American too, I take it?
as Canadian as they come.
Truthfully, I hold that belief simply so I can make Game of Thrones cracks like “Canadians are keeping the white-walkers at bay” or “We the north”. However, as of recently Winter has not come to this side of Canada.
Really? What side are you on then? I’m in the upper midwest US and it’s been super cold and snowy this year. Like a cold year in the 90s, or an average year in the 80s, but nothing we’ve seen in a long time. Except wtith 4 polar inversions because the jet stream is moving south.
The Pacific Northwest was very mild all winter so I’d bet BC.
Bingo, we coined the name Raincouver for a reason.
Do you mean American as in I’m on the continent of America, or American as in I live in the United States? I could only answer yes to one of those.
As product of American education system, ain’t nobody got no time for none of your riddles.
In the great words of Atlas Pro after going into excruciating detail on why no answer is more correct He said:
So gow many continents are there?
“Obviously six”
No further clarification was given.
That’s why there’s always the argument that the country should not be called “America”. English speaking countries split North and South America as separate continents, so America the country does not get confused with America the continent. In Spanish (might be regional), it’s all one continent, so someone saying that they are from “America” doesnt narrow it down to a country.
I think it’s fine to just have different conventions in different languages. If you want country names to be 100% unambiguous in all languages, you basically have to change the name of half of the countries out there. E.g., “Deutschland” could refer to all germanic-speaking countries, but everyone recognizes that it just means Germany.
It’s fine enough even all in one language. There’s the US state of Georgia and the county of Georgia. And outside the occasional funny misunderstanding, it’s usually clear from context.
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That’s why there’s always the argument that the country should not be called “America”.
I think, though am not sure, that this comes from the 13 colonies having once been “British America”, which was by default what people meant when they talked about “America” in English, which stuck after independence.
E.g., “Deutschland” could refer to all germanic-speaking countries, but everyone recognizes that it just means Germany.
nowadays anyway; before the German Empire was founded, “Deutschland” was usually understood as the entire German-speaking region (what we call “deutschsprachiger Raum” today), and between 1949 and 1990 “Deutschland” could mean the Federal Republic of Germany (usually including West Berlin), or the Federal Republic of Germany plus German Democratic Republic plus Berlin, or Germany in the borders of 1937, or even just East Germany whose constitution initially started “Deutschland ist eine unteilbare demokratische Republik”.
why does Australia get one they don’t even do it right
I was taught it was Australasia.
“Australia and Oceania” here, in the first of two models I’ll elaborate on.
We were taught two different models
First one translates basically as “divisions of the world”
- Europe
- Asia
- Africa
- Antarctica
- Australia and Oceania
- Americas
The other one translates more directly as “continents”
- Eurasia
- Africa
- Antarctica
- Australia
- North America
- South America
But those are of course not the only models, just the ones taught in school where I’m from.
Oceania or bust
There’s a great map men episode on this
Curios to know if you got it from here: https://lemmy.world/post/44478819/22754825
Could well be a coincidence, but I think it would be fun if I helped in the genesis of this thread :)
Nope. I just saw the Olympic rings, one ring for every continent that participates. They are America, Europe, Oceana, Asia, and Africa.
Delightful coincidence, then. Fun either way :)
One of my first arguments on here was over what constitutes a continent. I feel vindicated.
It’s wild how much “basic science” is just some pale bro’s wacky idea.
There can be only ONE Pangea gang 4L
