[anon1m0us]

smh It really isn't an obvious thing either. lots of folks think greenland is as big as south america only because they don't understand the map stretches at the poles and they also don't know there are other projections.

What you said is true and non-obvious. I can only wonder if the downvotes you received are from people who don't agree with you and if that's the case, either they don't understand what downvotes are for or dunning-kruger has taken over hacker news.

[jacobwilliamroy]

On mobile, upvote and downvote buttons are so close together, sometimes I spend a few seconds voting and unvoting, just to make sure I didn't accidentally downvote. That's a possibility too.

[cgriswald]

Given both the radical and reactionary positions surrounding the Mercator projection I doubt it was accidental downvoting.