What? Aren't the confounding factors glaringly obvious here?
Hmm where are they going with this? They stop just short of suggesting that only 'spatially literate' Americans should be able to vote. Since they don't actually suggest it, they need not address the obvious racism/classism allegations backlash that would inevitably occur.
>Americans’ relatively low interest in North Korea is not returned in kind. “North Koreans are obsessed with the United States,” ....“The cruelest thing you can do is tell a North Korean that many Americans couldn’t locate North Korea on a map.”
I could be wrong but I'd guess your average North Korean has more tangible things to worry about.
Maybe the point of this article was to say Americans need to improve their geography skills but the author chose a head-scratcher of an example.
Where are you getting this from? Nothing in the article implies restricting voting rights.
It calls out a correlation between a specific piece of geographic knowledge and a preference for economic sanctions. It implies a causality between them (that less geographic knowledge lead to more violent preferences). And a secondary implication that less knowledgeable/educated Americans preferred a violent interaction.
And in their "conclusive paragraphs", they summarize that American geography skills are poor, they discuss a book "why geography matters", and finally speculate that being less knowledgeable about geography means people can be more easily misled.
The entire article is a critique of our american education / awareness compared to the rest of the world. Voting restriction has terrible history in our country, but I think you're reading into things that aren't there.
I cheated, but is this the "infamous distinction"? -
Today, Seychelles boasts the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa, excluding the French regions. It is one of only a handful of countries in Africa with high Human Development Index. Despite the country's newfound economic prosperity, poverty remains widespread due to very high level of income inequality, one of the highest in the world, and low wealth distribution.
