My bragging about geography knowledge
That's my first poorly written article here, gotta step up my writing game and excercise!
There are about 200 countries in the world. That's the most accurate number possible as any exact number depends on political point of view. Regardless, I remember every single one of them by the name, capital city, location (mostly, I still mess up Oceania and small Caribbean islands sometimes) and at least one trivia, so the country name is not just an empty word to memorize.
I think that in order to somewhat understand what's going on in the world, this knowledge is as essential in a way the knowledge about all the bones in human body is important for medical workers. The number of countries and bones are kinda the same too! You can live without that knowledge your whole life (like I have no clue about anathomy) but if you want to claim that you are well informed, you gotta learn it, and more importantly, understand the place and role of each bone, or country for that matter.
I used to think that memorizing all the countries was an impressive on it's own, but now I know that most people just never bother and the knowledge is not that useful. You don't make more money knowing that as an adult sadly. It also doesn't make your opinions about anything politics related more valid, it just adds some context that politically vocal people usually don't have. That's a bummer, but we all gotta stay humble as there is always someone that knows more or better.
Map of answers where is Iran according to Americans
The points on that map are kinda funny, but the fact that people asked "should Iran be nuked?" agree more often when they can't place Iran on the map is terrifying.
Map of cities in the Middle East that I remember by name
The dots are all the cities in Magreb and the Middle East (and Bulgarian coast because why not) that I can name in the geography quiz at CityQuiz.io. Tataouine, Nabeul and Djerba doesn't work in Tunisia for some reason.
I lost my point a bit but in my humble opinion, when people know more about any country, at least some culture or other fun stuff, the less likely will let politicians warmongering. And I don't like revolutional islamic leaders of Iran, as well as the military industrial complex of USA, I like both countries, even though they make terrible political decisions, either their people or governments itself.