"Rabbit hole" is an entirely inadequate metaphor to truly convey the hazards of that class of problem.
FWIW, my solution would be to assume Mercator, adjust the frame until it "looks right," and move on. But this is not the focus of my particular nerdery, so I definitely see where the problem would lie.
#ADHD FTW
@cavyherd @odoben but with mercator i would have to do so much math in order to figure out how big everything actually is, you know? like the point of having a map is i can measure travel distances, sizes of countries etc. but if i don’t have a globe so that i can actually measure these things then i have to do math! and i don’t want to do math! so i just don’t do it at all because if i handwave the whole thing entirely then i won’t get the problem with wanting everything to be mathematically accurate