Watch 200 Years of Global Growth In 4 Minutes 270
kkleiner writes "A professor of international health in Sweden, Hans Rosling has a long history of exploring the facts and figures that surround our changing world. In the a segment of the BBC series, Rosling gives one of his most famous lectures with a new twist. Using 120,000+ bits of data and augmented reality, the exuberant professor takes us through the last 200 years of global history and its uneven growth of wealth and health." This is really worth watching. Seriously.
And... (Score:4, Interesting)
...our growth is almost entirely based on the use of oil for transportation, new materials, pesticides, fertilizers, construction equipment, etc, etc, etc. It's going to be messy when it starts to run dry.
Counter Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
...our growth is almost entirely based on the use of oil for transportation, new materials, pesticides, fertilizers, construction equipment, etc, etc, etc. It's going to be messy when it starts to run dry.
Huh, well, from my point of view, the growth is based more so on just pure unadulterated knowledge. Knowledge of how to make all the above work for us despite its evils. As we increase knowledge this only gets better. As time progresses, we get better at exchanging and persisting knowledge (we're doing it right now on glowing squares in front of us but we could be across the world). It will only get messy if we stop promoting science, medicine, learning, education, research, understanding, translation, tolerance, etc.
Just another optimistic spin to put back on the already staggering performance we've exhibited relatively recently.
Re:Counter Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
You both have a point, but sharing and using knowledge takes energy. Without the cheap energy of oil (or an alternative which has yet to take over) all that knowledge won't go very far or even last very long.
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When the cheap energy of the Sun runs out, we'll have bigger issues. In the meantime, it seems oil will last us through the transition. The knowledge of efficient solar power (not necessarily photoelectric), plus energy-dense batteries will chage the world to the point that hippies will have to find some entirely new dooom-and-gloom scenario to get all worked up about. It just won't happen at internet speed, sorry.
Re:Counter Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
when there's no more oil, it's back to horses.
I haven't heard of this, how does it work? Do they make some kind of liquefied paste out of the horses? Do some breeds contain more energy than others? So many questions.
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Burning coal or sail?
Surely you've heard about nuclear fission right? And there are ships right now sailing powered by nuclear fission, dozens of them right now.
And if we don't want to use Uranium, well then Thorium makes more fuel when it's been used in fission.
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Bio fuels can power a 747, synthetic fuels can power a 747, natural gas diesel can fuel a 747, just because cheap and easy rock oil has all the infrastructure right now don't think for a second there are tons of other fuels out there that can power the world's machines.
Plus there are billions and billions of tons of rock oil bound up in shales, the price of oil gets high enough and stays there then it will be economical to get that shale oil out.
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Air travel will become significantly more expensive. Cars might cost a bit more. Shipping prices will increase. But by and large, everything will keep on moving.
Seriously, diesel engines, when they were first designed, weren't made to run on oil. I believe the first diesel engine ever demonstrated ran on peanut oil. And some of the first automobiles ever designed were electric. Do you _seriously_ think we'll lose more than a century worth of technology just because we run out of oil? We don't _need_ oil to
Re:And... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, Asia has been no less exploited and has managed to start catching up with the West despite of that.
Re:And... (Score:4, Informative)
That's definitely not true. For the most part, Asian nations forced out European invaders, whereas Africans didn't do as well, and the American Indians completely failed at defending their territory.
China pushed the British and other Europeans back to Hong Kong through sheer numbers as much as anything else. Japan adopted a different strategy, and basically submitted to the trade agreements the western powers wanted in exchange for advisors who gave Japan the technology and skills needed to kick the western powers out. India was in pretty bad shape before Gandhi convinced the Brits to leave using nonviolent resistance. Afghanistan has also resisted repeated invasion militarily, but the constant takeover attempts are a large part of why they're in such bad shape.
Compare that to Africa, where there were definite attempts at resistance (notably the Zulu War), and some limited success (independent Ethiopia lasted until WWI), but in general the African nations had spears and bows against muskets and cannons, and any Civ player can tell you that that isn't a winnable fight.
And of course, compare that to the Americas, where not only were the locals outmatched technologically, but much of the population was wiped out by disease.
Re:And... (Score:4, Insightful)
Africa needs to stop acting like children.
For the most part in America and Europe, race isn't as big of a factor. I'm not saying that racism is gone. But unlike ages ago there isn't "Irish" vs "Italian", they're all 'white'. In Africa entire cultures are brutally raped, mangled and murdered because of a small genetic variation of nose or ear size. The world maybe learned something from Hitler.
You have health care information such as "Rape a virgin and cure your HIV." Warlords and Presidents accumulating wealth that makes our overpaid CEOs look like chump change.
Then you have warlords taking over working farms from "white" farmers. Kicking them out of the country, scrapping all of the irrigation for a cheap buck and wondering why people are now starving.
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are you threatening the president?
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...our growth is almost entirely based on the use of oil for transportation, new materials, pesticides, fertilizers, construction equipment, etc, etc, etc. It's going to be messy when it starts to run dry.
For the first half of that period it would have been coal rather than oil.
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Biggest difference: (Score:4, Interesting)
China is building the largest sustainable energy projects in the world with the fossil fuel energy they have left.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/26/china-invests-solar-power-renewable-energy-environment [guardian.co.uk]
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Here's some of the best links in this regard:
1. The synthesis of gasoline and diesel with nuclear energy (PDF) [aaenvironment.com].
2. The San [sandia.gov]
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Re:Nice Sig... (Score:5, Insightful)
So what will you call it when global production peaks?
A transition from oil to renewable energy. Oil production will peak from traditional sources, because renewable energy prices will crash through the floor, and production will soar.
What, iron? We have that. It isn't economically viable. And it will never produce enough liquid fuel to provide for the level of transportation we currently enjoy.
Then why does south africa use it for their diesel? Because it is.
You realize that coal will peak also, and isn't unlimited?
Because you can feed waste biomass into the system, like sewage, trash, and wood scrap. This already happening in Africa.
Population grows exponentially.
Paul Erlich, Tomas Malthus and the members of the flat earth society still believe this. The problem is that it is false, because captalism = wealth = less population growth. India, China, the USA, all have zero or rapidly zeroing population growth rate.
"Affluence" will peak once we reach the limit of exploitable resources on Earth.
Actually it will stop because people are starting to get satisfied with the amount of stuff they have. Once you have a house and an SUV, and maybe a motor home, what else do you want?
"Technology level" (whatever that means exactly) will peak given a large enough supply-shock to send researchers heading for the hills.
Because population growth will stop, innovation will stop the shortages, and wealth will grow, this just won't happen.
You do the math.
I did the math. Now let's see some math from the Malthus flat earth society, who's basic core fact (exponential population growth) is utterly wrong.
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Developed country population growth will not stop without closed borders, which is not politically fashionable. Developing country population growth will not stop without massive increases in wealth, which has real physical limits. Barring epidemics or massive warfare, how do you envision population growth stopping? Because nowhere on Earth is it stopping voluntarily.
This is the central flaw of Malthusianism. If you look at this graph [gapminder.org], you'll see that population growth (births/woman) slows down as you get richer, with some noted exceptions in cases of religion. This means that wealth = no population growth.
There are clearly limits to wealth. The question is how big they are. History shows us that they are a lot bigger than we think. Here is the question. What would happen if everyone had a US style suburban home. The answer is that the only thing stopping it is ene
Debbie Downer called (Score:3)
She wants her theme sound back.
Waaah wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.
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I see nothing in his comment to suggest this.
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Aha! So you don't deny it!
Hold it... Oh, sorry. Forgot to take my meds again. My bad.
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In the guy's presentation he explicitly mentions that the Depression didn't affect the US's progress. Govt can and should spend in times when biz is sitting on their wealth. The dire predictions of the doom and gloom pop economists in the 1930s about their grandchildren's future did not come true...
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Keynes made the amazingly obvious observation that the economy is driven by demand for goods and services, not supply.
Sure, you're free to spend $100 hiring someone to do yardwork . . .
What you are exceedingly unlikely to do, even if you have the capacity to do so, is spend $1,000,000 hiring 10,000 people to do yardwork all over your city. *That* money stays in bank account gathering interest (I can only assume that the people that complain about U.S. Government Debt never buy those nice, safe Government Bo
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Denying reality? Why not ask the democrats, whom had effective filibuster control of both houses of congress since 2000 and full control since 2006. You know that the republicans actively tried to prevent the collapse several times in 2004 and 2006 yet were blocked by democrats, right?
Or, more specifically, ask (D) Barney Frank [youtube.com],:
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis situation. The more people in my judgment exaggerate the threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility o
The lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Poor (Score:2)
Is the lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Poor quadrant North Korea by chance?
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Is the lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Poor quadrant North Korea by chance?
Actually no [wikipedia.org], it isn't [tripod.com]
Given that North Korea has an average life expectancy of 63.8 and a per-capita income of $1,700, that would put it solidly above the 50 year line. The North Korea dot is most likely the one slightly above and to the left of India.
Re:The lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Po (Score:4, Informative)
It's pretty clear the lowest life expectancy in Asia is Afghanistan.
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Astute analysis. Just want to add that the numbers for North Korea are estimates. The life expectancy of nearly 64 sounds a bit dubious to me, given their perpetual food crises, but I suppose they're getting enough aid to bring it up to India-style poverty.
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I'm not saying the data is correct, I'm saying that dot in the lower left quadrant of the graph is Afghanistan and not North Korea.
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You're almost certainly correct about that; I should have been clearer. Rosling wasn't gathering the data, just presenting it.
I was just surprised to hear North Korea's life expectancy estimated so high.
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You're almost certainly correct about that; I should have been clearer. Rosling wasn't gathering the data, just presenting it.
I was just surprised to hear North Korea's life expectancy estimated so high.
Ahh - cheers mate, I was also quite surprised.
Thought that was the argumentative standpoint, but after a re-read and the above comment it's clearly not.
I actually wouldn't be terribly surprised if both the income and life expectancy are off. Most countries have an average income that's 2/3rds of their per-capita GDP (which can more accurately be measured by exports) considering South Korea's Per-capita GDP is $1,900, the actual average income is more likely to be closer to $1,250 (not that it is guara
Re:The lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Po (Score:4, Informative)
Is the lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Poor quadrant North Korea by chance?
Nope, it's Afghanistan. (I know because I replicated this graph using their website gapminder.org)... Just so you know, GapMinder World will color Afghanistan turquoise, not red.
Re:The lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Po (Score:5, Funny)
or, perhaps, "Works for Rackspace"
shows economics and politics over time (Score:5, Insightful)
He slows the presentation to show World War 1 and the Spanish Flu epidemic but he didn't mention the Cultural Revolution in China during the 60's when the large circle representing China takes a HUGE dive. Some analysis relating political/economic systems to this graph is needed. When Smith wrote An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Wealth of Nations, it was because the UK was the outlier in the top right of this graph. Now that a lot of countries are in that quadrant, it is worth noting the outliers are now the few remaining in the lower left. These are the countries whose political systems most interfere with market forces and prevent their citizens from being productive.
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Re:shows economics and politics over time (Score:4, Interesting)
Compared to Mao, Hitler and Stalin and Caesar and Po Pot were rank amateurs.
Re:shows economics and politics over time (Score:5, Informative)
He slows the presentation to show World War 1 and the Spanish Flu epidemic but he didn't mention the Cultural Revolution in China during the 60's when the large circle representing China takes a HUGE dive.
The Culteral Revolution in China didn't begin until 1966, after China was on it's way back up. It was actually the Great Leap Forward [wikipedia.org] that put many Chinese on the verge of starvation. Then during 1958-1961 several natural disasters occurred which, when combined with the existing problems, resulted in the Great Chinese Famine [wikipedia.org].
Apropos Political Systems (Score:3)
I see you failed to comment or notice the fact that a great many of the countries with the highest income and longest life expectancy are in fact European countries with heavy market regulation (social-democracies). Some of the richest and most productive nations happen to be the Northern European countries which are very "socialist" [in American terms]. In Scandinavia we tend to see ourselves as the "third way", a balanced mix of both systems.
I'm not advocating any ideology or economic system but I think y
Full program on Iplayer (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's not entirely correct. The huge number of deaths in China during that time were part of the Great Chinese Famine [wikipedia.org]. The years leading up to that point were part of the Great Leap Forward which was a disastrous set of government policies in which agricultural output greatly decreased and put a lot of people on the verge of starvation. Several natural disasters did occur between 1958 and 1961, but these only exacerbated the existing problem.
Notice how there is little relevance (Score:2)
Re:Notice how there is little relevance (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have to invent their own medicine from scratch. The technology, once created, is easy to export. If one country finds a breakthrough in the field of medicine, agriculture, or communications, the world at large is enriched by it.
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While the world's life expectancy has obviously increased, there is a very clear best-fit line that can be drawn at any time with quite obviously a very strong statistical significance.
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in between the life expectancy and wealth. some countries have achieved similar life expectancy with the rich west, despite being on the left hand side of the graph.
Which graph were you looking at? There is a very strong correlation since the Industrial revolution, that's why the dots all tend to line up along a curve following the diagonal. If there was no correlation, then the dots would be distributed in one or more purely horizontal bands. They are not. They are, instead, lined up along a very nice curve.
The correlation was lower before the Industrial Revolution, and has lessened in recent years as health care in general, including nutrition and reduction of in
Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hans Rosling is great at that. His amazing visualizations (he's done variations of this talk at a number of TED conferences and for the State department and so on) really do put things in perspective that in fact things have gotten MUCH better over all, they continue to get better, and with effort and creativity (as is always required) we can look forward to an even better future.
People like him and Saul Griffith and David Desutch are people I think that really need more media attention, that people need to listen to. People who actually analyze the data, who do extremely complex and in-depth analysis, and who can then help show that no, we aren't all fucked, life isn't horrible and we aren't all going to die just because there are problems. There are challenges yes, but things are getting better, and we can overcome those challenges and make things better still. For that matter, those challenges are also opportunities for new jobs and so on.
Hopefully the BBC's new version of his presentation will help more people become aware of it and understand: Thing were not better in the past, they are better now. We need to look towards a better and brighter future, not back to some imaginary perfect past.
Family size (Score:3)
I'd be interested in similar graphs charting family size vs. wealth, and family size vs. education. The wealth-gap is, in my opinion, a direct result of larger families (less money available for education and health care per child) vs. small families (the inverse). The question then becomes "why large families in the face of poverty" (cultural factors, education of women or lack thereof, children seen as support for people when they are old, child survival rate greater now than in the past but family behavior lagging behind)... and what can be done about it.
Re:Family size (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Family size (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you've reversed cause and effect in your analysis.
One important counterargument to this: Historically, American families in the 19th century were frequently large, and women (even more so than men) were often poorly educated or not educated at all. As various immigrant groups moved in, they started out with pretty large families, and have gradually gotten smaller and smaller families as families became wealthier.
When you're a subsistence farmer or factory worker where child labor is legal, extra children mean more productive capacity available to the family, so large families are in fact economically rational choices. When you're in an environment where a child costs you $250,000 over 18 years (plus another $150,000 for college), fewer children are an economically rational choice.
Vaccine's role? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the improvements to medical services to the general public shows right across the board from the turn of the 20th century, we can watch the rise of life expectancy. I bet the delta on that is huge in comparison to income
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TED Talks (Score:3)
He presented a very similar presentation in his podcast for TEDtalks.
www.TED.com
What horrible graphics (Score:2, Interesting)
I applaud what he is trying to do. Seriously. At the same time, this guy needs to read a bit more about data presentation.
First of all, the background setting for this talk is a terrible choice. The windows make it difficult to see the individual plots, and what's up with the large ball of lights off to the right? Ugh.
His y-axis is also distorting the truth. With the y-axis beginning at 25 and going to 75, he is conveying a huge lie factor [infovis-wiki.net] in the progress.
He needs to read Tufte [wikipedia.org].
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I'd be willing to bet that he knows plenty about graphics presentation. It is just a (successful) attempt to make it visually interesting to non-stats geeks. I certainly enjoyed it.
It was certainly enjoyable, but I actually doubt that he knows plenty about presentation. In my experience (as a scientist), many, many more people understand statistics and data analysis than understand the power of presentation.
Statistics is an analytical skill. Data presentation is much more of a design/aesthetic skill, which is woefully undervalued. (in my opinion)
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In my experience in industry it's the opposite. People spend a lot of time on the formatting and presentation, but any actual statistics used is elementary. And of course our salesman basically don't know anything about statistics.
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In my experience in industry it's the opposite. People spend a lot of time on the formatting and presentation, but any actual statistics used is elementary. And of course our salesman basically don't know anything about statistics.
Don't get me wrong. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time on formatting and presentation, but they do a horrible job. I've seen people take a perfectly readable, clearly presented graphic, then spend 5 minutes adding shadows, 3D effects, etc. The result looks all shiny and pretty, but as a way of presenting data, it is a failure.
Good data presentation should be appealing to the eye AND easy to read. In my experience these kinds of presentations are very few and far between.
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Ahh, you believe the point of the presentation is to honestly convey data? Good thing you're not trying to make a living as a salesman. The only data some of these guys want to convey is "look at us, we make cool charts", or at best "our product rocks!" - you say "lie-factor" like it was a bad thing.
Re:What horrible graphics (Score:4, Informative)
At the same time, this guy needs to read a bit more about data presentation.
Hans Rosling needs to "read a bit more about data presentation"!? Lol ---- that's like looking at some of John Carmack's work and saying "yeah it's OK but this guy, whoever he is, needs to learn a bit more about 3D programming". I'm not sure you realize who you are talking about; Hans Rosling has been one of the 'pioneers' of modern data visualization since probably before you were born. Your post is a classic example of the instinctive need of so many /. posters to try prove how smart they are by being "contrarian" and immediately criticizing something. The graphics isn't even horrible at all, it's pretty damn cool, and everything was very clear to me when I watched it, so perhaps you frankly if you struggled to see it I suggest you see an optometrist.
Re:What horrible graphics (Score:4, Interesting)
It would also be kinda nice if whenever he said 'look at this!' they didn't zoom in on his face, so making it impossible to see what we were supposed to be looking at.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1) This is a show. Watch the ted talk if you want proper backgrounds and so on. Television needs to be entertaining if you want people to listen to you until the end.
But I fail to see that accurate data presentation is in conflict with entertainment.
2) His Y-axis is not distorting the truth one bit. With zero health-care, people tend to live into their late teens. That's your comparison point. Low and behold, the bottom of the graph corresponds to.... late teens! It's debatable whether there's an upper limit or not.
Did you read the link on lie factors?
You need to think.
Although you may disagree with me, please be polite about it. (Insert tongue-in-cheek pejorative here)
Re:What horrible graphics (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you're a little bit too much in love with Tufte. The lie factor is based on the following dictum of his: "The representation of numbers, as physically measured on the surface of the graphic itself, should be directly proportional to the quantities represented."
To which my response is: "Why?"
Just because Tufte says so, doesn't make it so. In this case, it would require the plotting of life expectancy from zero. What would be the point? Rosling is using the graph to describe changes over time, how countries are bouncing up and down on the y-axis and moving upwards as the wealth of their populations increases. These are concepts that require no precise quantitative reading of the data by the audience to understand, but which will be more difficult to follow if the changes are compressed into two thirds of the graph.
To be honest, I think Tufte's pronouncements on this and many other issues, and the use of concepts like "Lie Factor" are pseudo-science, dressing up his particular view of the world with a sheen of Sciencey-ness that is unjustifiable. Many of his ideas are good, and the rationale behind them is sound, but it ain't the Only Truth, as he makes it appear to be.
Does nothing to illustrate income inequality (Score:2)
I saw this a couple weeks ago, and while the evidence appears to damn the west for hoarding wealth, the presentation does not measure income distribution across individual countries. While America may appear to have lots of cash, the growing reality is that the "lots of cash" belongs to a scant percentage of the population.
It would be interesting to see a similar presentation that takes this important marker into account.
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Perhaps so, but people living in "poverty" in America (as defined by the government anyway) are still better off, on average, than most of the rest of the world.
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Sigh... graphs.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we look at this again but eliminate several typical graphing mistakes....
First, let's have all axes start at zero, not at, say, 33% of the range. This would immediately show that there is less disparity between average lifetime then the presenter attempts to make you perceive.
second let's have a non-logarithm axes for a typical unit that is thought of as linear... money.
Third, if we are going to compare wealth then we should be comparing amount of money held vs what it can buy, not just raw money per person. Sure people in the Congo have far less dollars per person than Japan. But a loaf of bread and the supplies they want to buy are far, far cheaper. In other words, it is possible for a smaller amount of currency from economy A to buy more goods and services in economy B. You need to account for this in determining "wealth". You can't just exchange currency rates to determine who is better off.
Lastly, You also have to dollar adjust for inflation even for specific countries over time. A typical mid-range american car in 2010 costs around US$25000; in 1977... US$5000. So, yes we might have more dollars per person in the US today but you're going to need 5 times as many dollars as you had 33 years ago in order to just break even.
And, while we are at it. I would get rid of the enthusiastic and "compelling" presentation acting. This is always a sign of attempting to market more than is really there. It is science through how the presenter can make you "feel" and it leads to poor knee-jerk decisions.
Re:Sigh... graphs.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would you start the axes at zero? First off, as you note, the income axis is logarithmic, and so cannot go to zero anyway. As for life expectancy, zero would be a meaningless label. It's impossible for a country to have a life expectancy of zero. It is entirely appropriate to set the minimum value for an axis at the minimum value which has ever been recorded. The difference between a life expectancy of 40 and 75 is enormous, and I do not find the presentation to be in any way misleading.
Your second issue, the logarithmic axis for money, is debatable either way. Given that incomes have generally risen exponentially (in the US, an increase of about 2% per year for the last 200 years), a linear scale would show accelerating income growth for wealthier countries. It strikes me that this would be more misleading than use of a logarithmic axis. If you usually think of income growth as linear, maybe it's your thinking, rather than his graph, which is mistaken.
For the third issue, there is something called "Purchase Power Parity" which corrects for the effect you're talking about. The presentation doesn't discuss whether his income figures are adjusted for PPP or not. Contrary to your assumption, the figures clearly are at least adjusted for inflation (given that his $400 minimum would have been a princely sum in 1810, far above any country's per capita average), and if he's adjusted for inflation, I see no reason not to believe that he's adjusted for PPP as well. If he hasn't adjusted for PPP, then I agree that's something that should have been done, but it in no way alters his fundamental point. PPP reduces income inequality, but in no way eliminates it.
For the fourth issue, without his enthusiastic presentation, it's just a graph. There's a time and a place for cold, sober, "just the facts" presentations, and that is textbooks. In less academic settings, it's entirely appropriate to use enthusiastic explanations to show people why something matters.
And guess what? (Score:4, Informative)
All that data is available. Turns out he's not some asshole saying "Trust me on this, you don't need to see anything." He's got a site where you can play with his data in his amazing graphing software, http://www.gapminder.org/ [gapminder.org]. You can toy with the graph and run it backwards and forwards, and break out the information, you can download the raw data in excel format or view it on the web. All Creative Commons licensed.
It is quite open and available, and not hard to find to anyone willing to do even a cursory amount of research. Just key his name in to Google.
To me it seems like the GP isn't actually interested, just being a pedant whiner. "Oh his methods are flawed and it is too simple!" Of COURSE it is simple, it is a 4 minute spot for the BBC. It is not a dour academic presentation. That doesn't mean there isn't good data behind it, or that it isn't available. If you actually care, well then I'd say you should do research. After all that is what we are talking about. In this case, literally all you'd need to do is key "Hans Rosling" in to Google and the first site is his, with all the data and so on.
To the parent: Good analysis of why the GP is incorrect about his complaints.
To the grand parent: STFU and spend 30 seconds doing some research before being a pedantic whiner. If you care about facts and accuracy the least you could do is get them yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
First, let's have all axes start at zero
Why? The point of the graph is not to show absolute disparity, but to show the correlation between two things. Focusing on the relevant sections makes it easier to see that relation.
second let's have a non-logarithm axes for a typical unit that is thought of as linear... money.
Money is by no means linear. If I was making $1000 / year, and got a $1000 / year raise, then that's a very significant event for me. At $100,000 / year, making an extra $1000 is just a little something extra. In raises, taxes, and pretty much anything related to income, people talk in percentages - and when things change b
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I don't understand why you're not embarrassed to post that. Surely if you think that your approach would be better, why don't you create the graphs in the way that you think they should be presented? If you want to change the style of presentation, why don't you use your graphs in a more "appropriate" video and post it up to youtube? It's not as if this person was doing something that the average person couldn't do - if you don't like the way he has done it, do something better.
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Starting the axis a non-zero values is entire reasonable when you are looking at relative changes, rather than absolute. In this presentation, the primary concern was the relative values between countries, not the absolute value. Starting at a non-zero axis is entirely defensible. Moreover, the axes are explicitly stated.
Why are you supposing that all of your suggested corrections to income were not done? There is no direct evidence either way.
Logarithmic axes should be used when the data dictate they a
Worth watching (Score:2)
This is really worth watching. Seriously.
Yeah, we all saw it weeks ago when it was number one on Google Reader and every blog on Earth featured it. Quick work there, Taco.
Terminal Terminology (Score:4, Interesting)
Great video and argument for the need for well-made methods for present data, but there are a couple of issues I think need to be addressed with this video:
-One is that I'm seeing quite a few misinterpretations on life expectancy in various comments, and though not expressly stated, even in the implications suggested by the professor himself.
It is important to keep in mind that life expectancy is almost always calculated as the full blown all-inclusive average of "age-when-people-died". While this may seem like a very standard indicator for the overall health of a nation, it is actually highly influenced by natal and infant mortality rates.
Of-course, that's not to say that being able to keep a baby alive shouldn't be a measure of a nation's overall healthiness, however the misinterpretation comes in when there are comments relating this life-expectancy to vaccines and whatnot. It is a common urge (one that seems implicitly shared by the professor in the video) to associate mankind's technological achievements with a longer fuller life, but to discount all of the carcinogens, obesity, diabetes, and other newfound sources of death that have come hand-in-hand with technology is a very hasty move.
And for those that counter-argue about the elimination of disease, yes, do note the huge dips in life-expectancy in the plot as time progresses; but also observe that these dips, representing epidemics, only last for 2-5 years, and the population rebounds. My point is regarding the baseline equilibrium "life expectancy".
As far as I know, studies have shown that it doesn't matter whether you were born as a healthy baby back then versus now, as a person's life expectancy when controlled for infant mortality, has remained basically steady, with improvements in healthcare cancelling out all the crap we try to kill ourselves with. It's just that we manage to keep more babies alive til they get cancer.
-Secondly, I wanted to comment on the professor's utopian endgame of every country landing in the happy zone that is wealthy and healthy. It was common knowledge among the political big boys towards the end of Chinese communism (the economic form, not the social one. You can argue whatever you want if you feel like being ignorant, but a person driving an important Porsche Cayenne next to someone pulling a rickshaw isn't quite the equality communism originally set out for) that if China had the same proportion of its population become middle class as America, there wouldn't be enough natural resources (steel, fuel, etc.) on the entire planet to give every family an automobile.
My point there is that overall wealth, while better for a country and its individuals, is definitely not better for the planet. And given it's subjective nature, it doesn't necessarily mean everyone would actually be "wealthy". If a rich nation could buy something now that a poor one cannot afford, but in the future both countries could afford it, it would just make that item in question cost more due to increased demand. Effectively, every country being "wealthy" is exactly the same as every country being "poor". We could just make America and most of Europe as poor as a developing nation, and technically every country would be "wealthy". The quality of life wouldn't necessarily improve in that case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Interpretation_of_life_expectancy [wikipedia.org]
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Many of these "newfound sources of death" are not newfound at all, it's just that we now live long enough for different causes of death to predominate. Technology has brought a huge increase in the standard of living, and of health throughout life, and it's bizarre that people whine about it. If your biggest problem at 35 is obesity and the possible on set of Type Fat Diabetes, you've got it great compared to the 35-year-old wizened, toothless, gray-haired grandfather on the edge of starvation of ages pas
More than just infant mortality (Score:5, Informative)
That's not entirely true. While the increase in average life span is not as dramatic if you remove the effect of infant mortality, there is still a huge increase in the last 150 years. For example, if you look at the life expectancy for a 10-year-old white male [infoplease.com], in 1850 it was 58 years, in 1900 it was 60.59 years, in 1950 it was 68.98 years and in 2004 it was 76.3 years. There are lots of factors other than infant mortality that have improved over that time: safer working conditions, access to health care, even refrigeration (an astonishing number of people died of food poisoning in the "the good old days" speaking of "crap we try to kill ourselves with").
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I do generally agree with most of your points, but I feel that you slightly misunderstand the true meaning of 'wealth'. Wealth is as much about the subjective usefulness of things as their raw amounts. For example, a car consists of more 'wealth' than the raw materials, capital and labour used to make it; that increase is what gives a profit to the car makers.
A very extreme example would be silicon based electronics. A very small amount of a very cheap substance can be made into a very valuable microprocess
Great Leap Downward (Score:2)
Man, anyone else notice China drop like a rock circa 1960 and say, "Holy hell!"?
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Man, anyone else notice China drop like a rock circa 1960 and say, "Holy hell!"?
For a country that killed 20 to 40 million of its people through starvation (due to farm collectivization combined with insane internal politics) within living memory of many people still alive there, we should consider it a complete miracle that China has been able to morph into a 10%+ per year GDP growth country.
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That wasn't the only one, just the biggest. One small red dot went significantly below the "25 years" line at one point. I need to watch it again because I don't recall what year it was, but I wonder if it was Cambodia in the mid 70s.
Chart Source Data (Score:3)
You can play with the data used to create this graph on his website [gapminder.org]. Very highly configurable...Warning: serious prodictivity killer.
Abortion and Inflation (Score:2)
I would be curious to know if/how he took into account two items that could seriously skew the data. When you observe the initial dataset in the 1800s, all childhood deaths were reported including stillborn babies and so forth. With abortion, many of the poorer or unhealthy children are more likely to not enter the world. How much of an impact does this have on these figures? How much lower would the American lifespan be if we included the 1.5 million abortions we have every year?
Also, he calculates the
Over-forecasting (Score:2)
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Re:I saw a more indepth version of this some time (Score:5, Informative)
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Yep, that presentation is by far one of my all-time favourites on TED. Also neatly explain why my sister-in-law -- who studies microeconomics for developing countries -- did field work in Uganda and Sierra Leone.
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http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html [ted.com] Here, I'm guessing. It's a worthwhile watch.
That's the newer TED tallk. There is also an older one from 2006: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html [ted.com]
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Always (+/- 5%).
Man, look at that kurtosis.Oh, and look at those binomials!
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"Doing" statistics? No. *Presenting* statistics, yes. The term "statistics" is a noun describing both the mathematical practice, and the data said practice produces. ie, "X% of people like Y" is a statistic. Producing that data requires applying statistics.
Gotta love the English language.
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I have to say I was surprised at first that he was using the same studio where they film Dragons Den. I half expected someone to tell him they weren't interested in his presentation and "I'm out". :)
But yes a very slick presentation.
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Yeah, it bugged me that they'd use "life expectancy" which usually is a tainted statistic when infant mortality is not excluded. However, the point was really the data presentation, and that was a good example of how it is possible to convey a lot more "big picture" information with current tools.
Those interested in such stuff should check out informationisbeautiful.net if they have not already run across it.
Re:I saw this (Score:4, Insightful)
It was important in 1810. Babies mean future hunters, gatherers, farm labor for the tribe or family.
While being a screaming poop factory for a couple years, by age 4 a child could be tasked with simple gathering, clean up and food/tool preparation. By age 6-7 a child could be killing vermin, small animal hunting and other near adult, gender specific chores.
By age 10 a male child would be supporting hunting, fishing and farming and by 12 actively taking part in hunts, farming or by the mid 1800s industrial work.
Loss of a child on the American Frontier, the sub-arctic or in tribal societies was a huge loss of food, energy and future growth.
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He's obviously adjusted for inflation - there was actually deflation in the early 1800s, and $1.00 in 1880 would buy roughly what $100 would buy today. By that time on his chart though, he has countries entering an average income of around $4000. I'm pretty sure that those countries didn't have average incomes equivalent to $400,000 of today's money.
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But look what $1 will buy you now that you couldn't buy 200, 100, 50 or even 20 years ago.
Pure inflation rates don't tell the whole story. How much would a bottle of penicillin have cost in 1810... when it didn't exist yet?