DescentBB

does anyone follow this?

The Human Development Index (annocrym: HDI) is a number or rank assigned by the United Nations to each respective country each year, it could be overly simplified to a "how much your country rocks" score, so you can easily compare one country's score to another. It's calculated from various things such as education levels, life expectancy, and income (GDP) - and frankly i think it's more interesting if it's kept at these 3 axis instead of all conglamerated together into just one number: the country's HDI rank.

i mention it because i did a search and found to my horror that the Human Development Index had never been discussed or even mentioned on the DBB before.

sooooo, the 2005 numbers all came in last week: http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/

this flash animation is for 2004, it puts the 2002 figures into a neat visual graph and explains quite well what it's all about. i especially like it because in some parts it visually shows the various countrys moving about on the graph in relation to one another as the years go past from 1975 onwards.

here is the 2005 flash presentation, much better. The end of chapter 8 is especially good, as you can use a slider to slide between the years 1960 all the way to 2003, and watch how all the countrys move around in relation to one another on the "child mortality vs GDP $ per capita" graph - very intuitive.

Wikipedia wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

The UN Human Development Index (HDI) measures poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, and other factors. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. The index was developed in 1990 by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, and has been used since 1993 by the United Nations Development Programme in its annual report.

The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:

* A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
* Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weight).
* A decent standard of living, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in USD.

Each year, countries are ranked according to these measures. Those high on the list often brag about it, as a means of attracting talented migrants (economically, individual capital) or discouraging potential emigrants from leaving.

current top 30 (brackets compare to the previous year):

1. Norway (=)
2. Iceland (↑ 5)
3. Australia (=)
4. Luxembourg (↑ 11)
5. Canada (↓ 1)
6. Sweden (↓ 4)
7. Switzerland (↑ 4)
8. Republic of Ireland (↑ 2)
9. Belgium (↓ 3)
10. United States (↓ 2)

11. Japan (↓ 2)
12. Netherlands (↓ 7)
13. Finland (=)
14. Denmark (↑ 3)
15. United Kingdom (↓ 3)
16. France (=)
17. Austria (↓ 3)
18. Italy (↑ 3)
19. New Zealand (↓ 1)
20. Germany (↓ 1)

21. Spain (↓ 1)
22. Hong Kong SAR (PRC) (↑ 1)
23. Israel (↓ 1)
24. Greece (=)
25. Singapore (=)
26. Slovenia (↑ 1)
27. Portugal (↓ 1)
28. South Korea (=)
29. Cyprus (↑ 1)
30. Barbados (↓ 1)

We Beat France! HEH!

We should challenge Norway to a 1 v 1 in Kata for the top spot

You're right; every political thread needs D3 analogies.

Uh-oh. I sense a D3 CTF analogy to "Red States" and "Blue States" coming.

A game like that would quickly descend to anarchy

Netherlands: Luxembourg h4x0rs!
Luxembourg: 'sif, n00berlands.

Sounds like a Polaris ing issue.

and canada beat sweden. nice.

Any measure on quality of life which puts England ahead of New Zealand is patently a useless measurement - because it is WRONG.

Also, any list which places Australia at No.3 is simply out-of-order! Unless it's measuring "How many snakes there are in your back yard."

Do you get the feeling I'm not totally sold on this HDI thing?

Australia and NZ's education index is the same at 0.99
but Australians live over a year more and make %130 the $GDP per capita.
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005 ... 05_HDI.pdf
page 11:


Australia
life expectancy: 80.3 yrs
education index: 0.99
GDP per capita USD: $29,632

Canada
life expectancy: 80.0
education index: 0.97
GDP per capita USD: $30,677

Belgium
life expectancy: 78.9
education index: 0.99
GDP per capita USD: $28,335

United States
life expectancy: 77.4 yrs
education index: 0.97
GDP per capita USD: $37,562

United Kingdom
life expectancy: 78.4 yrs
education index: 0.99
GDP per capita USD: $27,147

NZ
life expectancy: 79.1 yrs
education index: 0.99
GDP per capita USD: $22,582

lol, oops. it's not all about me.

sorry mobi i just re-read and saw you wanted to compare NZ to UK, so:

although NZers live 0.5 yrs longer than UKers, UKers make a ★■◆●-load more money. thus the rank.

roid wrote:sorry mobi i just re-read and saw you wanted to compare NZ to UK, so:

although NZers live 0.5 yrs longer than UKers, UKers make a ****-load more money. thus the rank.

Hah

When trying to use this info to rate the quality of life in a country there is one factor they left out that I would call the 'real world factor'.
That is, which country has the most immigrants pouring into it from the others on the list. In the real world people vote with their feet.
I bet the U.S. is up near the top in that catagory....

that's marketing

roid wrote:that's marketing

It may be marketing but it's not hype. We've got the goods baby!
Austrian body builder slips into the country as a teenager and becomes hollywood mega-millions superstar and then decides to be governor of California....

Nowhere else but america do you have that kind of opportunity!!!

Will Robinson wrote:

roid wrote:that's marketing

It may be marketing but it's not hype. We've got the goods baby!
Austrian body builder slips into the country as a teenager and becomes hollywood mega-millions superstar and then decides to be governor of California....

Nowhere else but america do you have that kind of opportunity!!!

next thing you're gonna tell me is America is Land of the Free.
again, it's just marketing. (and as for "land of the free" haha, yes well. i'm sure you've seen how america actually compares on paper in that department to other 1st world nations)

show me something tangible, or even just suggest something tangible, and i'll be very interested.
basically i want you to define what these "goods" are (highlighted in quote above) that sets america apart from other 1st world nations. i'm talking cause, not effect. you have already said the effect - america is a very attractive destination to a lot of immigrants. but i'm interested in why. as we see it doesn't compare very well on paper - but perhaps the right stuff isn't being measured.

i'm not saying america doesn't have a lot going for it in the uh... "goods" field. but this can be created purely by highly successful marketing that creates self-fulfilling claims.
perhaps the whole field of marketing IS america's "goods". As they do it well - and it does bring in the bacon, there's no denying that.

the HDI is obviously a very dry "no BS" stastistic - great care has been taken to cut through the marketing hype crap and give hard numbers for the things that really matter.

will you suggest that hype be added to the list of things that matter (to the UN)?

(disclaimer: i generally treat "marketing" and "hype" as the same word)

I'm a U.S. citizen by birth, and I love living here, but I actually tend to agree with roid on this one.

There's an unrealistic perception (thus the term, "marketing") in many countries about the "abundant opportunities" here in the U.S. While many immigrants are able to significantly better their lives after coming here, many more become disillusioned after discovering how unlikely it is to be able to overcome issues like ethnic marginalization and poverty.

We as Americans often feel that our country is a huge step above the rest of the world - that's natural, especially given a few historical moments in the last hundred years. And the United States does have significant advantages over much of the world in some areas. But our perceived status doesn't accurately reflect the reality.

Disclaimer: of course, there are places in the world (Middle East, anyone?) where the perception of the U.S. is far worse than reality.

I say we use our insane nuclear arsenal to obliterate numbers 1-9.

bitches.