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Watch 200 Years of Global Growth In 4 Minutes
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.
I was shown this video as part of a marketing class. It greatly oversimplifies the changes we have seen, but damn is it a slick presentation.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
...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.
Is the lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Poor quadrant North Korea by chance?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
But I'll be damned if I can remember where. This guy went through all sorts of really cool data, not just the world's health vs income.
Good information and visualizations; too Optimistic.
"I kid you not, statistics are now the sexiest subject on the planet"
---Hans Rosling, 2010
Cool dude! Whatever gets you off!
Very slick.
It would be nice if Excel or OO Spreadsheet could generate animated videos like that from chart data.
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html Here, I'm guessing. It's a worthwhile watch.
Probably at TED (www.ted.com).
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.
120,000 *+* bits!!!
that's like 120kilobits of data, or one book in the library of congress!
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.
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People always complain about how great the good old days were. I guess this is a pretty solid evidence that they sucked.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
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.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Is the lone red dot remaining in the Sick & Poor quadrant North Korea by chance?
Actually no, it isn't
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.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
It is amazing to see how much improvement you see in life expectancy around the world in mid 1900's. I believe that is due to wider availability of vaccines. Just goes to show how big of a difference vaccines have made around the world.
...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.
My work here is dung.
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.
He presented a very similar presentation in his podcast for TEDtalks.
www.TED.com
...omphaloskepsis often...
or, perhaps, "Works for Rackspace"
rewriting history since 2109
So he only used 14.7 KB of information?
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 in the progress.
He needs to read Tufte.
I saw this on Fark a couple weeks ago. Why is Slashdot 14 days behind... Seriously.
P.S. here's a great map of life expectancy by country
It's pretty clear the lowest life expectancy in Asia is Afghanistan.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
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.
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.
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.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
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.
Comment of the year
While that may be true, do you think this graph was made off of a census specifically sanctioned within the borders of North Korea by Hans Rosling himself, or do you think he's going by existing census and income information?!
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.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wgq0l/The_Joy_of_Stats/ In response to my own question as to whether there's a full program. Yes there is. Going to watch that now :)
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
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.
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.
Man, anyone else notice China drop like a rock circa 1960 and say, "Holy hell!"?
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
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
$1 is $0.03 dollars today... So it doesn't look nearly as good as they portray.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090116141836AAVCf2I
It is obvious from his results that colonization and corruption is no good for any countries health or economic welfare. Could someone please plot up what happens during globalization if its different from results of colonization and then liberation
You can play with the data used to create this graph on his website. Very highly configurable...Warning: serious prodictivity killer.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
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 figures in terms of dollars, but define a dollar. In 1910, a dollar was worth far more than it is today. I am assuming that he takes into account inflation, but I would be curious to see how.
All that said, that was a fascinating video. I would love to be able to play with the graph and move it back and forth at my own speed to track the various movements of each country through history and so forth. It be fantastic if they put together an interactive website to do just that.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
People live longer and make more money... Since when is this a news?
in the 1800 40,000 was a sick amount of money no one had. Now you can't raise a family of 4 on it. I would hardly say 40,000 is wealthy
There are two very clear trends visible from watching this at work with the sound off:
1) Life expectancy and wealth have gone up dramatically.
2) Life expectancy and wealth have gone up a lot less dramatically for some than for others.
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She wants her theme sound back.
Waaah wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html 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
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.
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?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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 guaranteed to be)
So yes, there are very likely some serious discrepancies with countries like South Korea that view the rest of the world as enemies.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
There is for all piratical purposes unlimited amounts of oil in the planet.
Well, for piratical purposes, I suppose you can always plunder until you have enough oil. So I guess from that perspective, you will never run out.
From a more humanist perspective, however, oil is a finite resource.
There has never been a non-localized shortage on earth in history.
Not yet. So what will you call it when global production peaks? Will that be a localized shortage too, since we can always move to Titan if we want more?
We just need the same stuff the South Africans currently use to turn coal into diesel.
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. You realize that coal will peak also, and isn't unlimited?
Impact = (Population * Affluence) / (Technology Level)
Population grows exponentially. "Affluence" will peak once we reach the limit of exploitable resources on Earth. "Technology level" (whatever that means exactly) will peak given a large enough supply-shock to send researchers heading for the hills. You do the math.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Notice how he says he believes that we're all going to make it to the rich and wealthy corner?
Phew, that's a relief. Now I don't have to worry about all those naggling things at the back of my mind like dystopia.
In the a segment of the BBC series, Rosling gives one of his most famous lectures with a new twist.
So the a segment sounds interesting, what about the b segment and all the others?
He claims that all countries could end up "wealthy and healthy", but doesn't say how. He seems to be oblivious to the various factors at work that are specifically invested in preventing that from happening. While $40k/year isn't a ton of money by US standards, there are a lot more people (even in the US) who are below that mark than are above it, and it is in the best interests of those above it to keep it that way.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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, 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 think this is the one I saw. It was a LONG time ago.
Nice to see updates though.
Cambodia I'd bet
The life expectancy of nearly 64 sounds a bit dubious to me, given their perpetual food crises...
It should be noted that caloric restriction is a known method for extending lifespan, as long as it doesn't reach critical levels or leave out critical vitamins and such for extended periods, which would of course cause chronic malnutrition. There's a big difference between frequently running out of food vs. never having any.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Please consider the plight of the less fortunate all over the world, but for God's sake remember, MORE GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE ANSWER.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
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/. 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.
Good point. Just what the poor North Koreans need: to have their malnourishment prolong their lives.
It's a testament to the human spirit that they keep on going. Amazing. Or something.
I wish he had started prior to 1810... say in the 1400s and then shown how severe the impact of colonization was upon the countries/locales that later appear to just have begun their existence as 'rich'. It's a good visual representation but by ignoring how rich India and China were prior to Western colonization, it ignores a key part of the world's history and comes off as biased. Hope I'm not too jaded :)
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. what mirc porno izle mirc yükle sikis izle turk porno Site Haritas Site Haritas | Sitemap | mirc | program indir | muzik dinle | video izle | türkçe mirc | forumzaman | mirc | mirc yükle | mirc indir | adult video | bedava oyun
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 your conclusion is a bit one sided and not in line with the facts.
P.S. I'm a citizen of a wealthy, social-democratic, Scandinavian nation, according to the OECD the citizens of my country are more productive than the average US citizen (127%). You can look up the data yourself at http://stats.oecd.org/ and the report "Productivity levels and GDP per capita".
I think your conclusion is a bit too harsh and not correct. There is more to colonization than you claim.
Where would India be without the infrastructure (railroads) the British built? The public administration? Or the English language ability that is the foundation of their whole export of educated professionals and their IT industry.
There are many consequences of colonization, mostly negative, but some of the ties that remain are profitable for both parties. The trade, cultural and political ties are not insignificant. The same applies to a great many other former colonies.
P.S. My European country did not have any colonies.
The wealth of nations prior to the industrial revolution was insignificant. India and China were not rich in modern terms, but they had a small surplus of some commodities that a tiny minority enjoyed. It was even worse than today. I think you're awfully unrealistic.
I mean he might be a cool dude but why the f*** did he have to choose to use flash!
Considering the immense famine that happened recently (10-15 years) in North Korea, and the fact I don't see it bounce like China did in the great leap forward (I found that part the most shocking, the reduction, and then rebound, were so fast), I am going to say it is a total fake, but what do I know.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
What jumps out at me are the increasing disparities. In 1810, the income disparity is somewhere around a factor of 10. In 2009, it is well over 100. In 1810, the difference between the lowest and highest life expectancy is about 15 years. In 2009 it is around 35 years.
If you would like to play with similar data in similar charting abilities, you might want to check out Google Public Data Explorer
Here is a quick similar chart I made: World Development Indicators (subset) - Google Public Data Explorer If you explore other data sets, don't forget to click the Bubble Chart button at the top of the graphics page to be able to change the X axis.
If he's going to show 200 years, he needs to adjust for inflation. If the average UK salary was $400 (in pounds) in 1840, that's 20oz (@$20/oz through the 19thC). Gold price now is ~$1,350/oz. Average salary (from the graph) is about $40,000. That's about 30oz. So, in real (1840) dollars, it's only a net increase of $200, not $39,600.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Barenaked Ladies people.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
"with a bit of technical assistance from the crew" understates it a little. It's a great presentation, but get distracted by the monkey and you can forget that it's the organ grinders doing all the work.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You define a whole new standard of stupidity.
Amazing, doing all that with only 15KB of data!
Wow, all of that with just 15KB of data!
-l
/"Using 120,000+ bits of data and augmented reality"
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He should have included a third dimension that covered access to energy, especially fossil fuels, over the same time period, or maybe access to education. I think some really interesting things would come out of it.
This sig is false.