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Related to that, I highly recommend Factfulness[1]. You can try to answer 13 a/b/c questions here[2]. Most educated people score lower than if they would have j

by comboy 7y ago

Related to that, I highly recommend Factfulness[1]. You can try to answer 13 a/b/c questions here[2]. Most educated people score lower than if they would have just chosen answers randomly. It's really hard to discuss population and poverty if most people worldview is so skewed. Btw, I've been wondering how population stabilization (it pretty much already stabilized in the US and EU) will influence real estate. Historically real estate have been a remarkably good investment. But historically population kept growing pretty fast. I'd love to hear some thoughts or recommended reading on that topic. 1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34890015-factfulness https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34890015-factfulness 2. http://forms.gapminder.org/s3/test-2018 http://forms.gapminder.org/s3/test-2018

gibspaulding 7y ago
Wow, I just took the quiz and it was rather enlightening. I ended up scoring reasonably well (9/13), but only because getting the first few wrong taught me to stop taking such a dismal view of the world. If I hadn't been shown the correct answers until the end, I probably would have done even worse. I might have to look into that book!
- comboy 7y ago
  Oh, I didn't realize it shows answers right away. Previous version didn't do that. 9/13 would have been a great score. edit: I've changed the link to a test that doesn't mark correct answers right away, previous link: http://factfulnessquiz.com/ http://factfulnessquiz.com/
  - hanoz 7y ago
    The two versions of the quiz claim different correct answers for the population of the continents question.
    - comboy 7y ago
      Huh, indeed, factfulnessquiz.com seems to be selecting wrong answer as correct even though they list correct answer correctly on http://factfulnessquiz.com/answers http://factfulnessquiz.com/answers Pretty serious given that there are only 13 questions and that's what the whole website is about. They didn't even leave any contact. I'll send an email to gapminder. Nice catch, and a really bad job from whoever made the quiz website. Triple checking those answers should be a priority.
    - cthain 7y ago
      Comparing to the answer I just looked up in the print version of the book (and double checking on google) the http://factfulnessquiz.com/ http://factfulnessquiz.com/ is incorrect on this point.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
There are massive issues with the calculation of poverty designed to give the illusion of progress under globalized production chains. In reality, the metric is completely disconnected from what people identify as poverty. The entire premise is flawed. See: Steve Pinker for an example of this technique in use.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- beat 7y ago
  Have you read Factfulness? He is very explicit about what he means with his different levels of income and changes in poverty - using examples of physical situation, not mere money. (Like at what point in the cycle do you own shoes? Can afford a bicycle? Have running water? What do these things mean for your income potential in the future, or that of your children?) Dr Rosling worked for much of his life as a health care provider in the poorest places on Earth, and was intimately familiar with what real poverty looks like, in all its details.
  - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    Yes, and I think it’s a boneheaded and disingenuous argument. Much, if not most, of the world is blatantly in poverty and cannot afford a quality standard of living. Comparing it to a world with equitable wealth distribution would be much better. This is how the western world justifies open exploitation.
    - beat 7y ago
      That's the bias of privilege talking. Going from $2/day to $8/day may not seem like much to you, but to someone at that level, their income has quadrupled. They might have access to a bicycle to get to a paying job now. Shoes. Clean water. School for their children, so the next generation has more opportunity. Go from $8 to $32 (using Rosling's quadruplings here), and you now have a car, potable hot and cold water from a tap, even the possibility of college for your kids. It's still "poverty" to us, but not all poverty is the same. Understanding this is a shift in perspective, and requires putting down our wealthy, western privilege for a moment. Keep in mind, too, that a world of no health care, no clean water, no literacy, etc - the extreme poverty of the poorest nations - was the situation in much of Europe during the 19th century. It took Europe a long time to get to where it is today, and much of the progress happened in the post WWII, post colonial era. "Open exploitation" is not what you think it is, not anymore. As I've pointed out elsewhere, much of the world has seen income increases from 20x-100x per capita in the past 50 years. That's the poor, "exploited" countries. Economic change takes time. Generations. The fact that we wiped out two thirds of the world's extreme poverty isn't "boneheaded", it's incredible. But it will take several more generations to get the rest of the world up to the standards of our privilege.
mikorym 7y ago
I scored 54% and all of the cases that I err'd were due to the reality being slightly better than I thought. That makes me think that to pass this test you do what I am not going to tell you now...
- xkgt 7y ago
  I scored 38% and I turned out to be pessimistic on all counts. Perhaps it is time to give Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now a read.
olau 7y ago
Investment: I personally think about that. The area I live in is popular due to a good nearby university so I think population will grow at least for the next decade. But in a time frame of 30-60 years... I'm not counting on getting the money back for my house.
whalabi 7y ago
I can't imagine a factor of an economy, including property prices, that wouldn't be strongly effected by population stability. What happens to wages? Inflation? Energy? Companies? The share market? ...aged care? Absolutely fascinating stuff.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  What currently happens is that wages start to follow the same sigmoid trend. So does energy use per capital. Shares are too volatile to even predict in long term. Aged care, not enough data for a conclusion.
KSS42 7y ago
I got 11/13. It helped that I recently did a study of education vs gender vs country development using Worldbank data for a data analytics course. (Interesting result : in many regions women have high rates of post secondary education than men.)

by comboy 7y ago

gibspaulding 7y ago

Wow, I just took the quiz and it was rather enlightening. I ended up scoring reasonably well (9/13), but only because getting the first few wrong taught me to stop taking such a dismal view of the world. If I hadn't been shown the correct answers until the end, I probably would have done even worse. I might have to look into that book!

comboy 7y ago
Oh, I didn't realize it shows answers right away. Previous version didn't do that. 9/13 would have been a great score. edit: I've changed the link to a test that doesn't mark correct answers right away, previous link: http://factfulnessquiz.com/ http://factfulnessquiz.com/
- hanoz 7y ago
  The two versions of the quiz claim different correct answers for the population of the continents question.
  - comboy 7y ago
    Huh, indeed, factfulnessquiz.com seems to be selecting wrong answer as correct even though they list correct answer correctly on http://factfulnessquiz.com/answers http://factfulnessquiz.com/answers Pretty serious given that there are only 13 questions and that's what the whole website is about. They didn't even leave any contact. I'll send an email to gapminder. Nice catch, and a really bad job from whoever made the quiz website. Triple checking those answers should be a priority.
  - cthain 7y ago
    Comparing to the answer I just looked up in the print version of the book (and double checking on google) the http://factfulnessquiz.com/ http://factfulnessquiz.com/ is incorrect on this point.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

There are massive issues with the calculation of poverty designed to give the illusion of progress under globalized production chains. In reality, the metric is completely disconnected from what people identify as poverty. The entire premise is flawed. See: Steve Pinker for an example of this technique in use.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
beat 7y ago
Have you read Factfulness? He is very explicit about what he means with his different levels of income and changes in poverty - using examples of physical situation, not mere money. (Like at what point in the cycle do you own shoes? Can afford a bicycle? Have running water? What do these things mean for your income potential in the future, or that of your children?) Dr Rosling worked for much of his life as a health care provider in the poorest places on Earth, and was intimately familiar with what real poverty looks like, in all its details.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  Yes, and I think it’s a boneheaded and disingenuous argument. Much, if not most, of the world is blatantly in poverty and cannot afford a quality standard of living. Comparing it to a world with equitable wealth distribution would be much better. This is how the western world justifies open exploitation.
  - beat 7y ago
    That's the bias of privilege talking. Going from $2/day to $8/day may not seem like much to you, but to someone at that level, their income has quadrupled. They might have access to a bicycle to get to a paying job now. Shoes. Clean water. School for their children, so the next generation has more opportunity. Go from $8 to $32 (using Rosling's quadruplings here), and you now have a car, potable hot and cold water from a tap, even the possibility of college for your kids. It's still "poverty" to us, but not all poverty is the same. Understanding this is a shift in perspective, and requires putting down our wealthy, western privilege for a moment. Keep in mind, too, that a world of no health care, no clean water, no literacy, etc - the extreme poverty of the poorest nations - was the situation in much of Europe during the 19th century. It took Europe a long time to get to where it is today, and much of the progress happened in the post WWII, post colonial era. "Open exploitation" is not what you think it is, not anymore. As I've pointed out elsewhere, much of the world has seen income increases from 20x-100x per capita in the past 50 years. That's the poor, "exploited" countries. Economic change takes time. Generations. The fact that we wiped out two thirds of the world's extreme poverty isn't "boneheaded", it's incredible. But it will take several more generations to get the rest of the world up to the standards of our privilege.

mikorym 7y ago

I scored 54% and all of the cases that I err'd were due to the reality being slightly better than I thought. That makes me think that to pass this test you do what I am not going to tell you now...

xkgt 7y ago
I scored 38% and I turned out to be pessimistic on all counts. Perhaps it is time to give Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now a read.

olau 7y ago

Investment: I personally think about that. The area I live in is popular due to a good nearby university so I think population will grow at least for the next decade. But in a time frame of 30-60 years... I'm not counting on getting the money back for my house.

whalabi 7y ago

I can't imagine a factor of an economy, including property prices, that wouldn't be strongly effected by population stability. What happens to wages? Inflation? Energy? Companies? The share market? ...aged care? Absolutely fascinating stuff.

AstralStorm 7y ago
What currently happens is that wages start to follow the same sigmoid trend. So does energy use per capital. Shares are too volatile to even predict in long term. Aged care, not enough data for a conclusion.

KSS42 7y ago

I got 11/13. It helped that I recently did a study of education vs gender vs country development using Worldbank data for a data analytics course. (Interesting result : in many regions women have high rates of post secondary education than men.)