Good Country Index - TED

[Papewaio]

I was watching TED on my evening commute and saw a a talk about the good country index (goodcountry.org)

It is an interesting talk by itself. The index is also interesting in that it ranks Ireland as the number one good nation in the world based on its net contributions. I do wonder if those net contributions include the impact of tax minimization schemes. But since it is an Org it must be right

All the top ten countries are European bar or should that be baa New Zealand.

Australia is 15th

USA is 21st place.

The interesting thing in the talk that the more good a nation is seen to be done the easier time it has doing business and charging a premium for its products.

[Kadagar_AV]

What!?

Sweden act social office for half the third world and we don't get the no. 1 spot?

Swedes, eat your hearts out.

[HoreTore]

Interesting, but certainly could use a lot more work.

For example, Norway is ranked #4 in environmentalism.... Yep, we do hand out a lot of money to the environment elsewhere. We can afford it, as we are busy flooding the world in cheap oil....

But interesting nonetheless. Also, highest placed developing country on the list: Costa Rica. Interesting.




(And I note that Kad managed to sneak his racism into yet another thread...)

[Pannonian]

Interesting, but certainly could use a lot more work.

For example, Norway is ranked #4 in environmentalism.... Yep, we do hand out a lot of money to the environment elsewhere. We can afford it, as we are busy flooding the world in cheap oil....

But interesting nonetheless. Also, highest placed developing country on the list: Costa Rica. Interesting.

There's another factor there which isn't officially shown: World Cup progress. The UK would be topping the list but for that.

[HoreTore]

There's another factor there which isn't officially shown: World Cup progress. The UK would be topping the list but for that.

Can't be; you'd be rock bottom if that was the case...

[Beskar]

A lot of the statistics seem bad. Like Spain being number one for health and wellbeing due to bad economy and pretty much controlling the drug-trade from Africa. Planet and climate statistics all seem to be broken.

[a completely inoffensive name]

It's a terrible ranking system. US is listed as 26th under science and technology when US research universities dominate the top of the list, not to mention the fact that the world has been living under the age of silicon valley for the last 20 years.

[Beskar]

It's a terrible ranking system. US is listed as 26th under science and technology when US research universities dominate the top of the list, not to mention the fact that the world has been living under the age of silicon valley for the last 20 years.

It is because of your green-card policies that you are ranked so low (foreign students studying there), but the United Kingdom should be in the top 3 easily so that part is correct. Our entire economy is essentially Finance and R&D on the macro-scale.

It seems to involve figures and measures which are pretty terrible like I mentioned with healthcare. What does healthcare got to do with the amount of drugs seized? You would use figures in regards to life expectancy or heart-failure or some such.


The scales are also balanced in terms of "What you do for foreign countries" so Egypt being a big contributor to International Peace keeping is number one, when we can safely say Egypt is not the number 1 country in the world for actual security.

[HoreTore]

The ranking is indeed about what one does for other countries, Tiaexz.

It's not about how good it is to live in a given country at all, it's all about how much other countries benefit from said country. As such, including life expectancy and heart failure would be wrong. Internal statistics are not counted at all in this ranking.

Go to the human development index for those figures. This is something else.

[Greyblades]

Bah! These statistsics dont match up to my world view; They must be invalid and/or wrong!
Argle-blargle-Nationalism!



...In all seriousness, I dont really get some of this. What do you measure to acertain who is contributing the most in terms of culture? And these sub categories dont make much sense in what's "good" or bad.

I mean... for example: one of the scales is creative good exports relative to entire economy. America's cultural exports are so pervasive to the point of overwhelming other countries, yet because it's exports are being compared to the overall economy it's rating on this scale is pitiful. Obviously it's not because America's cultural exports are small, but because the American economy is so titanically huge it dwarf's everything put next to it, be it the hollywood entertainment industry or the GDP of entire nations.

And drug seizures is... odd: defined as the rate of cocaine equivilent killograms confiscated compared to economy. Even ignoring the issue of comparing to economies, how is the seizure rate an effective measure of health and wellbeing? All it tells us is how much drugs are being confiscated, how are we supposed to know what the score represents? A low score could mean there's not much drugs being trafficked or it could mean that there's loads and the police are just crap at thier jobs!

And where are these scores even coming from? I cant find anything on the website, merely mention of "35 reliable datasets which track the way that most countries on earth behave [...]Most of these datasets are produced by the United Nations and other international agencies, and a few by NGOs and other organisations." That seems promising, but there's no actual links provided. There's not even referrals to studies that I could seek out, so have no idea if the data's reliable or merely pulled from this Simon Anholt's imagination.

More importantly, how did Malta's culture come in 3rd? Belgium being first is hard enough to swallow, but Malta? What!?

[Papewaio]

It is because of your green-card policies that you are ranked so low (foreign students studying there), but the United Kingdom should be in the top 3 easily so that part is correct. Our entire economy is essentially Finance and R&D on the macro-scale.

It seems to involve figures and measures which are pretty terrible like I mentioned with healthcare. What does healthcare got to do with the amount of drugs seized? You would use figures in regards to life expectancy or heart-failure or some such.


The scales are also balanced in terms of "What you do for foreign countries" so Egypt being a big contributor to International Peace keeping is number one, when we can safely say Egypt is not the number 1 country in the world for actual security.

Link to the TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_anhol..._for_the_world

It isn't about what your country does for itself it is about what it does for others.

Looking at most of the stats tables linked at the bottom of the pages most of the stats are weighted against GDP. So they are looking for how much of your relative wealth do you put on the table to contribute to the world.

[a completely inoffensive name]

So theoretically a country that completely ignores its own citizens and decides to open the door for anybody that can physically cross a border to obtain free education, healthcare and food is the greatest country.

Alternatively, the US could just had over another few billion dollars to Egypt and Israel over the next 30 years to bump back to the top 5. What meaning does this ranking entail?

[Greyblades]

Dunno. But I am for some reason starting to get the feeling I get when dealing with libertarians only... backwards?
Not often you find a fellow on the internet who is too altruistic.

[Papewaio]

Actually the rankings don't reflect to well on basket case countries.

Russia and China don't fare well either.

But if you look at the rankings it does show countries that are generally seen as good global citizens towards the top even though they may be relatively wealthy.

I slugged watching the TED talk to understand what the rankings are. It's a good start and there is definitely room to debate the metrics, like NZ rating low on the fair trade... Because it doesn't need that brand of foods as its farmers are treated better and export alot therefore are a small net consumer of those brands tipping the scales against them.

[HoreTore]

So theoretically a country that completely ignores its own citizens and decides to open the door for anybody that can physically cross a border to obtain free education, healthcare and food is the greatest country.

For some of the stats you count people crossing the border, yes, but most of them don't require any border crossings.

Just hand out a few bags of cash to other countries to become #1 in this ranking.

[ajaxfetish]

So theoretically a country that completely ignores its own citizens and decides to open the door for anybody that can physically cross a border to obtain free education, healthcare and food is the greatest country.

Or at least the goodest country.