Good Country Index - TED

[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!?