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Vision of Humanity offers beautiful infographics on the state of the planet
Vision of Humanity is one of the most beautiful and thorough visualizations that I have recently seen.
It's a zoomable Flash world map, which lets you browse and compare a vast number of "peace indicators," such as level of violent crime, access to weapons, jailed population, relations with neighboring countries, and more.
You view a world heat map, which shows where that index is most prevalent. You can zoom in on a specific country and browse through all of its indicators, and you can compare two or more countries.
The site takes all of these indicators and derives a single number, which it calls the "peace index." At a glance, you can basically see which countries are the most peaceful and which ones rank worst on the list.
As per usual with these tools, the tool itself is very impressive, but I cannot say that I fully trust the data. The data comes from an entity that calls itself the Institute for Economics & Peace, which is an incredibly nebulous name. Even reading their About page didn't improve my level of trust in this "institute." There's a Wikipedia entry about them, so they seem to be real. I cannot, however, vouch for the quality of the data.
Still, from a technology/design viewpoint, this is an impressive visualization that I could easily spend a great deal of time with, discovering new (if troubling) facts.
Comments
20
Subscribe to commentsbron019Aug 31st 2010 7:10PM
WTH is with the israel thing in your post very classy this is a tech blog i case the blogger forget.
bron019Aug 31st 2010 7:12PM
NVM saw what you actually posted on the post oops
AmitAug 31st 2010 7:14PM
Sounds interesting.
Also, nice touch with the pic, EREZ
MuccerAug 31st 2010 8:37PM
all the sources of the data are actually mentioned under each of the indicators (you can click on each indicator listed) and they are fully explained here: http://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/2010-GPI-Results-and-Methodology-Report1.pdf . Oh, and the Institute does exists as ... I work there! Bear in mind that the index does not place a moral judgement on where a country is placed on the list, it simply aims at painting a picture of the levels of violence in the world and then tries to better analyze the most peaceful countries to see what lessons can be learned from them! here are some findings if anyone is interested: http://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/2010_Discussion-Paper2.pdf
MaratAug 31st 2010 8:47PM
wow! you work there? I guess you're not biased at all then!
DMAug 31st 2010 8:49PM
This must be fake, there is no way on earth that there are 5 countries worse than israel! Unless you count Glenn Beck or AIPAC as a nation...
Technology is really impressive though...
FezAug 31st 2010 10:15PM
Everything anyone says about Israel is Anti-Semitism. So much for freedom of speech, I'm glad they picked this picture, no one is immune from freedom of speech and no one can take away our rights to it.
Also, I think they are right Israel should be number 1 worst country when it comes to respect for humanity :). Just my opinion.
Heaven'sHellslayerAug 31st 2010 10:22PM
Wow who does the stats on this thing? Hamas (terrorist group known for killing and murdering innocent people)?
FezAug 31st 2010 10:28PM
yeah the unarmed terrorist group that is over powerd by the terrorist country that is israel and it's 300 or so nukes. Which consistently refuses to sign U.N nuclear confab resolution : http://jta.org/news/article/2010/05/30/2739372/israel-rejects-un-nuclear-confab-resolution
Overpowering and slaughtering in plain sight.
Hamas? They aren't concerned about internet they are more concerned with food and shelter that keeps being destroyed/taken away by Israel
FezAug 31st 2010 10:36PM
Been there, done that :)
You should visit Israel.
Oh and :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkttzB8u4U0
JonnyAug 31st 2010 11:17PM
Wow, that's maybe the biggest bullshit site i've ever seen.
JRAug 31st 2010 11:36PM
It's sad to see this devolve into clueless bashing with people calling other people self-hating Jews or anti-semites but not a shock. Israelis are far harder on their own country than Americans are for some reason.
Anyway, as an attorney who assists refugees from various countries around the world - and therefore have to study the country conditions - these assessments seem to be a fair representation and I'm quite certain I know more about it than the random people spewing venom.
MikeSep 1st 2010 1:02AM
Really? On DownloadSquad?
Making11sSep 1st 2010 2:34AM
It's hilarious how angry people on the internet get when they see something they don't agree with. They don't ask why. They just get angry. Funny is the wrong word. It's sad that people don't try to understand points of view that are not their own. I'm not saying you should change your mind. I'm just saying you should take your blinders off and try to see where someone is coming from before you jump to conclusions about their opinions and beliefs.
Also, people need to learn that Israel=/=Judaism. You can critisize Israel without being an antisemite. It's a country with policies like any other country. Calling people antisemitic for critisizing Israel is a painfully obvious, intellectually lazy way of dismissing an argument without having to think about it.
jerewaac24Sep 1st 2010 4:46AM
Bookmark
AurrinSep 1st 2010 11:13AM
You have got to be kidding me. Over half of the numbers on here are qualitative, which means "we made them up". Yes, I know you can set a rubric, but at the end of the day, you're still making them up and scaling them according to prejudicial biases. Then there's the inclusion of statistics like 'availability of weapons'. At what point did these people miss that availability of weapons decreases crime and violence in states without marginal governments? And what kind of statistic is 'percentage of population jailed'? You'll note that seems to have a completely inverse function to violent regions. And the 'Gini' coefficient? What an asspull! Please tell me this is an April Fool's joke five months late. Just because you can put a zoomable flash map together and sort numbers doesn't mean you have something important or even coherent. Enjoy your five minutes of internet fame, 'institute'.
F-ZeroSep 1st 2010 11:27AM
I have no idea why someone would use the Global Peace Index. There are too many of these indices around already, this one does absolutely nothing to help with analysis.
Still, the flash app itself is pretty good. Very fast, but doesn't provide that much interactivity compared to the previous app featured sometime ago (alhtough that was java if I remember correctly)
AlexSep 2nd 2010 2:05AM
I find the interactivity flow quite nice, yet the graphics are pretty stale, it looks like cheap flash vectorization if you ask me.
ChristaBSep 2nd 2010 12:58PM
Ignoring all the BS troll comments on Israel for a moment...
With all due respect Erez, you blog about technology and not international affairs. Stick to talking about technology and design, and leave out the editorializing on NGO's.
http://notabang.tumblr.com/post/1053963576/vision-of-humanity-offers-beautiful-infographics-on-the#disqus_thread
AurrinSep 2nd 2010 7:03PM
http://xkcd.com/699/