CIA World Fact Book

[miriam_e]

I've always been a bit of a fan of the CIA's World Fact Book. Say what you want about the organisation's troublesome morals, they are good cataloguers of information. I downloaded the latest (2008!) copy last night because I needed some good vector maps and they include pdf maps in the appendix. (I hate pdf, but beggars can't be choosers.) Anyway, I was spending time I shouldn't have browsing the fact book itself and noticed an interesting thing. The summary at the beginning of each country's chapter, and at the head of each part inside that chapter doesn't necessarily reflect the statistics that follow.

For instance, based upon the summaries you could be forgiven for thinking that the USA has a wonderful level of employment, Australia has an acceptable one and that Sweden's is at dangerous levels. Actually, the fact book gives the figures for unemployment rate at:
USA 4.6%
Sweden 4.5%
Australia 4.4%

Likewise the glowing report on the USA's economy would lead you to believe they are a shining example of dynamism, and Sweden verging on stagnation. Here is the GDP:
USA 2.2%
Sweden 3.4%
Australia 4%

Of course that is just how the money side of things work, and that doesn't necessarily relate to how well off the humans are. The number of people living below the poverty level is a better indicator of that:
USA 12%
Sweden -
Australia -
The figures for Australia have to be pretty shonky because I consider myself below the poverty line, and there are people worse off than I am, but on the whole I have to say I lead a quite luxurious existence because my lifestyle requires very little money. Pity the USA though, where an 8th of the population lives below the poverty level! And given the employment figures, most of those below the poverty line must be working. What a horrid existence that would be -- to be an indentured wage slave with no way out and still stuck below the poverty line.

Two other guides to how good life might be are infant mortality and life expectancy:
Infant mortality (deaths per 1000 live births):
USA 6.37
Sweden 2.76
Australia 4.57

Life expectancy:
USA 78
Sweden 80.63
Australia 80.62

How is health hampered by religious intolerance?
AIDS prevalence in adult population:
USA 0.6%
Sweden 0.1%
Australia 0.1%

So... download the CIA World Fact Book. It is a goldmine of information, but do read further than the biased summaries.

Oh, the address?
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
You can refer online or download it.

Comments

[sharpblonde.livejournal.com]

Yes, I believe that is the one... I do seem to recall hearing about their good PR people too. If I remember correctly they are supposed to make some pretty good propaganda which would do, hmm, I dunno, people like Hitler proud. Thanks, that along with a few other things I came up with will give me enough to have something for the first draft that the the teacher won't just throw out.

Fanatics and willfully ignorant and/or bigotted groups are always reprehensible and disgusting. That comment about lesbians about takes the cake though. Even in an accepting city in Canada, I've had a guy swerve his SUV at me and my girlfriend just because we were holding hands. The world still has a long way to go...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It will be interesting to see where information search systems end up going. Google is really useful, but quite often there are subjects that are virtually impossible to search on. I saw a joke a while ago based on the difficulty of searching for information on the rock group The Who. I imagine searching for another group, The The, would be next to impossible. In situations like that a live human (effectively a librarian) is the only alternative. One day we will have AIs that will do the job, but even then I have a feeling it will be a long time before we can replace human associative knowledge. On that point, it might be worth checking out the dmoz project.
http://www.dmoz.org/
It attempts to use a vast team of humans to continuously catalogue the net.

How revolting that someone would find affection so objectionable. We have come a long way from when it meant an automatic stoning to death, but we still have a long way to go. [sigh]

As humans we'd better grow up real soon. We are quickly achieving godlike power. That kind of power in the hands of such stunted people is a recipe for disaster.