2014 Aug 12 category: World Affairs author: mapster
Gapminder.org is a website that presents statistics on global economic development in a way that is entertaining and interesting. Their first challenge was to tap into those statistics, which are typically held by organizations such as the United Nations but are not generally presented in a way that captures the imagination. They then developed the Trendalyzer software, which presents that data in time lapse fashion and graphically illustrates key changes over time. Watch some of their videos and you may well come across some recent trends in global development that will surprise you.
2014 Aug 08 category: World Affairs author: mapster
It is perhaps something we should all be more knowledgeable about – the sadly astonishing number of deaths caused by human directed activities throughout history. It has become a passion for Matthew White to trawl the available information and tally up which of humanity’s achievements has been the deadliest. His findings are published in his book Atrocitology, which is interesting to delve into but perhaps a bit too depressing to read in full. A brief analysis at the end might challenge a few misconceptions but the number one deadliest event will be no surprise – the second world war with 66 million deaths. Alternatively he suggests that several of the global conflicts during the 20th century could be grouped together as one interconnected ‘hemoclysm’ (Greek for blood flood) causing a total of 150 million deaths.
So is there any hope that the 21st century will be less deadly than the one before? It no doubt helps to understand just how deadly our past activities have been. On the other hand it may also help to recognize mankind’s most life-saving activities, for example the eradication of smallpox must surely have saved millions of lives.