Global Peace Index 2008

[Dunenewt]

http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings/2008/

The new Global Peace Index has been announced.  The first three are all Scandic, which is no surprise.

A few ranks:

36) France

49) UK

62) Cuba

67) China

97) USA

105) Iran

115) Turkey

116) South Africa

124) Zimbabwe

131) Russia

136) Israel

137) Afghanistan

140) Iraq (last)

[Dante]

Is Scandic even a word...?

Congratulations to Iceland, I guess.

[Edric O]

"Peace" index? It seems that every year there's a new index with some impressive-sounding propagandistic name ("peace", "freedom", "democracy"), claiming to rank countries based on how much they follow some vaguely defined philosophical principle.

What they actually do is rank countries based on a more or less arbitrary collection of indicators. For instance, this "peace" index ranks countries based on such things as level of distrust in other citizens, number of internal security officers and police 100,000 people, number of homicides per 100,000 people, political instability, respect for human rights, military expenditure and so on (you can read the full list on the website you linked to).

That is all nice and good, but how do we know that all those things are a reliable measure of "peace"? For example, according to this index, hiring more policemen makes a country less "peaceful". Having less freedom of the press also makes a country less "peaceful". Having too much gender inequality makes a country less "peaceful". What the hell? That seems very arbitrary.

I should start a Global Democracy Index that ranks democracies based on how many people eat cheese.

[Dunenewt]

Also, I don't see Russia being less peaceful than Zimbabwe to be true.

[Edric O]

Yes, I would say this index is worthless because so many of the criteria they use have no logical connection with peace.

I am wary of such indexes in general because a favourite tactic of many think tanks is to publish an index that supposedly ranks countries based on some idea the think tank advocates, "proving" that the best countries in the world are those that agree the most with the think tank's idea. But when you dig below the surface of the index you find that their ranking criteria are arbitrary and often designed specifically so as to bias the results. For instance, several "indices of economic freedom" claim to show that the most capitalist countries are also the richest countries - but they measure "capitalism" based on, among other things, low corruption, secure rule of law, and lack of organized crime (if you don't support capitalism, clearly you must support the mafia). And they come up with bizzare results like Denmark being more capitalist than the US.

Then there is Freedom House's "Freedom in the World" index, which supposedly measures "freedom", defined vaguely as "the opportunity to act spontaneously in a variety of fields outside the control of the government and other centers of potential domination" - which can mean whatever they want it to mean. In practice, "freedom" in that index has the unusual tendency to correlate strongly with support for the foreign policy of the United States.

[Dunenewt]

Yes, they have been taking civil unrest into account too much in this perhaps.  Ah, Freedom House, not quite as bad as the Heritage Foundation, but a lot of these think-tanks just toe the line of the US Gov't.

[Andrew]

Canada is 11th place. Just thought I'd point that out since newt missed it. :)

[Dunenewt]

I only included the interesting countries :P

[Andrew]

I figured that. We are interesting, honest!

Food Safety Ranking

Canada placed 5th. An uninteresting place called United Kingdom got 1st place.

[Egeides]

This thing's bogus. The moon's more peaceful.

[Caid Ivik]

"Peace" index? It seems that every year there's a new index with some impressive-sounding propagandistic name ("peace", "freedom", "democracy"), claiming to rank countries based on how much they follow some vaguely defined philosophical principle.

...

That is all nice and good, but how do we know that all those things are a reliable measure of "peace"? For example, according to this index, hiring more policemen makes a country less "peaceful". Having less freedom of the press also makes a country less "peaceful". Having too much gender inequality makes a country less "peaceful". What the hell? That seems very arbitrary.

I should start a Global Democracy Index that ranks democracies based on how many people eat cheese.

A science, which has problems with self-justifying (trough proof, technology etc), has to work on its marketing. A right "brand" for the product (besides "Global Peace Index" see for example "Theory of Everything") is one of the ways how to gain popularity and thus also financial support. Also the method or criteria may be chosen by this way. Gender inequality sounds good for most contemporary philosophers. Although in fact it should be inversely judged, as the world wars came hand in hand with election rights for women (and which man would vote for somebody, who would send him to death?).

With that cheese, I can't forget this  ;D

[SandChigger]

Oh, so dreadfully peaceful here. Oh, I wish something exciting would happen.... :D

Well, I did see a car crash this morning on the way to work. A small kei-car rear-ended a larger car. EMS van was there with a stretcher on the road but no one on it yet when I passed by. (The way the locals drive, it's a wonder there aren't far more accidents and fatalities!)

And for some reason almost everyone I passed in the halls today smiled and spoke. (I rushed back to the office as soon as possible to make sure there was no "Kick me!" sign taped to my back, and that my fly wasn't undone.)

<i>Ah, heiwa da ne, kotchi wa....</i> 8)

[Caid Ivik]

need an inspiration? ;D http://kyberia.sk/id/3875727

[Kirby Gotenks absorbed]

Whoever wrote this must of been on weed while playing rainbow road in Mario kart.

[Sneakgab]

''Ah, heiwa da ne, kotchi wa....''

Shirimasen ''kotchi'' imasu.

do iu imi desu ka?

Doubt that made any sense, but these little attempts can be humorous (for the receiver) if nothing else.:D

If I were to guess you would be saying something along the lines of peacefulness degenerating things... into boredom... peopele perhaps?

[Sneakgab]

Whoops, forgot the rest of my post in the midst of my babbling... coming soon.

China and America more peaceful than SA? Now, I think everyone here knows that I am no patriot, regarding patriotism as utter silliness, so you know that I hold no bias in saying that SA is at least more peaceful than some of the countries listed above it which are currently in war and/or attempting to propagate war (though maybe possibility for war was not considered in this index?)

I mean, obviously we have significant crime and all, but it's not like these criminals are towing around mortars and RPGs along with some doing ''drive bys'' with tanks, fighter air craft and bombers lol.

I wonder how many are taken in by such surveys,indexes,e.t.c. It seems that even the cynical and wise might decide to give the benefit of the doubt than actually bother to check these things out.

In this case though, it seems it was relatively easy to find these details. Although by employing manipulations on weighting and through hiding these details (specifically, the arbitrary illegitimate values introduced to bend the results in the favor of the hoster of this index) deep within pages of rubbish.

Considering the soddy job these people did of hiding their manipulations, one must ask who exactly labelled these people ''think tanks''.

[SandChigger]

''Ah, heiwa da ne, kotchi wa....''

Shirimasen ''kotchi'' imasu.

do iu imi desu ka?

Doubt that made any sense, but these little attempts can be humorous (for the receiver) if nothing else.:D

Sometimes humorous. More often painful. ;)

Japanese is SOV, unlike English or Afrikaans; if you just translate words in the same order, you get silly word soup. <i>Kotchi</i> is a colloquial form of <i>kochira</i> "here".

<i>Kotchi tte wakarimasen. Dou iu imi desu ka?</i> "I don't understand 'kotchi'. What does it mean?"

It's a fun/interesting language. <i>Gambare!</i>

If I were to guess you would be saying something along the lines of peacefulness degenerating things... into boredom... peopele perhaps?

Not quite...but kinda. People often wryly quip "Japan is truly peaceful" (<i>Nihon tte, hontou-ni heiwa da ne!</i>) when observing or commenting on some of the stupid things that people around them do.

The implication being that in a less peaceful, more arduous and demanding society, such stupidity would most likely be weeded out. ;)

<b>Darwin rules!</b> :D

[TMA_1]

thank you edric! sounds ands reads like hollow bull.

[Kirby Gotenks absorbed]

Sometimes humorous. More often painful. ;)

Japanese is SOV, unlike English or Afrikaans; if you just translate words in the same order, you get silly word soup. <i>Kotchi</i> is a colloquial form of <i>kochira</i> "here".

<i>Kotchi tte wakarimasen. Dou iu imi desu ka?</i> "I don't understand 'kotchi'. What does it mean?"

It's a fun/interesting language. <i>Gambare!</i>

Not quite...but kinda. People often wryly quip "Japan is truly peaceful" (<i>Nihon tte, hontou-ni heiwa da ne!</i>) when observing or commenting on some of the stupid things that people around them do.

The implication being that in a less peaceful, more arduous and demanding society, such stupidity would most likely be weeded out. ;)

<b>Darwin rules!</b> :D

I want to learn Japanese as well... Is it hard?

[SandChigger]

I found it easier than Chinese or Russian...if that helps. ;)

Learning to speak and understand it is easier than learning to read and write it. It helps to have a good ear, but that's true of any language.

[Kirby Gotenks absorbed]

I found it easier than Chinese or Russian...if that helps. ;)

Yes, it does, thank you. I want to learn Japanese in university (because in S.A... you have to choose between Afrikaans or Zulu for your second language in High school...), but should I learn a bit of it before I do so?

[Caid Ivik]

I was learning all three, and the chinese was a way easier than japanese to me, at least the grammar...it may depend on your mother language, russian seems easy to me because it's a slavic one. Anybody speaking korean here?

[SandChigger]

Continuing off topic... (Was there anything more to say about the Peace Index?)

Kirby, GA...don't know what to tell you about that, really. I'm not the best person to ask about a "normal" course of study. I dabbled with Japanese a bit in high school with a few grammars and dictionaries from the local library, but it never really "took". Then in uni I studied Modern Chinese for two years before starting Japanese in a summer intensive course. Sorry. (Btw, tell your brother(?) that I'll reply to the PM at length later.)

Cald Ivik...yeah, Chinese grammar is superficially similar to that of European SVO languages, but it's really a quite different animal underneath. All the homophones with the tones and all the characters you had to learn just to be able to read something simple drove me batsh...um, guano. I'm not sorry I switched. I learned a little bit of Korean with some Japanese friends. It's similar to Japanese in many respects, but the sound system and verbs are a lot more complex.

[Mahdi]

The new Global Peace Index has been announced.  The first three are all Scandic, which is no surprise.

Their Viking ancestors would be so proud....