Jul 302010
www.ted.com You’ve never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called “developing world.” TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes — including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at http
Excellent!
what program is he using?
turn on the closed captioning, you will laugh your ass off
He has some pretty pictures but he’s only working with a very select set of indicators. He talks about income but doesn’t talk about how much of that goes to servicing odious debt, nor whether improving income/health stats within various nations rely on a privileged class who skew the data – no reason he couldn’t have visualised medians, modes etc.
But that might mess with the TED narrative! Thrill baby, thrill!
This kind of data needs to be implemented in things like Wolfram Alpha
i had to look at this for a course..got to say i m very impressed..hes very amazing!
what do you think of this solution about third world changes
Want to know something funny. A week ago I said something to the effect of us being able to engineer systems that could pull CO2 out of the air, organically, in an energy producign fashion (like trees do now). When I said that I thought maybe in 10 years, but at the end of this Crag Venter talk it looks like this is exactly what they are on the verge of doing. v=QHIocNOHd7A
@danielwolfberg RE: failing to see your point.
I must be missing yours.
I thought yours was more people = more CO2, and less resources, both of which that video helps dispel..
His analogy could have been better, but the ideas are valid. We have all the atoms we need, because atoms are the ultimate recyclable. We have all the energy we need because the sun’s beaming it our way. Current trends are already leading to a zero CO2 energy.
I must have missed your point. What did I miss?
@neoaeonian it was an interesting presentation, although after he left the statistics and went into a metaphorical planning for the future I was a bit diappointed. But yes, we are decreasing the usage of oil. I’m failing to see your point with this video. Only thing I gathered from it was the fact that there’ll always be a peak for everything. Including the rate of increasing population compared to child mortality.
@danielwolfberg Take a look at this video v=GGScU5ESei4 to see how we are de-carbonizing.our energy supply.
Telling people they can’t have children also fails. But make people wealthy and they’ll have less children naturally. And fix energy technology so that it is both ecologically and economically sound, and population ceases to be an issue. The technology is not that far away, especially if people stop acting out of blind fear, and start analyzing each item on a return on investment and risk/reward basis.
@neoaeonian Don’t get me wrong, I do see danger at hand. But the danger that is at hand is that people are moving into an anti-technology mindset, which thankfully you don’t seem guilty of, that is causing people to shy away from the best short and mid term answers (in which nuclear plays a big part). What I do know is that 2 approaches are going to fail. Telling people that they cannot have the good life is a failure approach.
@danielwolfberg Yes, I can and do acknowledge that more people doesn’t necessarily = a better world. Much depends on the political and cultural nature of the additional people, But I hope you can acknowledge that the existing data (in the form of increasing life span and reduced infant moratality) seems to indicate that it usually does. And this is something that people are closing their eyes too, usually due to either an anti-progress, anti-wealth or a pro-control bias.
@neoaeonian So basically we’d have to find an efficient way to make use of this increasing carbon dioxide or increase the amount of plants in the near vincinity of people. Meaning that there’ll every person would practically take up more space.
Can you acknowledge that it’s not as simple as to state that more people = better world? We haven’t even begun taking up the cultural part. Your reasoning pretty much requires a hive-mind.
@neoaeonian “but when solar cells produce energy more cheaply than oil (and they will within a decade)”
“and when batteries carry more energy than gasoline (within 2, maybe 1 decades)”
And you do realize that planting a forest isn’t something done over night? And the increased exposion to bacterias and viruses that follows an ever increasing population? Besides, photosynthesis doesn’t mean that the plants consume every little bit of carbon dioxide. It simply takes what it needs.
@neoaeonian So if we go back to the possible energy-scources I’d have to say that in order to sustain an ever increasing population we’d need to further develop nuclear power so that we can learn to harness it without any possible threats. It’s pretty much foolproof nowadays aswell but there’ll always be that tiny risk that something somewhere in a powerplant breaks down or malfunctions. I’d love to see your scources on the following statements:
@neoaeonian in your kind of scenario. It’s simply not possible to minimize the lost from generators or capacitators beyond it’s thermal efficiency. And there’s only so much power to be gained from mechanical energy. Therefore the other possible scources would be nuclear-power (the best choice as of now), chemical energy (this falls under different categories depending on the exact chemical reaction so this is semi-viable) and electromagnetic energy (I’m afraid I don’t know enough about it).
@neoaeonian Well, in the current and near future (2-3 decades) we won’t have any viable energy scource that can cope to take over the heavy dependency that we have on oil. And as we have higher and higher population it becomes harder and harder to actually find areas that are suitable for example water based energy. You’re right on the fact that we have a lot of rescources. But they’ll be scarce if we’re intend to blindly keep increasing habitants. Nuclear power is the only viable choice
@neoaeonian The title of this video is “Debunking 3rd world myths” but it could have just as easily been titled, “Debunking population myths” as all the good things happening in the third world, those things couldn’t be happening if the population myth were true. I actually don’t think we’ll continue to age.I do think we’ll get more efficient in every way all the time. News sells on pessimism, so all we here is pessimism. But the trends, long term trends, are that people and progress is good.
@danielwolfberg But our resources aren’t limited. Sure we are limited in oil, but when solar cells produce energy more cheaply than oil (and they will within a decade) and when batteries carry more energy than gasoline (within 2, maybe 1 decades) where will the limit be then? Trees are built out of air and sunlight. When we match, then exceed that ability, we’ll be fine. I think it takes less land to support people all the time, as we gain efficiency.
@danielwolfberg Can you see my point that we can’t continue developing into infinity without means? That every action causes a reaction? I’m not neglecting your belief that we’ll continue to age, provided we have the means to do so. Although I don’t agree with your statement that more people = better world. Seeing how we have limited rescources.