Observations. I think many people would benefit from meditating over the tremendous significance of map #26: Asia is ridiculously important.
About the money stuff: this is all extremely misleading chiefly because a lot of people grow and/or catch their own food and build their own houses on community owned land with no debt, thus have minimal expenses and no interest in having or raising this number. The global capitalist system seeks to change this, often by stealing their land at gunpoint or children with the lure of materialism, but while increasing material 'wealth' (ie. shiny trinkets and nominally convenient tech) ultimately results in bad things happening to health (sometimes; this can go both ways), community, security, and the environment.
In map #35, Open defecation in India, look at the difference between the hard-line Hindu state of Tamil Nadu (southeast) versus the long-time communist state of Kerala (southwest coast). Incidentally, you see open defecation in southeast Asia and China as well.
In map #37, in 13 years I've never seen anyone appearing to be obviously malnourished and/or starving in China (and my time tends towards mountainous/poor areas), so I'm not sure where they get their statistics from. The throwaway remark about them 'getting better at feeding their people' is frankly bullshit: China is a leader in agricultural science, they are very good at extracting vast productivity from small areas of land and producing protein-rich foods such as tofu in harsh climates.
Similarly, map #38 is complete bullshit. China is absolutely covered in extremely high quality infrastructure such as highways.
I don't know if its the world or me that changed in the last year or so, but I've reached some kind of point with this evangelical sounding language, especially (but not exclusively) when it was a hard left bent. It hits me like listening to a 5 year old talk about surrendering themselves to Jesus.
"
global capitalist system seeks to change this, often by stealing their land at gunpoint or children with the lure of materialism"
You couldn't talk this way among people I know, especially the more intelligent and opinionated among them. They would either roll their eyes and look for an exit like they would when confronted by a door knocking cult member or get sucked in inevitably resulting in cross "don't encourage them" looks from their girlfriend.
Where do people find enough other people to talk to where they can even develop this way of speaking. With cults you need to be around only other members of the cult to sound like this.
I think I'm starting to buy into this internet feedback bubble. I think it might be where new cults get made.
>The global capitalist system seeks to change this, often by stealing their land at gunpoint..
What a bizarre notion. The global capitalist system has goals? It owns guns, and steals land and children?
Let's ignore this fuzzy notion for now and address what you seem to be claiming.
Yes, there is a global capitalist system, and yes, guns are sometimes used to steal land, but no, it is not a defining characteristic of capitalism to steal land at gunpoint. You just weaken your case by this overreach. Reasonable people tune out when you start making shit up like this.
Most interesting to me is unremarked by the article. #5 showing North and South Korea, also shows a virtual city of light in the middle of the Sea of Japan.
A little Googling shows its fisherman attracting the squid to the surface with massive lights. Who knew?
Every visualization have some kind of bias in what data is used. How it is categorized. Mapped to colors. Projected on screen. Mapped on to a world map which itself is biased. Etc. etc. But compared to raw numbers or text the quantity of information that can be chucked into a picture is magnitudes greater. And it is immediately understandable and invites to further exploration in way no other media does.
The very notion of a center of X makes a lot of sense when such a simplification is useful. For mass, the center of mass is a lossless (or nearly so) simplification. In physics, the movement of complex object can be understood with only its center of mass.
Not so with economics; I'm very skeptical of a "center of economic activity" constructed as shown in figure 2. What questions does it answer well that a proper geographic distribution does not? (It certainly doesn't imply that all economic transactions go through that "center".) I think it misleads more than it helps. (And I'm not even going into the 3D -> 2D problems.)
Perhaps centre of a graph is more useful - economic activity is almost always an edge between two nodes, so the usefulness of graph theory seems apt (and afaik common) with economics - so a map showing the volume / value of transactions between actors would perhaps be useful - I have not seen all the maps here but it would presumably see NYC glowing with shipping and financial nodes ...
The center itself is not important. The point is to show an evolution through time. Geographic distribution are clearer and more precise but only handy for a given instant.
I see a big theoretical and practical problem with Figure 2's projection of a 3D center of gravity to our planet's surface. For now, lets ignore all the other problems (e.g. does calculating a "center" really help answer useful questions).
The 2D projection only shows "non-radial" movements (e.g. shifts not pointed towards the earth's core). For example, if the center of gravity moves directly to the other side of the planet, the 2D projection won't change until the 3D point passes through the core, at which point the projection would jump wildly to the other side of the planet.
This is probably quite similar to what has really happened. I'd expect that the westward shift from AD 1 to 1950 had much to do with the growth in the Americas. Afterwards, I'd expect growth in India, China, and Japan moved the center eastward.
That is exactly the method they use. Calculate the centre of economic gravity, then project it onto the closest point on the surface of the globe.
Here is a nice analysis that does the same process in a more intuitive way. It calculates the centre of economic gravity in 2D map coordinates. This gives results that are easier to understand, because everyone's used to looking at 2D maps.
I particularly found map #4, the Federal Reserve map, to be very interesting. An artifact of politics from days gone by the still has influence today. Does the Fed always move as whole or is there any real infighting going on there?
However with such a wealth of information I am sure as I go through the rest I will find something else to take up my day
okay, #35 creeps me out. Having read a story on how difficult it is to get people to use toilets even after the government went on a building spree I can understand how the map can look so extreme
Regarding #4, traditionally there's a great effort to project unanimity by the Fed board, but that broke down a bit in the recent crisis, and there's always a bit of behind the scenes politicking.
As to #35, for most of the last couple of thousand years having religious prohibitions about not crapping in your house was actually a good thing. It's only with the invention of indoor plumbing that it's suddenly a disadvantage.
The ironic thing is that the Vijayanagara Empire in India (Peak 1500s) had extensive water management and sanitation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire). This was 300 years before London had its first severs.
And now, the situation is reversed. While Colonialism is an oft repeated cause whereby everything of native ingenuity was systematically destroyed, what is depressing is that even 65 years after Independence, Poverty & Public Health are still issues that affect India.
The individual banks are charged with monitoring banking activity and economic conditions within their districts. Their isn't real infighting, but the different banks do bring different views to the table, especially as one area of the country may be booming while another is hurting.
> how difficult it is to get people to use toilets
Doesn't the second map (Economic centrer of gravity map) [0] depend on the projection you use? I.e. if you'd shift the map so that the Americas are in the middle of the picture, then wouldn't the "center of gravity" end up in the US?
And besides does the point make any sense at all? The world's economic center of gravity is currently somewhere in northern Russia.
The movement on the hand tells a clear story of forming circle where the world's economic activity returns to Asia from a short trip to Europe and USA.
The movement is maybe less dependent on the projection.
No, it shouldn't. The caption says it the center of mass was calculated in 3D then projected onto the closest surface point. Changing the projection used wouldn't change the position of this point.
My reading of the caption is that they projected the 3d center of gravity out to or down onto a 3d surface of the earth (along the line connecting the center of gravity to the center of the planet).
Map 3 World Light Map shows many light points in Western Australia. I thought that there is negligible population in this area. Is the map incorect or .. why?
The original title promises maps that explain the global economy and of course it does nothing of the sort.
Most of the maps are fun, quirky and/or entertaining. A few of them illustrate a single, isolated point well. But explain more than the most trivial points (China is kind of a big deal!) they most certainly don't.
Vox increasingly looks like intellectually pretentious Buzzfeed.
Little remark about the map 'Unemployment in Europe'
I can't speak for other countries, but in France the official metric is heavily manipulated and does not make sense anymore.
Basically, if you are unemployed long enough (~2 year), you do not get money from the unemployment insurance, and thereby are no longer unemployed.
Well, the data comes from Eurostat, which has its own definition of "Unemployed person"[1], which from what I can tell is independent of the country's social security system.
I cannot speak for the rest of the world, but Spain and Italy have similar systems, so even if in absolute the measure is not exact, the comparison it's still meaningful.
First map - first question. Is UAE/Saudi (in black like USA) actually got > 50k per head, or is that per head of citizens instead of per head of acini if participants (large immigrant worker population)
And would counting Americas cardless Mexicans affect the per capita count too?
Map 9 is so badly coloured; the black lines indicate the largest volume of trade, but blend into the background. The red lines pop out, but represent the least trade.
I love Map 10 though, principal exports, very interesting.
It might be interesting to see a measure of spread visualized alongside the center of gravity (figure 2), perhaps using a translucent circle of varying radius.
[+] [-] contingencies|11 years ago|reply
About the money stuff: this is all extremely misleading chiefly because a lot of people grow and/or catch their own food and build their own houses on community owned land with no debt, thus have minimal expenses and no interest in having or raising this number. The global capitalist system seeks to change this, often by stealing their land at gunpoint or children with the lure of materialism, but while increasing material 'wealth' (ie. shiny trinkets and nominally convenient tech) ultimately results in bad things happening to health (sometimes; this can go both ways), community, security, and the environment.
In map #35, Open defecation in India, look at the difference between the hard-line Hindu state of Tamil Nadu (southeast) versus the long-time communist state of Kerala (southwest coast). Incidentally, you see open defecation in southeast Asia and China as well.
In map #37, in 13 years I've never seen anyone appearing to be obviously malnourished and/or starving in China (and my time tends towards mountainous/poor areas), so I'm not sure where they get their statistics from. The throwaway remark about them 'getting better at feeding their people' is frankly bullshit: China is a leader in agricultural science, they are very good at extracting vast productivity from small areas of land and producing protein-rich foods such as tofu in harsh climates.
Similarly, map #38 is complete bullshit. China is absolutely covered in extremely high quality infrastructure such as highways.
[+] [-] netcan|11 years ago|reply
You couldn't talk this way among people I know, especially the more intelligent and opinionated among them. They would either roll their eyes and look for an exit like they would when confronted by a door knocking cult member or get sucked in inevitably resulting in cross "don't encourage them" looks from their girlfriend.
Where do people find enough other people to talk to where they can even develop this way of speaking. With cults you need to be around only other members of the cult to sound like this.
I think I'm starting to buy into this internet feedback bubble. I think it might be where new cults get made.
[+] [-] markc|11 years ago|reply
What a bizarre notion. The global capitalist system has goals? It owns guns, and steals land and children?
Let's ignore this fuzzy notion for now and address what you seem to be claiming.
Yes, there is a global capitalist system, and yes, guns are sometimes used to steal land, but no, it is not a defining characteristic of capitalism to steal land at gunpoint. You just weaken your case by this overreach. Reasonable people tune out when you start making shit up like this.
[+] [-] JackFr|11 years ago|reply
A little Googling shows its fisherman attracting the squid to the surface with massive lights. Who knew?
[+] [-] chvid|11 years ago|reply
Every visualization have some kind of bias in what data is used. How it is categorized. Mapped to colors. Projected on screen. Mapped on to a world map which itself is biased. Etc. etc. But compared to raw numbers or text the quantity of information that can be chucked into a picture is magnitudes greater. And it is immediately understandable and invites to further exploration in way no other media does.
I really wish we had more of this.
[+] [-] dj-wonk|11 years ago|reply
Not so with economics; I'm very skeptical of a "center of economic activity" constructed as shown in figure 2. What questions does it answer well that a proper geographic distribution does not? (It certainly doesn't imply that all economic transactions go through that "center".) I think it misleads more than it helps. (And I'm not even going into the 3D -> 2D problems.)
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yoha|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dj-wonk|11 years ago|reply
The 2D projection only shows "non-radial" movements (e.g. shifts not pointed towards the earth's core). For example, if the center of gravity moves directly to the other side of the planet, the 2D projection won't change until the 3D point passes through the core, at which point the projection would jump wildly to the other side of the planet.
This is probably quite similar to what has really happened. I'd expect that the westward shift from AD 1 to 1950 had much to do with the growth in the Americas. Afterwards, I'd expect growth in India, China, and Japan moved the center eastward.
[+] [-] dataewan|11 years ago|reply
Here is a nice analysis that does the same process in a more intuitive way. It calculates the centre of economic gravity in 2D map coordinates. This gives results that are easier to understand, because everyone's used to looking at 2D maps.
http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/djv/world_economic_center...
Previous discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8034394
[+] [-] yoha|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|11 years ago|reply
However with such a wealth of information I am sure as I go through the rest I will find something else to take up my day
okay, #35 creeps me out. Having read a story on how difficult it is to get people to use toilets even after the government went on a building spree I can understand how the map can look so extreme
[+] [-] Symmetry|11 years ago|reply
As to #35, for most of the last couple of thousand years having religious prohibitions about not crapping in your house was actually a good thing. It's only with the invention of indoor plumbing that it's suddenly a disadvantage.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/06/open-defecation-solve...
[+] [-] shortsightedsid|11 years ago|reply
And now, the situation is reversed. While Colonialism is an oft repeated cause whereby everything of native ingenuity was systematically destroyed, what is depressing is that even 65 years after Independence, Poverty & Public Health are still issues that affect India.
[+] [-] JackFr|11 years ago|reply
> how difficult it is to get people to use toilets
The mind boggles
[+] [-] yeppers8|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|11 years ago|reply
[0] - http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/666632/mck...
[+] [-] chvid|11 years ago|reply
And besides does the point make any sense at all? The world's economic center of gravity is currently somewhere in northern Russia.
The movement on the hand tells a clear story of forming circle where the world's economic activity returns to Asia from a short trip to Europe and USA.
The movement is maybe less dependent on the projection.
[+] [-] rtkwe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiri|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twelvechairs|11 years ago|reply
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a-mys...
[+] [-] mseebach|11 years ago|reply
Most of the maps are fun, quirky and/or entertaining. A few of them illustrate a single, isolated point well. But explain more than the most trivial points (China is kind of a big deal!) they most certainly don't.
Vox increasingly looks like intellectually pretentious Buzzfeed.
[+] [-] acheron|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malka|11 years ago|reply
I can't speak for other countries, but in France the official metric is heavily manipulated and does not make sense anymore. Basically, if you are unemployed long enough (~2 year), you do not get money from the unemployment insurance, and thereby are no longer unemployed.
Beside that, extremely cool collection of maps.
[+] [-] icebraining|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....
[+] [-] Kurtz79|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|11 years ago|reply
And would counting Americas cardless Mexicans affect the per capita count too?
[+] [-] afterburner|11 years ago|reply
I love Map 10 though, principal exports, very interesting.
[+] [-] dj-wonk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hermel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zvyenx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iillmaticc|11 years ago|reply