200 years that changed the world (with Hans Rosling)

[karlavagnen2010]

Thank you for the presentation. We used it at our Sunday Service in Stockholm to show the hope. I hope you do not mind to include your video clip at our recording.

[karlavagnen2010]

Thank you for this video. We used it at our Sunday Service. I hope you don't mind it.

FVE in Stockholm

[MrBigEnchilada]

i think its quite obvious there is a very simple interpretation of the circles in the bottom left, in that they all got colonized or destroyed by the countries in the upper right...thats why they didnt move, it wasn't because of some economic growth, the economic growth was the result, not the cause.

[MrBigEnchilada]

this chart is either flawed or the prof just doesnt have any good explanations,

if you keep looking at the right side of the screen there would always be small dots that moves off the screen, for example 1:35-1:38..and take a look at 1:40 where he highlights the circles??? what countries are those??? how come some of the dots move off the screen???

someone explain please?

[dodododa]

@MrBigEnchilada Small countries like Sweeden and Australia have much higher average income than the rest, so they go very far to the right. If he zoomed out just to keep those couple of countries on the screen, it would make everything too small.

[MrBigEnchilada]

@dodododa well i just want to say that if he's looking at a income per capita chart, this is a very good visualization. But if he's saying that rising income per capita leads to higher life expectancy, maybe colonialism or imperialism or war is the confounding factor that directly affects the two variables.

[nikimelnar]

Thank you very much for embedding Greek subtitles...

[etbadaboum]

We're living a new Revolution, though we can't understand it, as the Neolithic one and the Industrial one were at their times. On a different tone, I recommand Michel Serres who explain this with less statistics and graphs and much more texts and a sense of poetry :)

[comenerv]

prof, did you ever think about the little blue dot country with more than $4000 but less than 40 years averaged life time? This is the defect of your algorithm

[daberko120ch]

this just shows you Mao Zedong was a horrible leader in Chinese history.

[hoboboxerjoe]

This is further proof that a global monetary system like we have today is utterly failing us. It is almost beyond human comprehension to imagine the 18,000 children who starve to death each day. Not due to lack of resources, but due to lack of a fake concept of money and debt, bankrupcy. Did you know the total collective debt of the planet (by that I mean all nations) is 700 trillion dollars? It'd take 10 earths to repay that! The monetary paradigm has halted human advancement for centuries.

[donguinto]

European nations and Japan got rich during the 1800's and early 1900's because they invaded other continents and plundered it. China's GDP/capita was negative in the 1800's (the Opium Wars period) because it was plundered.

[Jacnas]

@donguinto Most European countries back then were not colonial and they still experienced progress. This zero-sum thinking that nations can only get richer at the expense of other nations is foolish and wrong. Many factors influenced Europe's progress like industrial revolution, invention of the steam engine and later the internal combustion engine (both increased productivity enormously), vaccinations, better hygiene, pasteurization, etc.

[donguinto]

@Jacnas I know. I was referring to European nations who did the plundering.

[TheWootikins]

awesome, interesting, good work Gapcast guys

[lookawhile]

好令人驚艷的統計圖表與解說方式。

[12161996789]

Qatar da bomb

[Mietek2517]

really really good. thanks

[wgwigh]

that was really cool thank you for that

[Uniformconsistency]

You can spot china and india from the start. Very, very intresting and a very good argument against those who question the value of progress.

[simongreenwald]

BORING!!!

[shadyreefer69]

@simongreenwald then dont watch

[frizzzzzzal]

YES IT IS @simongreenwald

[salgadosroman]

come on man...who cares who the rich and poor countries are ..nothing's gonna change .....nothing never stays the same

[saintnickXIII]

around 69' an arab country shoots totally of the map. effectivly becoming the richest nation in the world(?), if this is accurate ..

[GoodSmackUp]

I had a look and that country is Kuwait. in 1972 Is comes back onto the map. At the end of the presentation is is sitting behind the massive blob of yellow that is the US.

[JokerFace090]

@saintnickXIII

It is hard to tell exactly which country is which here. But the UAE very well could fit the shoe.

[adamcadien]

@stealthpakfa, @PoliticalMason

Stereotyping is fun

[Deathnotez123]

stumbled and throwing a pitch in this guy appeared on tedtalks a number of times with graphs simmilar to this showing a bunch of things. That channel has a ton of nice stuff on it and if you like this i'd reccomend checking it out. It's "technology entertainment and design".

[PoliticalMason]

World History and Human Geography give wonderful insight into these things...

[mikemuc2]

Wow. One of the most interesting stumbles in a long time.

[HobbsMadness]

Stumbled here. Very interesting.

[AlbinoJedi]

thats pretty interesting

[blackstillos44]

cool ! This is like everything I have been learning in Third World Development in graph form :) Thanks!

[getramaar]

very nice

[rcollins923]

who gives a flying fuck.

[yuxiaobi]

If you go to the gapminder website, you can run this video. The country that falls apart at 1:44 is Rwanda, Africa. This corresponds with the massive genocide that occurred in the 1990s.

[jpkane13]

Most likely Liberia. 1989 was the start of the Liberian civil war that was one of Africa's bloodiest.

[ribbit942]

I have questions about how you programmed this. I have my data in a Google docs spreadsheet and I can get the bubbles to move with time fine, and the size of the bubbles correctly proportioned. Now how do I a) get the picture of the map which shows regions by color (rather than the default legend containing list of regions/continents beside their respective colored boxes) and b) get the date displayed large in the background as time progresses? Thanks, I really appreciate your help.

[mixxmexx]

It was done with flash by Hans son. He is one of the authorities worldwide on flash programming. I used to work with Hans before.

[Jnesfield]

Briliant stuff Hans, very cool.

[ChelseaM2323]

cool

[proregeRotzak]

in 1991-1992

1 countrys life expectansy was below 25 years

[coolieos32]

i noticed that too, but that i would bet that was just because they had no data avaliable

[JackBrindelli]

how did china manage to get healthier BEFORE it started getting wealthier?

[scarhawkz]

Could be they adopted better sanitation practices. A bar of soap doesn't cost much, nor does moving the toilet farther away from the drinking water.

[4admiral]

Well Jack, like Hans suggests China's economic growth was stifled by the foreign powers that held outposts there. It was until Mao came to power in the 50s that things started to improve. Since the government was communist, there was not a huge influx of wealth but China was taking care of its own people rather than being neglected by colonizers.

[wwwdotLPdotorg]

4admiral

And 55 million Chinese dying under Mao is acceptable to you. China has improved economically because of trade with the rest of the world.

[4admiral]

Not my suggestion at all. I'm commenting on statistics relatively.

[wwwdotLPdotorg]

Oh... my bad

[kellerNtrade]

Probably due to their practices and traditions and other factors, but you also have to understand that China went through British colonialism and communism, explaining its until recently defective economy, also it's still a middle class economic society, thus meaning that Obama's endorsements of China and their infrastructure is just plain bogus.

[holdemehha]

If u noticed, the life expectancy drops dramatically during times of war or other disasters. Throughout the 1800s and first half of 1900s China was ravaged with western colonization, world war 2, a series of revolutions and civil wars. It wasn't until 1950s that China finally regained full indenpendence and reunited the country under 1 government, and thus the population was able to live in peace and the government was able to take care of its people

[helpadelpa]

No offences, but this guy talks like Mr Miagi from karate kid, very interesting though....

[muumikopio]

@helpadelpa Swedish accent =)

[elplatanisimo]

that is a really funny accent hehe

[Cosmos0]

Screw you, Hans. Persia is not an "arab country".

[RapidEyesCream]

Some people use the word 'Arab' and 'Middle-East' interchangeably, and this could be the reason for the confusion/assumption that Iran is an arab country.

[Cosmos0]

Screw those idiots! They should be beaten.

[asdfzzxcv723]

Although he doesn't specify it, the example of how China fared after it established national economic independence (i.e. "went communist") is very telling. Britain owes much of its ascendancy to exploiting the beejeesus out of India.

[quiquedcode]

I'd like to see this vid translated into spanish

[Merrrcredi]

thats sick! nice vid, really fascinating history

[mikekearn]

Fascinating view of world history over the past two centuries.

[auxano]

Great stuff excellent thanks

[SoulJuiceDotOrg]

great flick, great software n stats and a very cool guy, thank u! but hey, how does the environment fit in with this? that would b a worthwhile aspect to check eh? where's all this wealth and resources and more coming from? blissings devika souljuice

[hughtub]

The increase of life span for the lower and middle income countries comes entirely from the inventiveness of the higher income countries, those who have produced the great bulk of inventions to ease our way of life. You get what you produce. I hate that European countries are getting out of manufacturing, since THAT is true wealth, not "service" jobs.

[RapidEyesCream]

But who invented the basic inventions in order to make the more high tech inventions? China. Also - don't forget that East Asian countries have the highest IQ's in the world.

You cant compare ancient technology to modern ones.

[wwwdotLPdotorg]

People in East Asian countries don't have higher IQ's, they just work harder than most people in other counties. An Asian student with a 90 IQ works much harder and does as well as a white American with a 100 IQ. source New York Times.

[elchippe]

the have higher iq according some sources only surpass by jews.

[wwwdotLPdotorg]

elchippe

The research shows that jews do not have higher IQ's they come from a culture of hard work which is why they appear to be smarter.

[Scurck]

Hard work is not reflected in IQ tests. Especially not admission tests for universities which is the basis for most of the statistical data that show the varying IQ levels for different population groups.

[wwwdotLPdotorg]

Scurck

What statistical data are you talking about? Most experts agree that IQ is not at all related to ethnicity. Asians, Jews and Black West Indians do better than the average white American because with the same IQ they work harder and therefore appear smarter. Also IQ test mean almost nothing. If I do more IQ test my IQ will go up but my intelligence will not. The same can be said about the SAT. Finally poverty and other factors effect IQ scores (which are lurking variables in statistics).

[stealthpakfa]

new york times has the lowest IQ.

asians have much higher IQ than americans.

[wwwdotLPdotorg]

@stealthpakfa

"New York Times has the lowest IQ"?

"Asians have much higher IQ than Americans".

No they don't, Asians work much harder than Americans. One study gave Americans and Asians a ridiculously tough math problem. The Americans gave up in 3 minutes while the Asians worked for over 15 minutes. Maybe that is why Asians are so smart. Finally many of the Asians in America come from the richer families in Asia who are usually smarter.

[stealthpakfa]

most smart people in america are asians and jews.

americans are extremely dump people.

[PoliticalMason]

@stealthpakfa Correction:

Americans are extremely ignorant people...

[realigion24]

Well, except that there's no such ethnicity as "american". Every American is actually something else. But yes, a lot of us are dumbed down significantly by our substandard education and celebrity/glory driven culture.

[lifehouseisthebest]

If an Asian person can focus on something longer time than an American, it doesn't prove that an Asian has less intelligence than an American.. It just can prove that an Asain is more successfull about focusing and concentration or it maybe can show that they are more hardworking people...

[Uragan]

@lifehouseisthebest hardwork builds empires.

[FRkiddo]

very interesting video, again. Keep up the good work!

[MillerWhiteSchool]

There should be an additional layer of information that indicates democracies versus communist rule or dictatorships.

[vegan4ever]

cool

[LegendSaber]

Very, very interesting. I find it especially surprising that even the richest countries in the world just 200 years ago were comparable to the third-world today. That's just astounding.

[Enleuk]

@LegendSaber

Comparable in terms of health of science, research, knowledge of the human body, but not comparable in terms of economy, because wealth is relative (you gain a dollar, someone has to lose a dollar) and the richest individuals in the richest countries were almost as much richer than the poor as they are today. It's sad that Sub-Saharan Africa are still paying for the wealth of the West.

[berkshireee]

@Enleuk

Hahaha that's because sub-saharan africa is stupid. The economies of countries like china, vietnam, malaysia, and especially south korea were comparable to sub-saharan africa in the 50's, but are all now much better off.

[Enleuk]

@berkshireee Yeah, and it's easy to see how it happens by comparing South Korea to North Korea. You get a stupid leader and the whole country has to pay for it. The difference between Africa and Asia was the Western interests in the regions where the West left Asia but stayed in Africa and just like the US have tried to control every government in South America so has Europe done in Africa and the leaders and wars that spawned left only a small number of countries to develop as the Asian ones.

[berkshireee]

@Enleuk

It's not as simple as that. Yes, the development of africa was never a huge goal for the US or europe but look at the countries where the westerners have been kicked out, such as zimbabwe. The locals were better off during colonial rule. The problem is, the people who took power in africa are uneducated dictators who have no idea how to run an economy and are unwilling to learn from the west.

[Enleuk]

@berkshireee I agree. And the worst-off countries, like Sudan, Eritrera, Somalia, Nigeria are the ones where Christians and Muslims fight, two aspects of the Abrahamic faith of the Levant, imposed through Western and Middle-Eastern cultures. With the exception of maybe Congo/Rwanda where Europe, US, India, China et cetera pump in money desiring natural resources providing fuel for the wars. Not to say some people aren't leading extremely comfortable lives in these countries...

[hoboboxerjoe]

@berkshireee, technically there are few countries (if any) in the world today that run true economies. Outside of small villages that are untouched by the main body of civilization. An economy- as most of us know-means to conserve. When all of our economies do is consume, consume, consume. In fact, if we were to stop consuming, if we were to stop planned obsolesence and build and grow our products to the best possible standrard, our "economy" would collapse. It's more of an anti-economy.

[hoboboxerjoe]

@berkshireee, and you are kind of right about the points you made. No monetary-based government would be good for anyone, especially extremely poor and deprived countries. Colonial rule MAY have been better, but it certainly wasn't a good thing. Any more than an uneducated dictator or (the big elephant in the room) the mass amounts of brain damaged people in wall street and in politics that lack any empathy. As well as those who have been bred for violence since children. They are all victims.

[hoboboxerjoe]

@berkshireee, just like we are, we are all victims of culture. And it's very hard to do anything about it, but we are getting to a point where not only we can, but we have to. It is almost unfathomable, a world without money, just based on strategic resource allocation, but there is a lot of animosity even in me about it. Because all we know is this life. It takes tremendous strength of character to break past one's own conditioning.

[nomadicfury]

@berkshireee but no country in Sub-Saharan Africa has the same history as any of those Asian countries you mention. While colonizers left all those Asian countries, they simply reverted to neo-colonialism in Africa. It's nothing to do with Africans being stupid. That you think this shows how stupid & incapable of looking at history objectively you are.

[berkshireee]

@nomadicfury

Don't kid yourself. Not every subsaharan africa was colonized. Liberia, for example, was established by freed slaves, yet it has the exact SAME terrible economy as the rest of sub saharan africa. There is no country in the world where blacks outperform the average in IQ or earnings. People from dirt poor asian countries can make more than africans once they settle in america. This isn't racism-this is simple fact.

[berkshireee]

@berkshireee

*subsaharan african nation

[nomadicfury]

@berkshireee Liberia was established by the USA you idiot. And all Sub-Saharan African countries are not shit you idiot. In fact 6 Sub-Saharan African countries have the fastest growing economies in the world.

w w w . skyscrapercity. c o m /showthread. p h p

You are just another one of these idiots who doesn't know a thing about Africa. Do you even know what most of their countries look like? The only reason many African countries economied failed is because they listened to the West.

[berkshireee]

@nomadicfury

Yes, by freed american slaves. Fastest growing does not equal advanced. India is very fast growing but have you been there? It's still a dump. Also, african economies rely on resources, and not on scientific innovation/entrepreneurship. There are many countries who opened up to the west, like Japan, which did very well.

[nomadicfury]

Lol! @berkshireee, you pillock when was Liberia formed you complete dork? It was formed by the USA. Just shut the fuck up and atop pretending you have even a molecule of a clue what you are talking about moron. Lol! If African economies rely on resources, then so do most of the Middle East, and South America. Stop wasting peoples time with your illiteracy on global issues. Japan did not practice trade liberalism you idiot, sdame as China and South Korea they protected their markets idiot.

[nomadicfury]

Lol! Even in the USA their are Blacks who outperform the average White person in both earnings and education, lol! For this I can also supply evidence moron. The most highly educated group in the USA are Sub-Saharan Africans. Chew over that. Do the usual racist rain dance claim I'm lying and ask for evidence, lol! I'll happily supply it cracker.

[berkshireee]

@nomadicfury

Idiot, I'm talking about the average. You're saying there are CERTAIN blacks who outperform, not average blacks. If you want to look at the extremes blacks still lag behind everyone else.

[nomadicfury]

@berkshireee the average Black is product of the USA government in the USA. This does not mean all Blacks are average you stupid buffoon. Blacks do not lag behind the run your country you fool and have some of the most successful people in the USA.

Advancing, advanced, most rapidy expanding economy! What the fuck difference does it make fool? You think The Middle East have anything more than what the average Sub-Saharan African country have? If you believe so then show me what that is idiot?

[tomasosores]

1. What about measuring inequality inside each country through those 200 years?

2. Notice the growing of India, from 1950 until now.

[phishstyx1011]

very interesting and well explained.

[Serr8d]

How far along all nations have come in the past 200 years, tagging along behind the 'wealthy' nations. That's happened because of capitalism, not in spite of capitalism.

We should ignore the 'gap' commentary, and use this as a tool to see just how successful capitalism has been. China? You can thank the U.S. and Wal-Mart for their progress.

Is China's progress only temporary? Remember, they are not a democratic nation. They could revert to communism, and might to topple their enemies: US.

[slingshot2427]

I think that the Chinese realize that their move towards capitalism is making them quickly become one of the most powerful nations in the world. I dont think that they will see this and revert to communism as an economic policy, and it is predicted that by the year 2020 that they will be the new economic leader in the world, over the United States, be it good or bad

[Serr8d]

It would be easy for the Chinese to willfully damage the U.S. economy, because they are such an important economic player, and their (communist) political controllers still hate U.S. Until they have a different political system (one that isn't statist) they will have that 'pull the plug' on OUR economy option. They could return quickly to their prior state; it's not like their population could do anything about it; they've enough people to overwhelm the neo-capitalists. Who would miss them?

[slingshot2427]

We would unfortunately considering that they are the manufacturers of the world, and they lend us more money every year.

[RapidEyesCream]

Just because the US sees China as an enemy - doesn't mean that China sees the US as an enemy DUH. Reading that comment you left pissed me off. So what if they are not a democratic nation - what's that got to do with anything?

You've been brainwashed by FOX (FAUX) News.

Fox = Weasel News. You're paranoid. Silly American.

[Serr8d]

Hey, don't tell me. Tell those kids who faced the tanks and were massacred @ Tiananmen Square.

Is that the sort of government you statists want? Not me. The U.S. has (or had, until recently) the best system in the world. We dragged China into the capitalist game by purchasing their goods. Unfortunately, they are still Statist, and can turn on a dime to what they were.

Obama is the worst thing to happen to the U.S. in my lifetime. He is an intelligent man without wisdom. We should not follow.

[JackBrindelli]

No it didnt, the US is renound to the rest of the world as having the crappiest health care around. The rest of the world is shocked at the way you treat the poor and needy with such distaste, "want cancer treatment? well, you should have tried harder in school". and a state solution has worked in the UK for over 50 years, we have not seen the rise of communism here. you sir, are a mook.

[wwwdotLPdotorg]

JackBrindelli

First of all the poor in the US are covered by Medicare which and along with other US government policies and regulations is why the US has such large health care price per capita.

Second your country denies treatment for many drugs covered by drug companies in the US because the are too expensive. Your country denies care to many patients because that is how you keep cost down in a government run program.

The US system just needs more competition amongst doctors to be fixed.

[tejasvi0claw]

Good to know!

[gwjib04]

you should do this by region and much further back in history

[mansoldworld]

Hmmm , interesting ...

[BarneyEire0900]

Im shocked it has so little views....extremely interesting

[martinthekearykid]

Guys, before you allow yourself to be convinced that there is an 'uplifting' message to be derived from this data chart, please bear in mind that 1: the economic swelling is directly proportionate to the increase in population and technical innovation and does not imply that the world is 'getting better'. 2: Imagine a chart that plots the fate of the animal kingdom and wildlife along the same timeline.

[pedizzle77]

incredible

[tjeerdomaat]

Some data must be false some countries' life expectancy jumps up and down almost ten years every year that is statistically impossible (ruling out genocide). Sweden, Iceland and Russia seem to have false/inaccurate data. Or need an explanation.

[Gapcast]

Dear tjeerdomaat,

You make an important observation. Strong variations in mortality year from year is a part of the pre-modern mortality pattern, related to famines, epidemics etc. In countries with low life expectancy, much of the mortality is deaths of children under 5 years old. Life expectancy is based on the deaths during given year, not on the length of life of people born in that year....

[Gapcast]

... Hence, if many people die in one year, the life expectancy will be much lower in that year.

In fact, the countries which jump around are the countries for which we have good data. Also, smaller countries jump around more because one person is more noticeable in the average of a small population. There are also some large historic events that cause visible variations in life expectancy, such as the famine in Russia 1933.

[tjeerdomaat]

Very interesting and nice evolving graphic. But i do not get a couple of color decisions. Why would you make north and south america one color which are 2 complete seperate continents(also economic and politically) while u divide china from asia and clutter it red with oceania? Now australia which i see as a "western" country/economy is in the same color group as china. Also i would have split west form east europe. This graph doesn't look that bad for the poor countries because it is not linear

[saffronix]

Good points.

I, too, couldn't get why N.&S.America were the same colour.

Overall, I find this video quite suspect.

[narfbuoy48]

Seems to me that it is easy to see the spread of yellow countries to see the continuum between Cuba on the low end the US on the high end.

The spread between Australia and China (both red) is also visible and underscores your point exactly that the historical trend isn't exclusively due to geography

[Gapcast]

Dear humbertx,

You are very welcome to subtitle the video in your mother language. (it is Portuguese?) Will you send us an .srt/.sub file that we can add or is there another way we can do this?

[humbertx]

May I subtitle this video on my mother language and redistribute it?

[FattyboyProductions]

this will get hundreds of thousands of views, just you wait!

[bizso09]

this will never beat Laughing Baby and Ninja Cat

[Odziz]

Stunning!