Human rights & democracy statistics

In this video, made for the Oslo freedom Forum 2009, Hans Rosling talks about the difficulty in measuring progress in Human Rights in the form of comparable numerical statistics. He also shows the surprisingly weak correlation between existing estimates for democracy and socio-economic progress.

The reason may be that democracy and human rights measurements are badly done. It may also be that democracy and human rights are dimensions of development that are in themselves difficult to assign numerical values. But it also seems as much improvement in health, economy and education can be achieved with modest degrees of human rights and democracy. Hans Roslings concluding remark is that Human rights and Democracy maybe should be mainly regarded as values in themselves rather than means to achieve something else.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Human rights
• Hans Rosling
• Freedom forum
• Democracy
• statistics
• data
• Gapminder

[Mike10four]

@hoboboxerjoe You say “generation Y” I say “A” for A has the answer. A, we can do this. A, we can save the world. A, we can become rich. A, this could only happen via our unalienable Rights (A, see my channel video). You say “generation Y,” I say generation “A” for we have the Answer, it is A!!! Disclaimer, I’m not Canadian.

[hoboboxerjoe]

I could go on and on and on, obviously. But within 50 years, when we have implants in our heads that allows us to have access to all the history and sciences of mankind, when we are all able to be fully analytical and IF we get past the age of information, and move into the Age of Reason, we will see an amazing, incredible world. If this stuff happens I could easily see generation Y

[hoboboxerjoe]

Essentially, the entire global economy suffers from a value system disorder. There is no justification for a child dying every 5 seconds because of MONEY instead of lack of food. We have the technology -(hell, with the resouces wasted in World War 2 and in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars we are in we could have fed and clothed and rebuilt the world over 2x)-to do some AMAZING things. We can actually fax entire 3d objects, or create them using special intelligent plastics.

[hoboboxerjoe]

"Create a law, start a business" is an old saying up on the hill and in corporate jerk-off rooms (excuse me, board rooms)

Captialism, democracy, communism, patriotism, marxism, socialism, any of the "isms" we use to organize society, not ONE has any tenant or anything that accounts for the fact that humans need certain things. And monetary incentive is not one of them.it hs been shown on several occaisons that the pressures of today are causing more mental illness than in any other recorded era.

[hoboboxerjoe]

@Mike10four, I agree with you, a resource-based economy is the ONLY way that scientists (Jaque Fresco, the Venus Project, for example) have found to create resource abundance for every single person alive. There are HUGE misconceptions that we don't have enough to go around for everyone. When in reality it is the few hoard much at the expense of the many. Much of the time without realizing or not intending to do so. The monetary paradigm does not account at all for human rights and needs at all.

[Mike10four]

Human Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are part of the Laws of Nature. These Rights apply to all life and social systems throughout the world. Too often those in power are ignorant of, or ignore the forces of Nature resulting in misery. Education of these Rights is the proper course of action, starting with the proof outlined in: watch?v=tdNYVZQYJqI

[Siddtheclown]

9:30...: "human right has a value of its own"

[CityHunter84]

stop measuring and start doing, unless you only want to measure forever to which you have no effect on what you are measuring. instead be a tool of change for your passions.

[LeRoiJojo]

Very interesting. Of course, the whole issue on democraty is a good estimation at best, because those kind of things are hard to mesure, as human rights are. For instance, Polity IV states that Canada is an extremely stable state, and democraty ratings are 10 everywhere. That's what the numbers show, because over here the game is different, with deep questionning of the government care for representativity, various accusations of corruptions. But those are not considered. And it'd be hard to....

[sisforshayla]

interesting stuff, thanks!