40 replies to this topic

[Rational Madman]

overall, Canada is the best place to live in the world, followed secondly by the US and then the UK. Japan would be 4th on my list if it wasn't for the recent earthquakes.

Like I said, the UN's Human Development Index provides a good basis for ranking countries, but I think some improvements could be made in terms of the calculated weight of categories, and the dependent variables chosen.

So here's my preliminary proposal:

Education (The product of educational attainment with average inflation adjusted compensation)
Health (The product of aggregate health related R&D spending, physicians per capita, patents per capita, and the rate of survival for life threatening conditions).
Human Security (The product of the rate of felony offenses with the attributable loss in income and life).
Income (The product of aggregate household wealth per capita and the rate of household wealth mobility per annum).
Inflation (The product of the rates of inflation for core, commodity, and producer prices).
Taxation (The quantity of aggregate taxation per household minus the inflation adjusted value of government services).
Property (The product of the median monetary value per/square foot, the level of output per /square foot, and the amount of square feet inhabited by each household).
Public Services (The multiplier effect of public spending minus the public liabilities incurred per annum).
Output (The Gross National Product defined in real terms).
Poverty (The percentage of households living below the median level of household wealth---let's define household wealth as the sum of available credit, income, and asset values minus liabilities per annum)
Labor Market (The percentage of the population participating in the official and underground economy minus the quantity of retirees or disabled)
Rule of Law (The product of the rate of recidivism and the per capita cost of infractions and enforcement----not including allocations for the mitigation of external threats).
Happiness (The product of the per capita incidence of DSM defined neuropsychiatric illnesses, the per capita rate of suicide, and the per capita attributable costs of neuropsychiatric illness).

I'm not sure about the appropriate methodology for weighting categories and calculating aggregate scores, but I think the value of each variable should have some basis in literature supported values in determining output, costs, longevity, and happiness. For obvious reasons, this isn't an urgent project, but if I find that it has any momentum----I suspect some friends, colleagues, or what not will slowly sculpt it into something more shapely.

[Alex Libman]

It's interesting to indulge in statistical trivia, but I disagree with your priorities of what makes a good place to live. Some of those statistics are circumstantial - what your neighbors achieve does not benefit you directly. Where you live is not the same question as where you invest your money. Aside from a small circle of family / friends, communicating with people over the Internet is better anyway. Moving to a place with high life expectancy or literacy will not affect those attributes of yourself. Etc. I'd place more emphasis on freedom instead.

[Rational Madman]

If there was reason to rank freedom as one of our supreme values, and if there was strong correlation with desired dependent variables, then you might have a point. Furthermore, of course wealth is an important per capita measure, because among other purposes, it's part of an an image of the quality of life, the cost of living, economic opportunity, expected earning, and possible tax earnings---which many households will feel when it's appropriated for spending. Wealth, and other markers that I chose serve multiple functions, but all serve the unitary purpose of acting as qualitative measures of distinction.

Edited by Rol82, 09 September 2011 - 03:23 PM.

[Alex Libman]

(1) I think your universal translator may need further adjustments...

(2) Without freedom, all other indicators have no objective value, because you don't know if they are doing each individual good or harm and to what degree.

(3) Wealth is an important measure, but you must take a number of things into account. Countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands were among the first in the world to achieve some degree of capitalism and industrialization, which gives them a tremendous advantage over countries like for example Estonia or Chile. And of course accumulation of per-capita wealth can be punished by higher fertility rates, which are a good thing in of themselves - what can have a greater long-term economic value than human beings?

[drus]

I agree that freedom and the human factor are most important, but 'freedom' must be tempered, and human beings must never be looked at as simply economic commodities. When/if human beings are viewed only in terms of their economic value...freedom and liberty have been lost.

Edited by drus, 06 October 2011 - 06:54 PM.

[Mind]

I usually look here for good places to live. It is a starting point. Unfortunately the U.S. is tanking in the freedom department.

[drus]

I usually look here for good places to live. It is a starting point. Unfortunately the U.S. is tanking in the freedom department.

3 thru 9 seem reasonable, 1, 2, and 10 are questionable.

[hivemind]

Scandinavian countries are great because almost nobody is really poor. US is a rich country, but there is also such extreme poverty and misery that you never see here.

[Luminosity]

The women in several countries have asked some of you to migrate to Antarctica. And the penquins are scared.

[j03]

My new top place to live:
Eastern Europe.

Slavic women all beautiful, elegant, smart, and graceful ... unlike the the typical North American woman

Edited by j03, 12 November 2011 - 05:21 AM.

[hivemind]

Slavic women all beautiful, elegant, smart, and graceful ... unlike the the typical North American woman

That is because they have less money and worse rights than North American women.

They have to be beautiful in order to be treated decently.