Monday, August 30, 2010

We're no. 11, objectively

MIT Technology Review:
Mathematicians Create Objective Quality of Life Index

That's Canada that's no. 11 -- the US is no. 2, but only because Luxembourg is no. 1, and wealthy enclaves shouldn't count, so you could really say that, for all intents and purposes, the US is no. 1, objectively. For what that's worth.

What might be a little more interesting is that this "objective" index, for about the first 20 or so countries (the first 38 if you don't count Mideast oil states), just matches per capita GDP ranking -- meaning that per capita GDP, though often belittled by those who like to think of themselves as above material concerns, is a pretty good proxy for other good things, such as life expectancy, low infant mortality, low TB rates, and no doubt others.

No comments:

Post a Comment

You can use some HTML tags, such as <b>, <i>, <a>