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AlterNet reports:
Most peaceful countries"We are living in the most peaceful century in human history; however, the 2014 Global Peace Index shows that the last seven years has shown a notable deterioration in levels of peace."
So begins this year's peace index [script heavy site], an annual report released by the nonprofit Institute for Economics and Peace. The study ranks 162 countries (covering 99.6% of the world's population) according to a complex set of indicators that gauge the absence of violence and political instability. These include a nation's level of military expenditure, its relations with neighboring countries and the percentage of the population held in prisons.
Check out this infographic [pdf] to see which countries are the most and least peaceful, and access the IEP's full report here [pdf].
1. Iceland
2. Denmark
3. Austria
4. New Zealand
5. Switzerland
6. Finland
7. Canada
8. Japan
9. Belgium
10. Norway
Least peaceful countries
1. Syria
2. Afghanistan
3. South Sudan
4. Iraq
5. Somalia
6. Sudan
7. Central African Republic
8. Democratic Republic of the Congo
9. Pakistan
10. North Korea
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Jiro on Sunday August 10 2014, @03:44PM
Coming up with a single number to "rank" countries in terms of peacefulness is about as sensible as coming up with a single number to rank how good television shows are. You can add together numbers that measure other things, such as number of viewers, you can weigh them based on your idea that a TV show that airs at 1 AM and has not been cancelled is better than a show which airs at 8 PM but has the same number of viewers, you can say you subtract two points for every Kardashian that appears on the show, but ultimately, you're just making it up and you can get any result you want depending on how you measure it. Perhaps the best analogy is managers in employment, who love totally useless measures of employee productivity and such because they're numbers that can be compared, and by golly, everyone knows which number is larger than another number.
On top of that, many of the factors that go into the ranking are just misleading. How much of the US's ranking is affected by high crime rates among inner-city minorities or Mexican immigrants, when higher-ranking countries just don't have those?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:30PM
Racism! Mods! Mods! Delete this post and ban the user for life!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @06:03PM
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:30PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Funny) by EETech1 on Sunday August 10 2014, @10:20PM
Everyone loves you.
Until they inevitably turn on you.
For not being one of them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:32PM
Some major reasons the United States ranks much lower than Europe:
1. The highest, by far, military expenditure in the world. This has nothing to do with high crime rates among inner-city minorities or Mexican immigrants.
2. Involvement in lots of wars in the last decade (Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya), and covert actions in Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Ukraine, and just about everywhere else. Also nothing to do with inner-city minorities or Mexican immigrants.
3. The largest prison population in the world. This one is mostly about the War on Drugs, because the vast majority of prisoners in the US are there for non-violent drug offenses, typically pot possession.
4. A murder rate that is 5 times that of Europe. This one is only partially caused by the specific populations you refer to: almost half of murders are committed by white people, and lots of murders and other violent crimes happen in rural areas.
So yes, it matters that there are still serious problems of violent crime among non-white people in the inner cities, but if you completely solved that problem you'd still be seeing the US ranking something like 105th overall.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Jiro on Sunday August 10 2014, @07:25PM
I didn't say that all the figures are caused by minorities, I used that as an example of what was wrong. The *main* problem is simply that the whole thing is completely arbitrary. You want the uS to score low? Then just pick the things you don't like about the US that can be connected to peace and weigh them highly.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:28PM
I'm really curious what standards of peace you would use that would cause the US to be ranked highly as a promoter of peace.
You can argue that the wars waged by the US were fully justified, or that they prevented a greater war from happening. But to claim that a nation that is fighting a bunch of wars right now is more peaceful than Switzerland (who last fought a war in 1847) is simply silly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday August 10 2014, @05:34PM
If you look at the first link, you have quite a few individual numbers to select (in total 22, if I counted correctly). Just click on "Specify indicator".
Particularly in the jailed population the U.S. are second worst, with only North Korea being worse. On the other hand, surprisingly the U.S. are ranking first place for violent crime (that is, less violent crime than any other country in the world).
Note that the site offers also an U.S. peace index. The least peaceful U.S. state is Lousiana, the most peaceful state is Maine.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.