Determining who the asshole is, and visualizing impersonal statistics

[pmb]

In any given situation, the person who is claiming that something is the end of the world is almost certainly an asshole. This is a handy rule of thumb, and applies pretty well across the board, with the possible exception of people talking about global thermonuclear war or other extinction-level threats (large asteroids, etc).

Also, the recent news that nobody seems to be talking about is that according to every peer-reviewed independent study, we have now killed more than 1,000,000 people in Iraq, either directly or indirectly, since 2003 as a result of this war. That is a lot of people - one six-thousandth of the world population, and 4% of the population of Iraq. Visualizing this from an Iraqi point of view resulted in this map. But honestly, this sort of number is way past "visualization" territory. Our government has, in the past 6 years, spent more than $500,000,000,000 on a stupid war, and this war has caused more than 1,000,000 people to die.

One million people. Dead. For what?

Comments

Re: Yes, I'm a visualization geek

[amoken.livejournal.com]

Good point! If they'd included your state, they could have made it look even more impressive! There are like five people who live there, right? ;)

(Two of my good friends are Alaskans, so I feel obligated to tease.)

Re: Yes, I'm a visualization geek

[akjdg.livejournal.com]

Hey now, we counted just last week, and thanks to Zed's six fingered foot, we were able to count, uh, 6 of us.

And we cancelled one of the two bridges to nowhere, so please stop laughing at us.

Only 1/12th* of our last legislative body and 2/3rds of our congressional delegation are currently under FBI investigation, so, hmm. Proceed to mock us again, I think.

* Actually, one has already been convicted, so I suppose he doesn't count as being under investigation.