Hans Rosling's answers to the TED and Reddit community interview

thank you for the questions and I'm here my office in Stockholm and I'm going to answer them one by one but many of you actually put several questions so then I had to pick one of them the first one is from number one what in your mind is the number one lesson to be learned from your way of looking at data what ought our governments do with that they are not doing well it's clearly to collaborate better the world is coming together whether you call it globalization or whatever and we need the better global governance and by the end of the year the first test for a hope for change is the climate negotiations in Copenhagen let's see if we will do better than last time number two Reuben sandwich if you could present your stats to a panel of any five people in the world who would you choose and why oh that's an easy one I would choose president Lula President Putin president Jintao Prime Minister Singh and President Zuma that is the leaders of Brazil Russia China India and South Africa the leading emerging economies and the middle-income countries that today constitute about three billion of mankind half mankind I think those are the most important leaders because they must on one hand established good and productive relations with a high-income countries that were used to determine everything in this world and on the other hand they have to act decently and make good investment in the poorest countries the investments from China and India and Brazil in the poorest countries in Africa are very hopeful if they are managed correctly so it's those future leader of the world from the big nations that I would love to present number three Universal sprout asks in my experience people do not understand statistics and will never change their opinion based on statistics I would like to ask if you agree no I do but statistics has to go together with other information and with experience that's when it's useful I'll give you one example if I search Google in the United States for unemployment rate this is result and if I click in the one box here I will get a new type of graphic showing the unemployment rate for United States from 1990 and onwards today to an all-time high on 9.7% I think most people the United States understand this curve because it relates to them and they are very keen to see whether it will turn around and they would also like to see how the unemployment have hit different parts of the countries so they can go here and they would look for California and see that California today actually has a higher unemployment than the average of the country it's all the way up to twelve point one and and some of you perhaps or perhaps are interested of Silicon Valley so then we open California here we go down to Santa Clara County and Santa Clara County look historically they were lower than the average in the 90s but in the dot-com bubble burst in 2002 unemployment rate skyrocketed to nine point one percent but today it is higher you see if you present and make statistics accessible in this way then many will start to use it and it will be very interesting now to get the August figures for United States as a whole and the different countries to see whether the present crisis have come to a plateau or whether it is already starting to go down or continuing to rise people are not stupid they'll understand statistics and they will use it if it's made available in in relevant and interesting ways number four rags seven to nine asks what is the most startling or intriguing correlation you have been counted by playing with different values on the X and y axis at gapminder.org well it's not really the correlation but it is what we can do with animation the trends the change of a time that has been most startling to me and the fact that the middle-income countries are catching up so fast let me show you a classical example here in Gapminder world I show total fertility rate on this axis I show life expectancy on this axis and 1800 United States had an estimate these are rough historical estimate of seven children per woman and the life expectancy was just a 39-year those were rough time and if I move United States forward what really happens was that family size started to decline and with industrialization life expectancy started to increase it got better and better progress in medical science and health service and after the first world war and off to the Second World War that was a baby boom and that was 1950 1950 United States had about three children per woman and 68 years typical for part of the Western world now I'll compare that with Vietnam which I find down here that's where Vietnam was 1950 and I'll compare it with Iran two prominent middle-income countries with special relationships to the United States and I could say quite reliable data I know the professionals in these two countries personally that are compiling this data so Vietnam had five children per woman and 39 years like United States 150 years ago Iran 1950 was almost like 200 years ago in United States and now come my message look how they have catched up in the last 50 years they relive the lost 25 years they have catched up like this and today they are just about one younger Asian Xavier narration of the United States when it comes to size of family and length of life this is what I've amazed me more that really the world is converging as EF Sachs says it is getting more and more similar by this middle three billion people when it comes to human resources and family life they are catching up this surprised me when I got the data so clear in front of me number five John what do you think of the state of statistics education in high school and college well I can't think so much because I don't know it in detail but I have a hope and that is that the ability to play computer games and the ability to develop interesting tools in flash can now be used in school but an obstacle is that many schools block the downloading and installing of of Flash readers so there must be another attitudes in school so that students and teachers can access freely the Internet let there be flash in schools and statistics will be found number six Garrus scarcity would you be willing to help the white house presently healthcare budget in such a way as to make it easier for the average person to understand the value of public option or a single-payer plan well I'm willing but I don't know if I'm able because there's been a blockage in the United States regarding discussion of the health system let me show you a graph look at this graph at the horizontal axis I show health spending per person in purchasing power dollars that is comparable dollars between countries the size of each bubble is the size of the population of the countries and here we have life expectancy the length of life the owl come of health service and there is a color here also showing something it is the percent of the gross national product that is used for health service the United States is hot and red with 15% of the national income being used for health service all other countries in the world use less for health service except one little friend of the United States down there which one is this it's East Timor there's only two countries in the world that use more than fifteen percent of the national income for health service United States and East Timor stands out as an exception but neither of the two managed to achieve especially good health in relation to the investment and and and we are also surprised outside the United States that that that President Obama's health plan is regarded as communist or socialist United States can compare with a country like Switzerland Switzerland use 11 percent of its national gross national product for health and they achieve 82 years of life expectancy United States use 15% and we achieve 78 years the United States you don't have to do like like Mike Moore and compare United States with Cuba there's so many countries today that use much less money for health but to achieve the same result here chilla here Costa Rica here Singapore here South Korea here Portugal and down here we have Denmark the many many countries that use less money with the same result and it's range United States that is such a competitive country so good in sport so intrapreneurial so good in film and everything it seems United States don't want to compete in in health care it must be very sad to be the lost the world in using dollar well for health I think this notion has to change in the population of the United States but I don't know if I'm the person to help in that if I could I will number seven playin asks do you think CUDA is an important step in the path of better and richer visualization of data but their player and look at me do I look like a person who know what CUDA is I never heard the term but I look like a person sixty one-year-old who can write codes I've never written code people have given me credit for developing software where I only have expressed the need for the software and had been a keen user the gap behind the software was developed by my son and his wife and a growing team of flesh developers in Sweden that are now moved to Google and now I work together with another team here in Gapminder foundation that developed the stuff that I use in the lectures and don't give too much credit of older males you know they often hasn't done everything you think they've done pepper what are your future plans for Gapminder it is very clear to maintain the users we have and continue with a steady increase but also specifically to develop tools that are suitable for teachers and students in education later this year we will add a part of our webpage called for teachers and there you will get goodies that you can use in education regarding the major global development trends make that Gospel known around the world that Gapminder will provide stuff for schools number nine border groves asks what can be done to encourage governments and international organizations to more actively and effectively collect and publish vital statistics it's easy the World Bank the OECD the FAO the IMF should do as President Obama is doing he nominated the chief information officer Vivek Kundra that started the site data.gov and made the data freely available in both visualization and this is important as data set that could be freely downloadable in relatively uniform format and and totally machine readable so that others companies civil society organizations could innovate and make the data available for special groups in new visual ways this is a way to go forward let the data that has been paid for by tax payers be freely available in ways that complement what government is doing with the data then a fad like Buddha but how do you recommend that I or we help the bottom billion I'm wondering about practical ways the top billion can assist the bottom billion with a small unit of organization well it's good that you're using the new term bottom billions that was launched by Paul Collier the professor of economics in Oxford in this book and I strongly recommend you to also read paul cole years lost book sometimes you have to read books also not only read it and and and Ted videos Paul Collier has written Wars guns and votes this is real about the poorest 1 billion people in the world let me show on these graphics who they are this is income per person in dollars per day and and this was 1970 what has happened in the world is that population has grown and many people have moved out of poverty but just a little bit and now in 2008 this is more or less where the world is the bottom billion is the people living here still on less than one dollar a day and many of them are living in civil war like in Afghanistan Somalia or in very fragile states that are almost falling down into civil wars on the other side of the line you find countries like Tanzania Zambia Cambodia that has come out of the poverty and now start to move on that's another situation and then here in the middle you find what we call middle-income economies like Vietnam Egypt and Peru that are not doing well and are progressing forward but with great inequity still within countries now you need different forms of support for different companies the bottom billion need humanitarian aid so the answer my question is red cross medicines on frontier and similar humanitarian organization on one hand on the other hand wise and careful security operation led by the United Nations those have to be combined and then help good national leaders to move their countries into a more stable situation that has happened in countries like Mozambique in Cambodia and when we come on the other side of this line then microcredits becomes more important but also long-term aid for health like vaccinations for education for infrastructure and then countries must have a fair trade situation in the world so humanitarian aid on this side microcredits on this side and support to education health and infrastructure number-10 be stranger to love what's it like knowing so many on reddit have intense nerd crushes on you it's wonderful but it's also a challenge it's mainly a challenge how can we make information about the world even better available and how can we reach the many with what we have already succeeded with this is what we are trying now with a small team at Gapminder foundation we try to do our best and we are very interesting to get your comments and to have your help to let more people know about our services thank you very much

Channel: TED

Views: 70,747

Keywords: Hans, Rosling, TED, Reddit, TEDTalks, Q&A, interview, Gapminder, statistics, development, economics, health, care

Id: auSFX0o3uFU

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Here's some background. Professor Hans Rosling and his group are developing some mind-blowing ways to use and display statistics.

[u/FionaSarah]

"Sometimes you have to read books.. Not just Reddit." :(

[u/Drevor]

Any idea why the comment page of the "sponsored link" submission is forbidden?

[u/GoShogun]

That was very entertaining. Also, take note of the 8:00 mark for all you health care debaters.

Also, 14:50. I lol'ed.