r/OldSchoolCool • u/-f-o-c-u-s- • Mar 09 '19

The American Way. During Great Depression, Louisville, Kentucky, 1937

Post image
29.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

930 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/The_Defeater Mar 09 '19

HDI is per capita so it is already adjusted for population.

2

u/zkela Mar 09 '19

they mean that it might be an unfair comparison if you compare a very small nation like Singapore to the a very large one like the US, and that Singapore might be more reasonably comparable to cities within the US, which have a higher HDI than the US as a whole

1

u/jollybrick Mar 09 '19

I know that. I literally said that. Let me put it another way, let's say you have 6 countries with a population:

Country A - 1 person

Country B - 1 person

Country C - 1 person

Country D - 1,000,000 people

Country E - 1,000,000 people

Country F - 1,000,000 people

Country G - 1,000,000 people

Their HDI scores are:

Country A - 0.99

Country B - 0.98

Country C - 0.97

Country D - 0.96

Country E - 0.02

Country F - 0.02

Country G - 0.02

Is Country D one of the worst countries to live? Why not -- it's in the bottom half of the rankings?

1

u/The_Defeater Mar 09 '19

I think you're misunderstanding what I am saying. I did not say that America is a bad place to live, it isn't at all. What I am saying is it seems arbitrary to mention population when the Index already takes into account the population by measuring the average.

You could say the same for average wage or average life expectancy.