The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren

October 9, 2024 10:57 AM

"MyLifeElsewhere is a collaborative community that allows you to compare the country you live in with other countries around the world. We'll show you various statistics that differentiate your country from others, including cost of living, geographic size, and more."

"We'll show you various statistics that differentiate your country from others, including cost of living, geographic size, and more."
Be sure to check out the size comparison map for your choices.

posted by thatwhichfalls (10 comments total)

"If you lived in Germany instead of United States, you would:

see 88.0% less coastline

United States has a total of 19,924 km of coastline. In Germany, that number is 2,389 km."

That's a bit misleading given the United States' much larger area. Adjusting for that, Germany has something like 3.3 times as much coastline relative to its size. Although ideally I guess you'd have to further adjust for how much of the population lives near the coast, in which case the US would probably do very well.
posted by jedicus at 11:38 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]

Some really peculiar results when comparing Global South and Global North countries. You'll be told, for example, that South Africa has fewer people under the poverty line than the UK. Not mentioned is that the poverty line is calculated differently in different countries.

And the framing is weird. "You will live 16 years longer" because the average life expectancy is x? Averaging out over class and race?
posted by Zumbador at 11:39 AM on October 9 [1 favorite]

The salary calculations are a bit weird too. As Zumbador noted for life expectancy, it's not broken down in any way, and GDP per capita is a weird way to measure it anyhow.
posted by Bryant at 12:00 PM on October 9

With MyLifeElsewhere, our data is modified and updated using contributions from users just like you. This leads to a large subset of data points, greatly increasing accuracy.

This Site is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a CafeMedia (“CafeMedia”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and CafeMedia will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 12:11 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]

“Sweden is 21% cheaper than the United States!” Uh, no?
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 12:16 PM on October 9

This is weird.

If I lived in United States instead of Canada, I would: "make 31.8% more money" (based on GDP which is a super weird way to measure salary) but "be 60.6% more likely to live below the poverty line".

Also, I would "have 20.0% more children"! ("In Canada, there are approximately 10.2 babies per 1,000 people as of 2022. In United States, there are 12.2 babies per 1,000 people as of 2024.") I am not 1,000 people! I am only 1 person, so I would have... 0.02% more children.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:29 PM on October 9 [2 favorites]

Also, I would "have 20.0% more children"! ("In Canada, there are approximately 10.2 babies per 1,000 people as of 2022. In United States, there are 12.2 babies per 1,000 people as of 2024.") I am not 1,000 people! I am only 1 person, so I would have... 0.02% more children.

Flagged for math crime.
posted by kickingtheground at 1:00 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

I like this.
I expect it will reinforce a lot of stereotypes, plus state a lot of obviouisties (Australia has more coastline than Portugal!)
But even still, it's fun.
posted by chavenet at 2:47 PM on October 9

How are they measuring those coastlines?
posted by Foosnark at 3:06 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

I think the most peculiar thing about the U.K. vs. South Africa poverty rate comparison is that that page lists the World Factbook as its only source, but the source states that South Africa's estimated poverty rate as of 2014 was 55.5%. It is unclear where this website got its 16.6% poverty rate figure from.

It should probably include the international poverty line measure if it wanted to make something approaching an apples-to-apples comparison. That at least is adjusted for purchasing power parity, so the local price of basic goods is factored into how far one's income can really stretch.
posted by skoosh at 7:00 PM on October 13 [1 favorite]