[Whale biologist]

Originally Posted by realsubtle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The "extreme poverty" statistical grift is a pretty interesting one, kind of similar to the unemployed person versus discouraged worker grift. If you fudge the definition of words like "extreme" enough and bias the metrics you select, you create the statistical impression of a dramatic improvement. If you exclude gigantic masses of impoverished people from your "extreme poverty" category because their poverty is definitionally considered not "extreme" under the arbitrary categorization system, then the illusion of things getting better is established. This is a propaganda technique beloved and well-used by institutions such as the World Bank and the Chinese government, who have a vested interest in hiding the grotesque inequalities their economic priorities create, and it finds an easy audience among people who want very badly to believe that things are getting better somehow for one reason or another. But from the megaslums of India to the favelas of Brazil, from the broken unheated public schools in the United States to languishing neglecting outlying areas of Eastern Europe and Russia, and to the countless people being left behind by China's economic "miracle", poverty is still a daily reality that must feel rather extreme indeed. Truly, it makes one wonder: Are we living in a DEM-ocracy, or a freaking Idiocracy???

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