this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
17 points (60.5% liked)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

the map has tons of unpopulated area, barely any metro area, and the blue is still 5000 murders less than SA. at least balance it a bit better ✌️

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

holy cherrypicking 🙏🥀💔

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

South Africa has ~64 million people

Which is less than... Britain (~69 million)

Which is less area on the displayed map than the red section.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There are three kinds of falsehoods: lies; damned lies; and ~~statistics~~ poorly conceived maps.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Cartography is lying.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago

Since they're so clearly cherry picking, they should have also added Antarctica

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

BREAKING: the entire moon has less crime than South Africa! That's 38 million sq km of no crime!
/s

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Square kilometers?! But I thought the moon was round!

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 days ago (3 children)

The choice of regions feels cherry-picked to inflate the blue area on the map. Why else would they include Mongolia, or include only the least-dense regions of the US and Russia while excluding the major population centers?

While South Africa certainly has a lot of murders, both absolute and per capita, this map could easily be draw with a lot less blue on it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For real, they picked the most barren places on earth (except Europe). Most of the land mass of Canada, Australia, and Greenland are deserted. Midwest US is all farmland. No one lives in Siberia

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Yes, but just having pretty much all of Europe is a lot of people. So not as cherry picked as many maps that cherry pick.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's the whole point. I'm guessing they could pick one or two Central American or other African countries and get the same balance.

Also, picking on SA specifically smacks of the whole apartheid hangover thing that's going on.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Like, comparing it to China or India?

Comparing absolute numbers in a statistic like this is particularly egregious. At least make it per-capita. May as well compare the number of murders per year in the continental US to the number of murders per year in the entire polar regions. Shock, horror, American so violent!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

For example, using absolute numbers from Wikipedia...
South Africa: 27,272
Haiti + Philippines + Ecuador: 28,509

That map would look very different.

You're right that using absolute numbers in the first place is bad practice.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Newer Zealand: Under Australia Edition

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Well at least it’s on the map this time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ever heard about Russia attacked Ukraine?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

That is a good point! Russia 's doin some crime that is going to skew the data and make SA look like Switzerland.