Is Ireland the best Country in the World?

[Alatar]

Well, it says so on the Internet, so it must be true!

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/ ... -1.1843347

Ireland is the best country in the world and that’s a fact. Kind of. We may struggle economically, politically and militarily while our sporting achievements of late are best described as modest and our Eurovision performances have been abysmal but we’re still as good as it gets according to a new survey.

The Republic’s overall contribution to humanity and the planet has seen it take the top spot in the very first Good Country Index which was published this morning. The index ranks nations according to their overall contribution to humanity using 35 separate indicators from the United Nations, the World Bank and other international institutions spread across seven categories.

Ireland secured the overall top spot by finishing in the top 10 in four of the seven categories and it was six places ahead of the UK and 20 ahead of the US. Iraq, Libya and Vietnam all came joint bottom of the survey.

[Lalaith]

If I had to pick somewhere else to live, Ireland would be it, and I haven't even ever been there.

[Griffon64]

A quick spot check of the data reveals some counter-intuitive ( to my intuition! ) results.

When you drill down a bit into the categories, it explains why to some extent.

The trick is to read the values in terms of international influence. For instance, while the USA ranks at the bottom of comparisons with peer countries as far as health and well-being is concerned because health care is expensive and unevenly distributed internally, on these rankings it scores highly for health and well-being in part because it exports a lot of pharmaceuticals - which contributes a lot to the health and well-being of the rest of the world.

I'd like to know more about the measurements for individual sub-categories, though. For instance, what exactly are creative goods and creative services? Whatever they are, the USA apparently exports around average for the first category and nothing for the second.

[yovargas]

Funny you posted this today as just yesterday I was casually googling around to see if I could find much supporting American's strongly held belief that the US is The Best Country in the World. By some measurements (but not by others) we still make the most money per person and of course we have the giganticus military but that's about all I could find for stuff we're best at. The Swiss and the Scandinavian countries come out on top a lot for stuff like standard of living and health a lot. Didn't see much Ireland I'm afraid but surely being home to the world's best accents has got to count for something, right?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

We're number (twenty-)one! We're number (twenty-)one!

[Inanna]

India is 81st! Bladderdash. But importantly, we are above Pakistan! And China!

[yovargas]

So here's a fun wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_to ... by_country

It shows what each country is #1 at including such fun facts as - Czechs drink more beer per person than anybody, more people visit France than any other country, and S. Koreans pay half as much for internet twice as fast then what the US gets.

[Jude]

Oddly enough, only yesterday morning on CBC they had an interview with the Irish ambassador - there's a work-exchange program between Canada and Ireland going on, and they're trying to persuade young Canadians to go over and work, and possibly settle permanently.

[River]

There's an odd poetry in the notion of Ireland recruiting immigrants. Some sort of closing of a circle.

[Alatar]

I dunno where they're supposed to work though... we're in the middle of a recession!

[Dave_LF]

There's an odd poetry in the notion of Ireland recruiting immigrants. Some sort of closing of a circle.

Next, they're going to starve tons of potato plants.

[tinwë]

- Czechs drink more beer per person than anybody,

Well of course they do! After all, Czech Republic is home to the City of Pilsen which is where Pilsner style beers originated, the most commonly consumed type of beer in the world!

[nerdanel]

Funny you posted this today as just yesterday I was casually googling around to see if I could find much supporting American's strongly held belief that the US is The Best Country in the World. By some measurements (but not by others) we still make the most money per person and of course we have the giganticus military but that's about all I could find for stuff we're best at. The Swiss and the Scandinavian countries come out on top a lot for stuff like standard of living and health a lot. Didn't see much Ireland I'm afraid but surely being home to the world's best accents has got to count for something, right?

The link you posted indicates that we're AWESOME at strawberries, we're hella good at using tons of electricity and gas and oil, we like to buy stuff, no one can beat us at locking up people (and then making good Netflix shows about it *cough* OITNB), and also BANG BANG BANG BANG. We've got lots of folks with the $$$$, we make a lot of money, and also we just sorta excel at spending money (that we may or may not yet have made). We also like other folks. We invest a lot in their countries and import a lot of their stuff.

Also we write a lot of books and make a mean melting pot. Moreover, bentonite. And lastly and definitely most importantly, CHEESE. IN YO FACE, France.

[Primula Baggins]

Almost 2.8 million science journal articles published in just over 10 years. That ain't bad either. About as many new books would've been published over the same span.

But most of the U.S. is not nearly as pretty as Ireland. Oregon excepted—western Oregon is Ireland with lots of trees.

I was bemused though to note that San Marino has more cars per capita than the U.S. And we can only bow before the number of Eurovision song wins, a crown that belongs, of course, to Ireland.

[Alatar]

Lets not forget Riverdance!

[Túrin Turambar]

The thing that I find interesting about Ireland is that it is a bit of an exception to the usual pattern. In general, the countries which come out on top of these sorts of well-being rankings are the Protestant Germanic states of Northern Europe (the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, which half-qualifies), or the former dominions of the British Empire, which can be thought of as Protestant Germanic Northern-European states by cultural inheritance (the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia). I find Ireland to be the exception that tends to most consistently score highest – it is Celtic and Catholic rather than Protestant and Germanic. It has done so less over the past few years following the financial collapse, but its fundamentals still seem to be quite stronger. Stronger than in Greece or Spain, for example.

Of course, it is the only one of the five Celtic nations that is an independent state, so it is in a bit of a category of its own. But the Celtic inheritance seems to be a very robust one, given Scotland’s disproportionate influence on the British Empire in areas from philosophy and science through to colonial administration.

[Dave_LF]

I was bemused though to note that San Marino has more cars per capita than the U.S.

When your population is that small, it probably only takes a handful of rich enthusiasts with big collections to achieve that.

[axordil]

Malta actually has an extremely high number of cars per capita as well, and it's not quite as small as San Marino.

[yovargas]

If nel ever decides to switch careers, I believe she could have a great future in the tourism boards of either her city or her country.