When one thinks of poverty, most people would think instantaneously of wealth, disease, and other aspects of it. Hans brought up a very good point in terms of looking at poverty from different dimensions and considering culture, environment, health, human rights, not only wealth and government as a factor defining a country's real value. These factors that make up a country, were rank in the order of importance for the citizen's life and future generations into a set levels where wealth stays at the low end and human rights as well as culture ranks the highest.
Culture is one tricky factor, since it is a very subjective topic. In certain area on the earth, a particular groups of people has the culture to intermarry their own family, this is not something that is surprising, since there are several groups that does that. However, by doing this, the future generations born from intermarriage families has a big chance of getting rare genetic problems and some research also mentioned that these children might have blood disorders. Would they be a happy and fulfilled family when there are a lot of health problems in the family? I would say, any parents will want their children to be happy and healthy*, and if they know these scientific facts, would they still stand by their culture or think more on the potential health issues that might affect their children?
In respond to Hans' rank, I will vote for health to be rank above culture for reasons above. And besides, in some particular culture, human rights and culture might not go hand in hand. Culture comes from human habit and community values, furthermore, sometimes people's value are corrupted* in some ways causing the generation afterwards to adapt to the corrupted ways and calling it culture or traditional values.
I would also like to question on the validity of the statistical numbers used to create the diagram, are they generated using the same standard and rule? and how would you quantify things such as health/education accurately? there are too many assumptions and variables associated with the statistic used, but the graph, served as a great support and introduction for the topic. (When I think of this, I think it like a Wikipedia. Gives you a good overall picture and basic understanding of what it is).
In conclusion, Hans Rosling's insight on poverty gave a great new look on poverty which all policy makers should understand and acknowledge, especially when they are enacting policies.
(*I am just stating some possible effect of the culture, I am neither trying to undermine any culture or going against it).
~ Ivo Christa
