For those of us interested in metrics: I've enjoyed recent conversations with many friends about indices besides the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that may offer a more holistic view of the health and happiness of a society. There's a new Index that has just emerged on the scene called the Global Peace Index (GPI). As opposed to measures of economic productivity, this index focuses on measures of war and peace as a proxy for health and happiness.
Have a look at the Global Peace Index
The website is still under development, but it already offers enough information for us to construct a rudimentary assessment framework. The authors list 23 indicators of Peace (and some other indicators are in the testbed). Do you see any missing indicators? Any favorites? Any that don't belong?
To make a functioning model I would need to connect data to scoring functions for each indicator. Do you have any thoughts on how to measure any of your favorite indicators? By that I mean how would you construct a scoring function for an indicator like Military Capability / Sophistication such that anyone else, using the same data and your scale, would get the same score?
Does your "gut feel" align with the USA's ranking 85th of 149 countries on the Global Peace Index?
How would you use that relatively poor score (we're 43rd percentile) to influence public policy in ways that resulted in a more Peaceful society? Would you try to turn all the red areas green?
Comments welcome.
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