<div>Hi Amara,</div> <div>while I really appreciate the statistics you are showing us, I'm kind of skeptical about such measures as I was after reading the ones you gave for economics.</div> <div>For what concerns the economical ones, for example, it seems impossible that several 3rd world countries are more "competitive" than Italy. What is really meant with that? Their measures are just a way to rationalize something that is quite complicated (as any social phenomenon) to quantify.</div> <div> The size of the economy is considered in the analysis as I understand it but I think it doesn't have the right weight. </div> <div>I'm not an economist but the list seems quite non-sensical to me.</div> <div>How is possible that Switzerland is at the second place? With an rating almost as good as US?</div> <div>It seems that the Economic Forum uses "opinions" of businessmen to assess the measures, not very scientific way to do things.</div> <div> </div>
<div>About the readings, again, statistics are fine, but believe me every European (or anybody from anywhere else) that comes to US immediately notices how uneducated people in general are. Now, I know this is a generalization, but it is a pretty valid one. I know there are exceptional minds and intellectual in this country, but in general even well educated people are educated in a very narrow field and they are pretty unaware of everything else, from history to geography, from literature to art. </div> <div>The educated people in Italy, in particular scientists are extremely well rounded. You can talk about politics with them, you can discuss current events in the light of history and past events, they mention philosophers and thinkers from ancient Greece and ninenteen century Germany when they want to make a point, and so on.</div> <div>I miss that...</div> <div>And about the common people, well one day I was on a bus with a book of Nietzsche and the
driver started to talk to me (while I was holding for my life to the rail in the front of the bus, lol) and said that he read that book.</div> <div>How likely is that to happen in the US (not many buses here anyway...)?</div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div> </div> <div><BR><BR><B><I>Amara Graps <amara@amara.com></I></B> wrote:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Replying to: giovanni santost <SANTOSTASIGIO@YAHOO.COM><BR>Thu, 1 Nov 2007 10:40:14 -0700 (PDT)<BR><BR>Caveat: I'm passionate about books and reading. My second and third<BR>teenage jobs were working in bookstores. In my 20s and 30s, until I moved<BR>to Europe in 1998, I spent a few hours per week browsing in bookstores.<BR>My personal ~1100 volume library fills half of an international shipping<BR>container. Therefore I am sensitive to the reading habits of the
people<BR>in the places (and countries) where I have spent time and lived.<BR><BR>In a country as large as the US, you should know that there are strong<BR>regional differences, and within those regions, more variations as well.<BR>For example, the San Francisco Bay area, (my home for 14 years) has a<BR>high density of readers and book stores, and within that area, Berkeley<BR>probably has near the highest density of bookstores in the world. These<BR>types of pockets of readers might look unusual compared to the rest of<BR>the U.S. Also, we both know that education and high reading habits are<BR>correlated.<BR><BR>Generally, the US is not a country of readers. While Italy, generally,<BR>has more readers (normalized to the population) than the US, Italy is<BR>not a country of readers compared to most of the other EU countries.<BR>Italy's reading habits are more similar to Poland, Serbia, Slovakia,<BR>Croatia.<BR><BR>SOME
STATISTICS<BR><BR>---------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=3613<BR><BR>In the U.S.<BR>Percentage polled who read 1 to 5 books in the last year: 30%<BR>6 to 15 books: 23%<BR>More than 15 books: 20%<BR><BR>---------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>MEASURE OF READING HABITS IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA<BR><BR>In the following UNESCO data,<BR><BR>Book Production<BR>http://www.unece.org/stats/trends/ch11/11.12.xls<BR><BR>I added a column of the population between the ages of 25 and 64<BR>from:<BR><BR>Population data<BR>http://www.unece.org/stats/trends/ch1/1.1.xls<BR><BR>and divided the book production by the number of people who are likely<BR>to be reading. No illiteracy rates have been factored in. This number<BR>represents a rough measure of the reading habits of readers in that<BR>country, reading material published in their own language. Some day in<BR>the future I would like to
further distinguish the reading material<BR>in terms of social sciences, pure and applied sciences, and literature<BR>and arts. And I didn't finish filling in (population values) for the<BR>Commonwealth of Independent States.<BR><BR>Iceland is high because they are not only prolific book publishers and<BR>readers, but their population is also tiny.<BR><BR>The last column is my Rough Measure Of 'Reading Habits' in that Country.<BR><BR>#published<BR>book titles Pop(25-64) #Bks/Pop (*1E3)<BR>(25-64) MEASURE<BR>European Union:<BR>Austria a 8 056 4 559 976 0.00177 1.76668<BR>Denmark 14 455 2 950 310 0.00490 4.89948<BR>Finland 13 173 2 874 152 0.00458 4.58326<BR>France 39 083 30 779 424 0.00127 1.26978<BR>Germany a 71 515 46 445 344 0.00154 1.53977<BR>Greece b 4 067 5 637 830 0.00072 0.72138<BR>Italy 32 365 32 392 640 0.00100 0.99915 <--<BR>Portugal b 8 331 5 499 773 0.00151 1.51479<BR>Spain 59 174 21 984 963 0.00269 2.69157<BR>Sweden c 12 547 4 705 984 0.00267
2.66618<BR>United Kingdom c 110 965 31 849 788 0.00348 3.48401<BR>Other Western Europe:<BR>Cyprus 931 288 507 0.00323 3.22696<BR>Iceland c 1 796 143 120 0.01255 12.54889<BR>Malta c 237 208 842 0.00113 1.13483<BR>Monaco d 70 19 200 0.00365 3.64583<BR>Norway 4 985 2 392 314 0.00208 2.08376<BR>Switzerland 18 273 4 035 791 0.00453 4.52774<BR>Turkey 2 920 31 101 612 0.00009 0.09389<BR>Central and Eastern Europe:<BR>Bulgaria 4 971 4 293 864 0.00116 1.15770<BR>Croatia 2 309 2 365 188 0.00098 0.97624<BR>Czech Republic 12 551 5 503 813 0.00228 2.28042<BR>Estonia 3 265 714 788 0.00457 4.56779<BR>Hungary 10 352 5 501 250 0.00188 1.88175<BR>Latvia 2 178 1 248 150 0.00174 1.74498<BR>Lithuania 4 097 1 811 934 0.00226 2.26112<BR>Poland 19 192 20 131 961 0.00095 0.95331<BR>Romania 7 874 11 809 227 0.00067 0.66677<BR>Serbia and Monta 5 367 5 485 626 0.00098 0.97838<BR>Slovakia 3 153 2 814 102 0.00112 1.12043<BR>Slovenia 3 450 1 111 536 0.00310 3.10381<BR>The former Yugosl 733 1 039 543
0.00071 0.70512<BR>Commonwealth of Independent States:<BR>Armenia 516<BR>Azerbaijan c 444<BR>Belarus c 6 073<BR>Georgia 697<BR>Kazakhstan 1 223<BR>Kyrgyzstan c 420<BR>Republic of Moldo 1 166<BR>Russian Federata 36 237<BR>Tajikistan b 150<BR>Ukraine 6 282<BR>Uzbekistan a 1 003<BR>North America:<BR>Canada 22 94117 126 127 0.00134 1.33953<BR>United States a 68 175149 233 57 0.00046 0.45683 <--<BR>Other member countries:<BR>Israel c 1 969 2792404.8 0.00071 0.70513<BR><BR>a/ Data for 1996 c/ Data for 1998<BR>b/ Data for 1997 d/ Data for 2000<BR><BR><BR>---------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR><BR>>The average newpaper in Italy, is at least at the level of the New York<BR>>Times.<BR><BR>I don't agree. And how often does the average Italian reader read the<BR>whole average Italian newspaper? From all of my time spent on trains and<BR>buses and in public places, I've observed the average reader is reading<BR>mostly the sports
section.<BR><BR>>The average italian news stand has wonderful magazine about art,<BR>>science, culture that people actually read.<BR><BR>Science?<BR><BR>Did I miss more than le Scienze? I hope that that I did. le Scienze<BR>is a small extraction (mostly) of Scientific American with a too large<BR>proportion of advertisements (lately, it seems like half).<BR><BR>The statistics in my tables above is reading material published in the<BR>country's own language. I don't have statistics to give for reading<BR>material published in other languages, but I can comment, with my<BR>personal experience (anecdotes).<BR><BR>A train or airport periodical (magazine) shop in a random place in Italy<BR>contains an order of magnitude less material in volume, range of<BR>subjects and languages than a random periodical shop in Germany,<BR>Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands (which is oddly not in UNESCO's<BR>database),...<BR><BR>I always have a sense that I don't have any oxygen when
I'm in an<BR>Italian magazine stand, while I feel quite at home in a Switzerland<BR>magazine stand. But then, remember, I'm skewed.<BR><BR><BR>---------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>OTHER USEFUL STATISTICS<BR>Trends in Europe and North America<BR><BR>Researchers per Inhabitants<BR>http://www.unece.org/stats/trends/ch3/3.11.xls<BR><BR>Total Expenditure on Education as a % of GDP<BR>http://www.unece.org/stats/trends/ch3/3.9.xls<BR><BR><BR>Expenditure on Research and Development, % of GDP<BR>http://www.unece.org/stats/trends/ch3/3.12.xls<BR>(I've seen more recent stats somewhere, Italy is below 1.0 now, Spain<BR>surpassed Italy a few years ago)<BR><BR><BR>Ciao,<BR>Amara<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>extropy-chat mailing list<BR>extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<BR>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><p> __________________________________________________<br>Do You Yahoo!?<br>Tired
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