There's a pay wall so can't really get into how they got their conclusions but on the surface I'm very skeptical about it.

What reason is there to suggest that streetlights equals economic development? It could just be something people notice in the west that doesn't apply everywhere.

i'm not suggesting that. they where examples of other factors that influence light pollution.

Oh, so now you're saying we can't even trust dictators? What's the world coming to!

Important to note that these are age-adjusted heart disease mortality rates. Similar to cancer, there can be interesting effects on age-adjusted heart disease mortality if a state tends to have extremes (high or low) in early mortality.

all of them? You're suggesting that every last one of them has the same type of strict rules? That completely beggars belief. Surely it's most likely that countries known for being corrupt and putting out propaganda...put out propaganda?

The problem comparing your quote with american states is the phrase "long been run". Boot is talking on time scales longer than the US has existed.

Most american states have flipflopped between Republican and Democratic multiple times in the last 160 years since the disappearance of the Whigs. (And the parties themselves have swapped positions several times during that space.)

Even a deep blue state like Illinois was under trifecta Republican control as recently as 1996. Deep red Missouri was under trifecta Democratic control from 1993 to 2000 (and has had Democratic governors for 20 of the last 30 years) and used to be a bellweather state.

Which is why China's actual GDP is closer to $10 trillion.
Edit: To the tankie that downvoted, China is estimated to overstate its GDP by an average of 30% every year. When taken into account it nearly halves the official figure.

The worst part seems to be that their leadership is reading their own press releases.

It's the same thing that happened in the Soviet Union. You are given an aggressive target for your five-year-plan. You don't make it, but you fudge the numbers a little to make it look like you did.

Next five-year-plan, they give you an aggressive target from your new baseline (that you didn't actually achieve). There's no way you're making that without fudging, so you fudge away.

Never five-year-plan, they give you an aggressive target from your new baseline - which would itself be an aggressive target for you to achieve in five years.

Repeat this enough and the official numbers become completely unmoored from reality and literally no one knows what's going on.

or they have more strict rules about resource usage. or they have strict rules about advertising. or they have strict rules about when you're allowed to be outside. or those economic bennefits barely come back to most people and are solidated in institutions.

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I don’t know how far this influences the metric, but I know that many parts of Scandinavia have a problem with rising gang violence, many people blame the governments for their bad immigration policies, perhaps clashing with the majority of left Scandinavians(?).

Maybe dictatorships are more environmentally conscious than democracies, so use fewer lights?

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So, Biden is responsible for avian flu and the cooperate monopoly on baby formula? Is that correct? Try again.

I guess polarisation requires that it’s possible to be open about disagreements. Which is kind of a problem in a place like Saudi Arabia, where you risk getting sawed up and dissolved in acid.

Perhaps you can point to any economic policies that the Republican party actively advocates for and are opposed by the Democratic party, that are proven to reduce the cost of eggs and baby formula, as demonstrated to actually work in another developed economy?

For the answer to be taken seriously, please provide a policy that Republicans advocate for, where it has been implemented elsewhere that actually resulted in a drop in prices for those (or similar) items, and how Democrats are opposing it.

Compared to the past and other countries like the Years of Lead in Italy or Colombia that has guerrillas and paramilitary groups in a state of civil war. It really is nothing.

why would you expect that? maybe something about dictatorships just causes less lights in their economy than in "free"/"western" whatever countries.

Just because a small portion of people are insane doesn't mean the sides aren't incredibly polarized. That just means that they have radically different views from each other. Which our parties absolutely do. We are massively polarized right now and the most telling data point is the decrease in bi-partisan sponsored bills over the entirety of our history as a nation. We have only grown more polarized throughout our history.

Do you have any data more substantive than "here's a couple products that had supply-driven price spikes in recent memory"?

Based on above comment about squiggly lines, Philly incorporated lots of surrounding cities increasing their population dramatically.

Thank you captain obvious.

Because the economy’s been so great under Biden lmao

>voting against their interests

“Why won’t the peasants do what I want”

Go give Biden a big thumbs up next time you can manage to find some eggs or baby formula to buy

If economic growth just plain looked different in different places then you would expect the estimate to err on the other side in some cases. There is not a single case in that chart to estimate greater economic growth than officially claimed, all the cases where there is discrepancy, the official figures try to claim more economic growth.

Well, looking at the chart, the claimed growth over period is something like 380%, light pollution based estimate is more like 175%

The real economic growth is not bad at all, but the lies are just outrageous. The propaganda makes them think they are almost about to catch up to developed world, but in reality they have a very long way still to go while their primary drivers of economic growth are running out of steam.