This is the part of the conversation where I ask what your credentials are in this area, because all of the people I know who professionally study in these areas have high confidence in the data set and methodologies.
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And so we’re entering the ad hominem territory. Didn’t take that long.
Today’s weather is a good example of a small sample size.
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I know, right? 
Thanks.
How is asking for your credentials (so that I can weight your assertion) an attack? If you have expertise in this area, we should know that.
Just stick to the facts.
That’s not really accurate. US tax rates are also significantly lower.
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Ahem.
Words do, in fact, mean things.
In light of the fact that many forum participants are not native English speakers, and that people’s areas of professional expertise vary widely, a request that someone clearly define their terms is not an attack. Nor is a request that statements of (purported) fact be supported in some way, whether by citation to a recognized expert or by reference to the participant’s own credentials.
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I haven’t done a comparison of tax rates between the different countries but certainly VAT in Europe is very high.
This gives an indication of level of spending both in terms of gross amount and as percentage of GDP.
Germany has definitely decided to up its spending.
And Macron wants to build a EU army.
China and Russia have succeeded in making pacifist Japan and Germany re-militarize. How will that work out 50 or 100 years from now?
Thank you for pointing out that list of wars that Sweden has been involved in. I had quoted 1814 as the end of the Napoleonic wars but certainly Waterloo in 1815 was the actual terminus.
But after 1815 what is listed could hardly be called wars, some Swedish volunteers headed off to fight. Or in the case of the Invasion of Aland the Swedes suffered one casualty who had committed suicide.
All other military involvement seem to be in regard to UN missions.
So while technically you could say that, yes Sweden has been in some conflicts since 1815, but these were minor in the extreme and hardly full scale military conflicts resulting in great loss of life or materiel as Sweden experienced in the Great Northern War, or the Napoleonic Wars.
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Interesting how this thread morphed from Tech support to Geo-politics.
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This is the thread that keeps on giving.
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one casualty who had committed suicide.
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I’ve been doing some advanced studies in data management over the past couple of weeks and the key conclusion I’ve drawn so far is that the only reliable use of any data is to figure out why a decision you’ve already irreversibly made was wrong.
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I was a data scientist for the USAF before it was called that (personnel analyst and operations researcher at the time). Math and data are the only way to know anything complicated. If you got the wrong answer, you talked to the data instead of listening to it.
(I had to LOL at spending 2 weeks on advanced study of anything.)
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I love this quote so so much.
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Yup on my course they say things like that all the time to explain why data was only useful in hindsight.
People say a lot of things. That’s why we need data.
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As part of my review of my own attempts at writing, I often revisit how I distill data. I ofttimes remind myself of what may be obvious to most:
- The ultimate goal of ALL data analysis is to predict or forecast future events and/or conditions (or our future understanding of past events and/or conditions).
- We look back at historical events and/or conditions to understand what patterns created those events and/or conditions, again with the goal of predicting or forecasting future events and/or conditions (or for our future understanding of past events).
- Data alone represents useless chaos without algorithms to interpret the data, as simple or complex as those algorithms may be.
- I use a two word metaphor: elevation versus altitude to distinguish how algorithms are used to interpret data. The two are somewhat interchangeable, but are not the same.
- Elevation, such as mountain elevation, describes the height of an object connected to the earth. Altitude, such as that of an airplane, is the disconnected distance above the earth. (I recognize there are other definitions.)
- Algorithms often vary with the viewer’s elevation or altitude.
- Algorithms fashioned at altitude often depend on algorithms developed at elevation. (A satellite photo of a tank may only be identified by an earlier image obtained at ground level.)
- How data is interpreted depends on the distance from the data, and by the type of connection to the data, e.g. by elevation or altitude.
Every day I question my own preconceived notions about what notions I believe. When I find ‘confirmation’ of a notion, I try to remember the type of distance, elevation or altitude, the notion is from the data, and the type of algorithm that interprets the data.
Sometimes the metaphor is helpful, others not. Your mileage may vary.
scrive
You can make data say anything, but experts have experience and instincts, and reputations to lose.
Giving data to smart people and asking them to make decisions leads to the Challenger disaster and an explanation after the fact as to why they got it so wrong. If they’d listened to the instincts of the experts, though…
#LessData #MoreVoodoo
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