Let me introduce you to the world... the real world.

Honestly folks, this is visual so there's not much I can elaborate on. I'm posting it here because it was SO educational for me. Anna Rosling Rönnlund presented photos of "the world" (the non-Western world) that we normally see... scenes of war, exotic people with lip plates, tigers, warm tropical beaches, etc. You know the drill. You've seen it as much as I have.

She wondered if that was really how the world was. So she sent out photographers and photographed people's doors, toothbrushes, couches, roofs, etc, etc, etc. You can sort and filter by region and by income bracket. What becomes glaringly obvious is that you could walk into any home anywhere in the world that was in your income bracket and feel right at home. What determines lifestyle is nothing more than money... period. What determines "foreignness" is income bracket not geography.

It was a stunning eye opener for me.

[video:https://youtu.be/u4L130DkdOw]

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SnappleBC's picture

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street

You can slice and dice in many ways and look at everything from front doors to bathrooms to medicine cabinets to teeth. For instance, here's a bedroom from the US that is roughly similar to mine:

Now from that same income bracket

Nepal

Latvia

Mexico

But let's go down to a lower bracket. This is still perfectly recognizable but looking a bit spartan to me.

United Kingdom

Egypt

I won't continue here because it just goes on and on. When things start looking foreign to me is when you go significantly down. But they sure do look recognizably similar to each other.

Toothbrushes, hair brushes, shampoo, it's all the same story.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Meteor Man's picture

The toilet and toothbrush comparisons were awesome. I am trying to fathom where Skid Row fits in, where almost everyone has an Obama phone, but has to stand in line to use public porta-potties, except when they are closed from 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. and you have to resort to Third World techniques. We joke about calling toilet paper "white gold"; don't leave home without it.

It's a very strange world. Thanks for the TED Talk video SnappleBC.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

SnappleBC's picture

@Meteor Man

The global elite don't want us to know that that family over in wherever is pretty much the same as us. They do not want us to know that "foreign" refers to income bracket more than geography. After all, what if the 99% globally realized what's been done to us?

Of course, I have serious questions about American liberalism even when it's "real" liberalism. Most Americans are pretty much pegged at the top of the wealth pyramid. When it comes time to redistribute wealth downwards from there, I wonder who's going to still be "left".

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

SnappleBC's picture

@Meteor Man

And I think StudentOfEarth's look at food gives us an interesting way to look at that question. Food (along with water) is of course the fundamental staple of life. So with that in mind, if your diet is high in calories, low in nutrition (carb heavy) then you're in the poor groups. If it's not exactly lavish but does have nutritional value (fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, etc.) then you're in the middle group. If you're plate contains "delicious food" (think a good assortment of spices and base ingredients to make the sorts of things one might see on a cooking show) then you're in the wealthy category.

I think we can safely ignore the Obama phone as not representative of the overall lifestyle. It seems mostly like the rest of Obama's stuff... pandering.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

studentofearth's picture

to assist in understanding economic differences separate us more than geographical and cultural. Thanks for this find.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

SnappleBC's picture

@studentofearth @studentofearth

But yes, I considered it a lucky find myself. I had NO idea that I could just walk into some home anywhere in the world and almost everything would feel the exact opposite of "foreign".

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Deja's picture

Both are very cool!

Here's the full documentary (filmed by the people in the film, from all over the world on a single day).

[video:https://youtu.be/JaFVr_cJJIY]

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