According to the Human Development Index right now Switzerland is the most developed country in the world, what are your thoughts on that?

29 comments

  6. When planetary pressures are factored in, Switzerland drops to 8th:
    https://hdr.undp.org/planetary-pressures-adjusted-human-development-index#/indicies/PHDI

    PHDI discounts the HDI for pressures on the planet to reflect a concern for intergenerational inequality,
    similar to the Inequality-adjusted HDI adjustment which is motivated by a concern for intragenerational inequality.
    It is computed as the product of the HDI and (1 – index of planetary pressures) where (1 – index of planetary pressures) can be seen as an adjustment factor.

    PHDI is the level of human development adjusted by carbon dioxide emissions per person (production-based)
    and material footprint per capita to account for the excessive human pressure on the planet.
    It should be seen as an incentive for transformation.
    In an ideal scenario where there are no pressures on the planet, the PHDI equals the HDI.
    However, as pressures increase, the PHDI falls below the HDI.
    In this sense, the PHDI measures the level of human development when planetary pressures are considered.

  9. I live in Switzerland and I am swiss, there is a ton of things not working here. From healtcare to road management and maintenance.
    Maybe because I live in the southern region, Tessin.

    Surely we have better healtcare than shithole countries, but not comparable with the ones of Italy, Spain, German and Portugal.

    To give an idea about the inefficiencies: there is an highway between Bellinzona (Tessin capital) and Milan (Italy). The swiss chunk of this highway, a 30km / 20 miles trait, is ALWAYS under maintenance. Every f*ckijg day of my last 22 YEARS here.
    A few years ago reporters started investigating this black hole , the highway and horrible road management, that drains public money (asfaltopoli), but it has been silenced immediately.
    Traffic jam are a fucking nighmares.

  11. Most of Israel is such a shit hole. And is in front of Austria. Economy plays a big role in this list.

    Switzland No1 maybe based.

  15. makes sense but who’s this list published by ? what are criteria? the topic is too serious to got discussed through such a list

  17. My thoughts are that the HDI is pretty irrelevant due to what it measures: Per capita income, education and life expectancy.

    There’s a ton of relevant factors missing.

  19. Sounds about right. I grew up in a rural, very poor town in Arizona, saw many parts of the US, and now I live in Switzerland.
    My boyfriend grew up in Portugal, lived in Mozambique for a year, and now lives here in Switzerland as well.

    I’ve lived here for 10 years and he has for 5, and the little things about Swiss society and efficiency still amaze us. The punctuality, clean streets and parks, people’s little habits while interacting with others that make life more convenient, the organization, the upkeep of buildings, the constant construction, the quality of life, the education, the cost of living compared to wages (both are high, balances out perfectly), the social systems – it’s seriously impressive.

    For people that have lived here their whole lives, it’s REALLY easy to take these things for granted and complain about the very small things. We’re really lucky to be living in Switzerland.

  22. I mean, meh. These metrics are never absolute – they’re just a set of things that some group of people has decided contributes to development and are then somewhat arbitrarly combined into a single metric. You can never truly respresent any country with a single metric – we do it because that way we can rank countries and people like ranking countries.

    With that in mind, being high on the HDI generally does mean a good quality of life for the people, but that’s the only conclusion you can draw really. Having 0.961 vs 0.962 or 0.959 does not mean anything because the metrics used to calculate this flawed overall metric arent accurate enough anyway.

    Switzerland has always been high – it’s a developed country and we know that. I don’t think in the last few years we got significantly more developed than Norway or Sweden in any sense – things have stayed the same while by mathematical chance our number got a little higher. Taking the 1st place from 2nd or 3rd is nice to show off but doesn’t mean anything really.

  23. There are a lot of problems with the swiss system but compared to other countries, it’s pretty nice living here.

  25. They keep talking about human development, but they never actually deliver that new human they’re developing, which makes me suspicious

  28. There’s no doubt that Switzerland is amongst the worlds premier places for residence. But some questions on the list are needed. Is Hong Kong really #4, given all that has been going on there in recent years, increasing China pressures etc? Is Hong Kong really better than say Canada (or even Lichtenstein)? Is the UAE, with known issues on human rights abuses (on foreign workers) really worthy of a higher score than say France or Spain? Is Saudi Arabia deserving of a higher score than Portugal?

    Not trying to deny (nor support) Switzerland holding top spot. But some calls to question on the metrics they used to arrive at their conclusions, when some country scores seem to be a bit out of place. It calls the whole list into question.

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