Show HN: Who Arms the World? | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Who Arms the World?

whoarmstheworld.com

61 pointsmoigonz40 comments

This infographic is intentionally misleading. The author is adjusting the radius of the circle based on the export numbers, not the area.

For example, according to the rendered source code, America for 2018 has a radius of 75.05, Germany has a radius of 9.12, for a ratio of 8.22. From the data[0], America has a value of 10508, Germany has a value of 1277, for a ratio of 8.22.

However, since this is the radius, the area of America's big red dot is 17671, while the area of Germany's is 261, for a ratio of 67.7, or sqrt(8.22).

0 http://armstrade.sipri.org/armstrade/html/export_toplist.php

Mexico does not make the top 25 list for 2018. Yet, the circle for the US almost entirely covers Mexico, and part of Canada too.

One of the problems with these circle charts is that most people aren’t very good at visually comparing areas. So to give a psychologically accurate impression you wouldn’t just want to scale the areas either (of course, most people would expect the areas to be scaled, so doing something else is also misleading).

Just a bar chart does a much better job of conveying the relative quantities (of course, it throws away the geography part). I would recommend trying to find some other way than these scaled-circles-on-a-map thingies if possible.

In any event, I think “intentionally misleading” is a leap. It seems likelier that the creator is not an expert in data visualization and wasn’t thinking carefully enough about how to make the plot.

This appears to be a terrible interface put on top of a very simple table.

Why am I scrolling around on my phone just to see the map? What are the underlying numbers? What do they mean? Is the actual number I’m looking at the area of the circle or the radius?

This isn't very interesting. This is just showing who makes the most weapons. It would be more interesting to see where those weapons go.

This is what I was expecting honestly. I assume a good chunk to America, another chunk to other countries with "2nd Ammendment" like rights, or at least where it's legal to own guns for hunting.

Edit: Another interesting bit of information would show which guns by type, company, how many they create and what have you.

I believe this is more bombs and heavy weaponry than light arms.

Oh I see that now. Its not very obvious at first glance what is being illustrated.

That's why Belgium is so low on the list.

The visualization is driven by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database and it tracks only what is calls "major weapons" (see section 3 in https://sipri.org/databases/armstransfers/sources-and-method...). So small guns or similar arms will not be covered. Also, I have not checked the dataset yet, but from the description, a chord diagram of source and destination nations could probably be plotted from the SIPRI database. Would make for a good spare-time dataviz project!

Its excellent that attention is drawn to this, but its not really fulfilling the potential.

Its not interactive like https://www.gapminder.org/tools/ and it doesn't show where the arms are going, and what percentage is brought and which is aid etc.

What would be really impressive is an interactive timeline map with arrows showing production/consumption of aid and arms. Who is giving aid, who is giving weapons, and to whom?

I think that would be interesting to see because I think we all have some suspicions and preconceived ideas in that direction.

ADDED: I have discovered that gapminder has several "Defense and Arms Trade" dimensions.

This is the gapminder interactive timeline for the same data as the OP site is showing? https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=1960;&mar...

For another example, here is arms exports vs imports. Those on the vertical are producers, those on the horizontal are consumers (of foreign weaponry): https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$marker$axis_x$which=...

I'm sure people can come up with better visualizations?

This is usless without showing what is being sold, by who, and to whom.

More like "who arms the world via exports." The vast majority of arms are built for domestic consumption. There are only around $100 billion/year of arms trade. The US alone spends more on more weapons for domestic use than all global arms exports combined.

This doesn't really showcase how Arms flow for a variety of reasons including the reality that a huge portion of small arms are sold outside of official channels without being disclosed or tracked.

Do you think this sale got into the data set? https://www.npr.org/2019/02/21/696561255/heckler-koch-fined-...

What data set is this based on? Are you calculating flows by monetary value (favouring high-end systems) or by quantity (favouring small arms)?

This isn't very insightful nor is this well executed.

The source of the data driving this visualization is https://sipri.org/databases/armstransfers and that has a lot more detail that others have requested.

It feels like this was posted quite a bit before it was fully finished, as it stands it is simply a ranked list with a map next to it. It doesn't really help in visualising the dataset.

I’m surprised a tiny city-nation-state like Singapore is on the list. They don’t manufacture anything. Must be just a billing/money routing stop because of its low tax jurisdiction.

There appears to be a glitch / bug here. When the map first loads, it states the data is for 2018 and lists 50 countries, but the 49th country is blank and there are only 34 circles on the map. When you switch the year to anything else and switch back to 2018, the list has been truncated to 34 countries.

This is already flagged, but for those interested in a more substantial read, I can't recommend "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade" (v2) enough. In reality the US, UK and Israel are the main arms exporters for the world.

I'm a partial colorblind person. I can't tell the difference between the red and what-color-is-that when it comes to smaller scale.

Nice idea but needs more details.. which arms? which companies are the producers? etc..

Nice, I thought Sweden would be higher on the list. In Sweden we're always told that we're best and most in everything you know...

The blur slows my phone down though, and the scrolling of the map locks the screen. Maybe it's only a map though? Nothing after? In which case the large header is unnecessary.

Nice to know we are exporting something

What a worthless site! The UI is awkward, the data very shallow, the visualization provides no insight or understanding. It all could have been a static graph. Why did you even post this, moigonz?

If seeing America profiting from weapons sales makes you unhappy or uncomfortable, I would ask you: who would you rather see profiting instead? Because somebody will. And "nobody should want to buy weapons" is not an answer.

Who is profiting from selling weapons in Japan?

Nobody. Because the government doesn't allow civilians to buy them.

Pass that law in the states and you'll see a big drop in weapon sales.

Rinse and repeat in other countries.

>The gathered data shows the amount of arm exports

The data covers exports, not domestic civilian purchases.

Plus it's not small arms, like guns.

These are "major weapons", things like: aircraft, Anti-submarine warfare weapons, self-propelled and towed guns, Satellites, engines for combat ships, all turrets for armoured vehicles fitted with a gun of at least 12.7 mm calibre.

Nice - simple, clear, and effective. One small piece of UI/UX feedback. Using different colors for "selected" and "hover" (maybe gray?) for the list of countries on the right might be good.

When you click on a country, and then move the mouse above/below that country, the currently highlighted country is also black and imho its confusing.

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