Support NeoGAF

[Phediuk]

So basically each of those individual tribes counts as a new ethnic group. Kind of misleading.

yes, different ethnicities are counted as different ethnicities.

that's the point.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

So wait, from the methodology, if a nation has only two ethnic groups split 50-50, then it'd be considered highly diverse because you're very likely to pick two individuals that are not from the same ethnic group?



The methodology highly favors countries like Canada.

That's not how the statistics work, you're far more likely to get two people from a random sample to be from the same group if the split is 50/50 (at least 25% for every random pair) compared to split of 25/25/25/25 (chance drops to 6%) or 10x10 (chance drops to 1%).

 

[patapuf]

Lol at the Netherlands being 151 and so terrified of Islamization.

But at the same time, I'm pretty sure that means the methodology is seriously flawed. Self-defining as belonging to a group would be severely slanted towards federalist states. Like Switzerland.

I mean, just look at the immigrant rates:

Eh, Switzerland has among the highest immigrant rates in the world and 4 different language regions... it's federally organsied because it's diverse, not the other wa round.

 

[lightskintwin]

yes, different ethnicities are counted as different ethnicities.

that's the point.

LOL This. I think people are caught up on skin color and think there's very little difference between Black Africans regardless of their tribe.

 

[SolarPowered]

What's the reason for Africa being so diverse?

Largest continent on Earth, birthplace of humanity, tons of languages/cultures/religions, close proximity to Southern Europe/the middle east and plenty of natural barriers (think deserts, dense jungles, plains, mountains, dangerous fauna and more) that can isolate different groups from each other. The diversity is insane when you take these and other factors I probably don't know of into account. Clans could live hundreds of years without contact with each other just because of the sheer distances alone. Europeans are practically packed next to each other like sardines in comparison.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

What's the reason for Africa being so diverse?

It's based on ethnic diversity, rather than 'racial' (ie, visible skin or continental level geography-based). To provide some illustration, here's a map of the linguistic groups of Nigeria:

This correlates to many of the larger ethnic groups, but in reality? Nigeria's got close to something like 500 recognised ethnic groups living within its borders, and the majority aren't exactly foreign in origin. Mind, the basis for how these are recognised can be subject to some scrutiny, and doesn't easily align with how western ethnic groups are often classified. Then again, these same groups haven't been aligned as a singular nation state to the same degree, for a similar amount of time, and in the same manner that many western ethnic groups have been, and so haven't melded together to forge a singular, overarching ethnic identity.

If you altered the metric, the countries of Western Europe and the Americas could easily come out ahead, while the rest of the world would be largely aligned pretty similarly in all honesty.

 

[Dusk Soldier]

Probably because it's not necessarily reflected in the culture or media.

Canadian TV is way more diverse than American TV.

Canadian TV shows cast Asian and Indian actors in major roles all the time. In American shows, those actors have to compete with black people for token minority roles.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Oldest continent (for mankind) in the world, has the most resultant biodiversity.

It's counterintuitive because everyone looks "black", but most of them are further apart both culturally and genetically than you'd imagine.



Why? Africa is factually the most genetically diverse continent, and has nearly as many languages as all of Asia.

Yea it's really amazing how the mentality of African = Black (One group) has been perpetuated throughout modern history. A relic of colonialism I guess.

 

[PillarEN]

Kinda sad to see South Korea that low, I now fear that the group trip I'm taking with my friends to South Korea be kinda ruined by the language barrier.

How so? People from all around the world travel to countries that are very diverse or very homogeneous in which English is not the first language. Wouldn't make a difference if you went to Democratic Republic of Congo (diverse by this study's standard) which is predominantly French speaking (at least as far as I know thanks to Belgian colonization) or if you are in Korea where they speak Korean. You just hope some folks can speak a little English and if it's broken English then you are still gold.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index

Look at that. You shouldn't be concerned. Enjoy your trip

 

[His Majesty]

This study makes a lot of sense. My historical knowledge of Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania is rather limited but I don't think they have gone through the various periods of cultural assimilation that Europe has gone through.

 

[Flux]

Yea it's really amazing how the mentality of African = Black (One group) has been perpetuated throughout modern history. A relic of colonialism I guess.

Well... it's what I thought too until looking up the breakdown and that linguistics map.

 

[Crocodile]

Not counting 2nd+ generation immigrants seems like it limits how useful this comparison can be?

Or I guess rather it measures diversity in a different way than many people normally think about the subject

Seeing Japan as the third least diverse country in the world reinforces how I kinda shrug off people trying to taking their games to task for not being super diverse when probably the vast majority of people in that country have never seen someone not Japanese except on TV.

I mean its not like there are a million resources exist to learn about people not like you or that their products are made for export in a global industry :/

 

[nelsonroyale]

Hmm I immediately thought this was based on genetic diversity, but it seems it isn't. I am surprised.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

Lots of factors to consider here, UAE for example does not give citizenship to people born there unless the father is a national....tons of people born there that fall under the banner of "foreigner" despite living there their whole lives.

Therefore they can say the country is "diverse"

 

[Phediuk]

Hmm I immediately thought this was based on genetic diversity, but it seems it isn't. I am surprised.

It probably still correlates highly with genetic diversity, given that Africa is more genetically diverse than the rest of the planet put together.

 

[Charles Brandon]

yes, different ethnicities are counted as different ethnicities.

that's the point.

Well it's the point the study may be trying to make but it's fundamentally flawed as an argument in my opinion. There may be 10,000 distinct tribes in PNG plus some anglos but whilst those tribes may see stark differences between their own tribe and all the others in terms of genetics and cultural and social factors, no one from outside PNG would be able to tell the difference. 10,000 different ethnicities who are 99% the same. They see only the 1% difference, everyone else sees the 99%.

Whereas you could go many places in the world and see people from cultures and genetic backgrounds which are as diverse as the entire range of the human experience.

This is really a semantic discussion about what "diversity" means but I would wager that what most people think it means is not the same as what the people who have conducted this study have defined it as and consequently the study does not answer the question that it has set itself to the satisfaction of the average reader.

 

[Munti]

I like that Switzerland is listed very high (even higher then USA), contrary to what many people may believe. We have a lot of diversity here but Switzerland is always one of the first countries named when talking about isolated countries.

 

[Hrothgar]

Europe also used to be inhabited by thousands of small tribes/ethnic groups, but as these banded together/absorbed eachother to form larger entities, the distinction between these ethnicities slowly dissappeared, resulting in overarching ethnicities. Nowadays you would be hard pressed to find distinct (native) ethnicities in a given European country, barring a few exceptions like the Sami/Basques/Frisians/Welsh/etc, who managed to hold on to varying degrees of ethnical identity. Same goes for China, where different ethnic groups have been adsorbed by the Han Chinese.

In some places in the world this never really happened (yet) to the same extend. So places like Nigeria mainly have 500 different ethnic groups due to the fact that there has never been the same scale of migrations happening/lower urbanisation/population mobility.

So, yes if you use the specific criteria used in this study, it's not all that strange to reach this list. It all depends on what you define as diversity.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Hmm I immediately thought this was based on genetic diversity, but it seems it isn't. I am surprised.

The fact that there seems to be correlation is certainly thought provoking, in a chicken and egg kind of way.

 

[lightskintwin]

Canadian TV is way more diverse than American TV.

Canadian TV shows cast Asian and Indian actors in major roles all the time. In American shows, those actors have to compete with black people for token minority roles.

You mean America that has ALL BLACK TV shows that get high ratings like Empire, Blackish, Power, Atlanta, Insecure, Being Mary Jane, etc...

An All Asian American show in Fresh Off the Boat.

Not to mention TV shows lead by minority actors like Mindy Kaling, Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, and Aziz Ansari.

 

[patapuf]

Yea it's really amazing how the mentality of African = Black (One group) has been perpetuated throughout modern history. A relic of colonialism I guess.

People are generally not very aware of differences between ethnities unless it's part of their daily lives.

 

[Steel]

That's not how the statistics work, you're far more likely to get two people from a random sample to be from the same group if the split is 50/50 (at least 25% for every random pair) compared to split of 25/25/25/25 (chance drops to 6%) or 10x10 (chance drops to 1%).

My point was that the 50/50 split country would be more likely to be more diverse than a 70/20/5/5 country, even though I'd say the latter is more diverse.

 

[JesseZao]

What a misleading and thus meaningless metric.

 

[His Majesty]

I like that Switzerland is listed very high (even higher then USA), contrary to what many people may believe. We have a lot of diversity here but Switzerland is always one of the first countries named when talking about isolated countries.

Switzerland being a kind of buffer state between Italy, Germany and France helps in that regard I think, just like Belgium.

I mean its not like there are a million resources exist to learn about people not like you or that their products are made for export in a global industry :/

What does this mean? Every game sold to a global audience should be representative of that audience?

 

[patapuf]

Well it's the point the study may be trying to make but it's fundamentally flawed as an argument in my opinion. There may be 10,000 distinct tribes in PNG plus some anglos but whilst those tribes may see stark differences between their own tribe and all the others in terms of genetics and cultural and social factors, no one from outside PNG would be able to tell the difference. 10,000 different ethnicities who are 99% the same. They see only the 1% difference, everyone else sees the 99%.

Whereas you could go many places in the world and see people from cultures and genetic backgrounds which are as diverse as the entire range of the human experience.

This is really a semantic discussion about what "diversity" means but I would wager that what most people think it means is not the same as what the people who have conducted this study have defined it as and consequently the study does not answer the question that it has set itself to the satisfaction of the average reader.

This is not true at all. People generalise because they have no clue about the different cultures. Not because there aren't big differences.

As other have pointed out, geographical barriers, low urbanisation and low mobility led to lots of different small pockets where different ethinities exist.

 

[mnz]

My point was that the 50/50 split country would be more likely to be more diverse than a 70/20/5/5 country, even though I'd say the latter is more diverse.

It wouldn't and that's what that post tried to explain to you.

edit: Welp, you changed the numbers

 

[Madness]

Seeing Japan as the third least diverse country in the world reinforces how I kinda shrug off people trying to taking their games to task for not being super diverse when probably the vast majority of people in that country have never seen someone not Japanese except on TV.

I think you have Japan mixed up with North Korea. Japan is a world power, and they get like over 20 million tourists per year in their country and their brands are marketed all over the world. They also have high rates of outboung tourism, foreign students studying in the US, and not to mention have been hosting US soldiers in Okinawa for decades. Hell they're hosting the Olympics in 3 years.

 

[Phediuk]

Well it's the point the study may be trying to make but it's fundamentally flawed as an argument in my opinion. There may be 10,000 distinct tribes in PNG plus some anglos but whilst those tribes may see stark differences between their own tribe and all the others in terms of genetics and cultural and social factors, no one from outside PNG would be able to tell the difference. 10,000 different ethnicities who are 99% the same. They see only the 1% difference, everyone else sees the 99%.

dude this is a painfully colonial perspective you're taking here.

just stop.

 

[Charles Brandon]

This is not true at all. Peolpe generalise because they have no clue about the different cultures. Not because there aren't big differences.

You're telling me that there are big differences between tribe A and tribe B from down the road in PNG compared to the range of ethnicities you may find in say, Brazil or any country in the Americas whose populations are made up almost entirely of people from all over the rest of the world. It's all relative.

 

[Munti]

Switzerland being a kind of buffer state between Italy, Germany and France helps in that regard I think, just like Belgium.

That's correct. A big reason is that it is surrounded by many countries

 

[Woo-Fu]

Maybe they're counting all the foreign aid workers who are in country.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Australia so low is a bit laughable when ~50% have at least one parent born overseas but english, scottish, irish, croatian, greek and italians are all white too so no real difference eh?

 

[lightskintwin]

Maybe they're counting all the foreign aid workers who are in country.

SMH

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Yea it's really amazing how the mentality of African = Black (One group) has been perpetuated throughout modern history. A relic of colonialism I guess.

Well... it's what I thought too until looking up the breakdown and that linguistics map.

Colonialism, and how the ever nebulous concept of 'race' is still heavily prevalent in western societies.

That is to say, in western nations the identifier of race tends to come to the forefront when discussing diversity. This in turn is partially down to the history and nature of the slave trade, where the ethnic identities of African slaves were marginalised and slowly erased for many, leaving most (but not all) of the resulting minority population to be identified and identify itself not as Yoruba or Igbo or so forth, but merely... 'Black'. This reduction to race, especially with various western europeans (but only the 'good' sorts) as 'white', consequently got applied to others, resulting in terms like 'Middle Eastern' and 'Asian'.

This reduction to race in identity persists even when the national and potential ethnic identities are much more readily known today. John Boyega didn't get so much attention and praise for being an ethnically Nigerian (yes I realise how silly that is given my prior post) actor in a Star Wars movie, he got it for being black (on top of turning in a legit great performance), because that's the lens with which the society that spawned Star Wars views the concept of diversity.

 

[Jotaka]

And people wonder why there are no foreigner in japanese movies lol

 

[lightskintwin]

Colonialism, and how the ever nebulous concept of 'race' is still heavily prevalent in western societies.

That is to say, in western nations the identifier of race tends to come to the forefront when discussing diversity. This in turn is partially down to the history and nature of the slave trade, where the ethnic identities of African slaves were marginalised and slowly erased for many, leaving most (but not all) of the resulting minority population to be identified and identify itself not as Yoruba or Igbo or so forth, but merely... 'Black'. This reduction to race, especially with various western europeans (but only the 'good' sorts) as 'white', consequently got applied to others, resulting in terms like 'Middle Eastern' and 'Asian'.

This reduction to race in identity persists even when the national and potential ethnic identities are much more readily known today. John Boyega didn't get so much attention and praise for being an ethnically Nigerian (yes I realise how silly that is given my prior post) actor in a Star Wars movie, he got it for being black (on top of turning in a legit great performance), because that's the lens with which the society that spawned Star Wars views the concept of diversity.

On fuckin' point.

 

[John Kowalski]

Damn, guessed Finland

Dammit Finland.

 

[His Majesty]

I advise people to read up a bit about the various Papuan tribes on wikipedia. Hopefully people realise then that ethnicity goes much further than only differences in skin colour.

 

[caliph95]

Colonialism, and how the ever nebulous concept of 'race' is still heavily prevalent in western societies.

That is to say, in western nations the identifier of race tends to come to the forefront when discussing diversity. This in turn is partially down to the history and nature of the slave trade, where the ethnic identities of African slaves were marginalised and slowly erased for many, leaving most (but not all) of the resulting minority population to be identified and identify itself not as Yoruba or Igbo or so forth, but merely... 'Black'. This reduction to race, especially with various western europeans (but only the 'good' sorts) as 'white', consequently got applied to others, resulting in terms like 'Middle Eastern' and 'Asian'.

This reduction to race in identity persists even when the national and potential ethnic identities are much more readily known today. John Boyega didn't get so much attention and praise for being an ethnically Nigerian (yes I realise how silly that is given my prior post) actor in a Star Wars movie, he got it for being black (on top of turning in a legit great performance), because that's the lens with which the society that spawned Star Wars views the concept of diversity.

Fucking exactly

 

[Ratrat]

I think you have Japan mixed up with North Korea. Japan is a world power, and they get like over 20 million tourists per year in their country and their brands are marketed all over the world. They also have high rates of outboung tourism, foreign students studying in the US, and not to mention have been hosting US soldiers in Okinawa for decades. Hell they're hosting the Olympics in 3 years.

It should be conversed with instead of seen.

 

[Bold One]

God damn you, OP, how could I guess that?


North Korea, South Korea and Japan,

makes sense

 

[Okamid3n]

That's not how the statistics work, you're far more likely to get two people from a random sample to be from the same group if the split is 50/50 (at least 25% for every random pair) compared to split of 25/25/25/25 (chance drops to 6%) or 10x10 (chance drops to 1%).

I don't understand the math.

In a 50/50 split, you pick one individual, and then the next one has a 50% chance of being from the same ethnic group as the first pick, no matter who you picked first.

In a 25/25/25/25 split, you pick one individual and the next one has a 25% chance of being in the same group as the first pick, no matter who you picked first. Yes, there's only 6.25% chance of picking two individuals from group one, but there's also 6.25% chance of picking two individuals from group 2, 3 and 4, which adds up to 25%.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Colonialism, and how the ever nebulous concept of 'race' is still heavily prevalent in western societies.

That is to say, in western nations the identifier of race tends to come to the forefront when discussing diversity. This in turn is partially down to the history and nature of the slave trade, where the ethnic identities of African slaves were marginalised and slowly erased for many, leaving most (but not all) of the resulting minority population to be identified and identify itself not as Yoruba or Igbo or so forth, but merely... 'Black'. This reduction to race, especially with various western europeans (but only the 'good' sorts) as 'white', consequently got applied to others, resulting in terms like 'Middle Eastern' and 'Asian'.

This reduction to race in identity persists even when the national and potential ethnic identities are much more readily known today. John Boyega didn't get so much attention and praise for being an ethnically Nigerian (yes I realise how silly that is given my prior post) actor in a Star Wars movie, he got it for being black (on top of turning in a legit great performance), because that's the lens with which the society that spawned Star Wars views the concept of diversity.

Adding to this, and in response to some posters saying there is no objective way to measure diversity: there is, it's called genetics. And some may find this surprising but a person who would be ethnically classified as European and another person who would be classified as Chinese are likely to be more genetically similar than two people from central Africa that would both be classified as Black.

 

[Crocodile]

What does this mean? Every game sold to a global audience should be representative of that audience?

No it means that international audiences get to criticize such products - even to the point that they decide to not buy them. Nobody has a gun to any Japanese developers head, they can do as they please. It's just if they narrow the audience of some of their products as a result, that's all on them.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Well it's the point the study may be trying to make but it's fundamentally flawed as an argument in my opinion. There may be 10,000 distinct tribes in PNG plus some anglos but whilst those tribes may see stark differences between their own tribe and all the others in terms of genetics and cultural and social factors, no one from outside PNG would be able to tell the difference. 10,000 different ethnicities who are 99% the same. They see only the 1% difference, everyone else sees the 99%.

Whereas you could go many places in the world and see people from cultures and genetic backgrounds which are as diverse as the entire range of the human experience.

This is really a semantic discussion about what "diversity" means but I would wager that what most people think it means is not the same as what the people who have conducted this study have defined it as and consequently the study does not answer the question that it has set itself to the satisfaction of the average reader.

You're essentially arguing that "eyeballing" from a cultural imperialist pov is more valid than actual anthroplogy, linguistics, and genetics.

The arbitrary lines that European countries drew on maps hundreds of years ago don't factually define diversity, even if they did define hundreds of years of wars, stereotypes, and flat out bigotry. Could you at least consider that your dismissal of the diversity of these countries is informed by your perspective as an outsider to their cultures?

 

[teruterubozu]

Adding to this, and in response to some posters saying there is no objective way to measure diversity: there is, it's called genetics. And some may find this surprising but a person who would be ethnically classified as European and another person who would be classified as Chinese are likely to be more genetically similar than two people from central Africa that would both be classified as Black.

Dat Neanderthal link.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

I don't understand the math.

In a 50/50 split, you pick one individual, and then the next one has a 50% chance of being from the same ethnic group as the first pick, no matter who you picked first.

In a 25/25/25/25 split, you pick one individual and the next one has a 25% chance of being in the same group as the first pick, no matter who you picked first. Yes, there's only 6.25% chance of picking two individuals from group one, but there's also 6.25% chance of picking two individuals from group 2, 3 and 4, which adds up to 25%.

You look at all possible options for picking a pair of people. If there are 2 groups, that gives you four options. If there are 4 groups, 16 options, etc.
Edit: We are in agreement, actually.

 

[Messofanego]

Seeing Japan as the third least diverse country in the world reinforces how I kinda shrug off people trying to taking their games to task for not being super diverse when probably the vast majority of people in that country have never seen someone not Japanese except on TV.

Are you one of those people who are ok with diversity only as long as it's representative of the real population 1:1?

 

[SURGEdude]

It seems like a solid study. But It's not the way I'd formulate an examination of something as nebulous as diversity. The very general take-away's like African diversity are spot on however.

 

[LambdaTeos]

Mexico more diverse than the US huh? not surprised there