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data visualizations

Examples of Insightful Data Visualizations

I chose this topic to see what type of cool infographics were already out there that could offer us more of a conscious state to the world around us. I’ve been a scientist for a while now, and I noticed that my curiosity with the facts only grows as time goes on.

U.S. Intelligence Funding. Courtesy of the NSA’s biggest whistleblower, Edward Snowden.

That’s a lot of money right? Imagine being in control of that amount of money and the only thing you chose to do with it was to spy on people. Notice how one specific area of spending is “Data Processing and Exploitation”. This is surreal when you think about how much of that money could go towards building communities instead of selling them things or watching them burn so they can mount a response. Terror attacks are to blame for a lot of this.

The world is increasingly dangerous, so I’m on the fence about government surveillance, but does it really take this amount of spending to get done on a yearly basis? Are we spending this much to analyze holes in people’s backyards without their consent? Are we watching people through walls from outer space using thermal vision? How much is actually going on in the world to require this? The money seems to speak for itself, as it usually does, which is the scary part. The U.S. intelligence budget has also increased every year. Yikes. Stranger danger. https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/ic-budget

Mass Shootings. Loose motives.

Now, when you look at this graph compared to the last one you may think, “Oh yeah, that money was worth it.” There seems to be a really vile trend growing in America where American citizens are just straight up losing control of their mind and committing hideous acts of violence on their fellow man or woman. These are events that took place at complete random, where the shooter was most likely dealing with inner demons, and reached a deadly level of rage/depression where they could take out their vengeance on complete strangers.

Although these figures are always in the news for people to see, they only seem to be getting worse with most people’s only response being more guns or no guns. These figures also pale in comparison to the total homicide data. I feel that we need to switch the focus to addressing more foundational issues like parenting, bullying (physical/cyber/social), self-destructive tendencies, and mental illness. People are losing their identities more than ever, and shelling up as a defense maneuver. What we’ve come to know is that silence is deadly. Especially, when it comes to not talking about the real issues. https://www.cato.org/blog/are-mass-shootings-becoming-more-frequent