

Interactive visualization of self-immolations in Tibet - m0hit
http://halftone.co/projects/self-immolations/

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chroma
105 self-immolations in the past two years. Zero suicide bombings. This is an
excellent example of how religions give their hosts different propensities for
violence.

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mjmahone17
And yet, suicide bombings and guerilla warfare in general may be more
effective in revolutions. Look at the recent revolutions and uprisings: how
many of them succeeded without violence? Not Libya, not Syria, not Egypt.
Israel requires constant violence to maintain its nation. The US required
violence and guerilla warfare for its independence. And it needed martyrs. As
did Ireland. And Bangladesh. And the Chinese Communist Party.

~~~
Volpe
New Zealand, Canada, Australia... All became relatively independent of the UK
without warfare, suicide bombings or any kind of violence.

You don't need violence to be effective.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
> Canada

umm, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellions_of_1837>

~~~
Volpe
> After the rebellions died down, more moderate reformers, such as the
> political partners Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, gained
> credibility as an alternative voice to the radicals. They proved to be
> influential when the British government sent Lord Durham, a prominent
> British reformer

(from that article)

It was not the violence that lead to change, but diplomacy... unless I'm
missing something.

Regardless, it doesn't counter my point, unless you want to point out the
revolutionary wars Australia and New Zealand had...

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tinco
You could see it as developed through diplomacy, but the reality was that the
british colonies were all given responsible government _after_ the american
revolution.

The unrests in Canada merely proved the point that the empire could not
adequately control the colonies and they needed to become more self reliant.

This might sound generalist, but I don't think it's fair to look at America,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand as separate reforms. They were all in the
same empire that fell apart.

Anyway, I don't think there's ever diplomacy without at least _threat_ of
violence.

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ptvan
Glad you guys like the link.. it's a sad story.

It was also an opportunity to learn TileMill (mapbox.com/tilemill) to generate
that styled map.. I recommend checking it out if you like maps/geodata.

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jjcm
A spreadsheet of the data as well:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Al2LIEgoNIx2dEt...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Al2LIEgoNIx2dEtWZWxDRy1pTTVKVjlkUnBaYVROSFE&single=true&gid=0)

I think the most interesting thing is simply the ages of the people who died -
a large percentage are in their teens or early 20s.

~~~
magsun
That is the time the people can be easily cheated.

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James_Duval
This idea is too morbid for me, I'm afraid.

Or perhaps the presentation feels too "light"?

I can read Wiki articles on serial killers, but this seems somehow
disrespectful. I'm also concerned because (although I respect Al Jazeera as
much as any news source) I wonder if they have an agenda they're pursuing
through this piece?

If I'm out of line here let me know why!

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m0hit
Source article on Al Jazeera
[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2013/03/2013391...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2013/03/2013391733355459.html)

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momop
Sad sad story. Amazing viz that made an immediate impact on the story.

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contingencies
I had no idea there had been a self-immolation here in Yunnan (the far south-
eastern point on the map). Thanks for sharing this informative visualisation,
even if it is for such a sad state of affairs.

Just to be fair it seems like a good venue to mention that there are plenty of
people struggling to have a decent self-directed life around the world, not
just in China. Even within China, a great many Han people also have it
extremely tough, not to mention other groups subject to recent sinification
style policies (such as the Uyghur of Xinjiang).

Truly free, publicly practised religion perhaps exists nowhere within the
country, but then again it doesn't exist in most places.

The Chinese government has a hard job guiding this monster of a country given
its significant divides and economic and technological trajectory, and the
various peoples of China are all struggling to make sense of and get along in
what is perhaps the single largest-scale transition of a society that has ever
occurred in the history of humanity.

This does not in any way detract from the tragedy of these events, however
perhaps it may help to prevent people who have not had the opportunity to
spend time here from taking a simplistic or single-faceted perspective or
simply getting angry at the Chinese. Nothing is simple as it seems,
particularly when you take a look at history.

For those interested in exploring some of the complexities I would recommend
[http://www.amazon.com/The-Sichuan-Frontier-Tibet-
Imperial/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Sichuan-Frontier-Tibet-
Imperial/dp/0295989521)

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enjalot
nice use of d3!

