I am pretty surprised at the response. I wonder if data is beautiful folks are offended at the politicization of the sub or if its full of tanky pro Russian people. I think this is right to the heart of how you can use data visualization to drive different agendas using the same data. I have no idea why the NYTimes did it this way, probably just sensationalism, but the Russians push this point to try and support their narrative that the US cannot effectively sanction Russia and therefore Ukraine should just give up.

Actually, I think its more likely that this is just normal sensationalism that happens to coincide with Russian propaganda. An article about how most of the worlds GDP is on the ukranian side doesnt have that concern tang that the NYTimes loves.

I am just arguing about the misleading datavisualization. I have no idea what the Russian trade situation is really like.

But the data visualization uses population and it is visually arresting. This is a sub about data visualization.

The article is about how Russia was not isolated from trade and instead the world fractured into trade blocs. The appropriate data to demonstrate this would be either GDP or trade flows. Using population gives an intentionally misleading picture, because India seems like it is as valuable a trade partner as 2 United States and the Eu combined. The idea that the population is what matters is a central Russian propaganda point and this data visualization is designed to be deceiving and support that point.

The article is about how Russia was not isolated from trade and instead the world fractured into trade blocs. The appropriate data to demonstrate this would be either GDP or trade flows. Using population gives an intentionally misleading picture, because India seems like it is as valuable a trade partner as 2 United States and the Eu combined. The idea that the population is what matters is a central Russian propaganda point and this data visualization is designed to be deceiving and support that point.