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Well, at least briandg did understand.
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Sometimes sarcasm doesn't come across clearly in print.
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Funny you should mention Brazil.
A country that's NOT among the 20 most dangerous countries...
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Brazil has the 14th highest murder rate in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._homicide_rate
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What does that tell you about the validity of those statistics?
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Sometimes it's worthwhile to take a step back and look at the big picture. You introduced the idea of using murder rate statistics to compare various areas. It doesn't make sense to now claim that the statistics aren't valid simply because it transpires that those statistics, even after having been manipulated, don't support your argument.
It can't work both ways. If the statistics are NOT representative, then it wouldn't make sense to bring them up and to continue to use and manipulate them as a way to prove a point. And if they ARE representative then it doesn't make sense to object to others using them.
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I'm arguing that Venezuela is not a monolithic entity, that can be judged by a single number.
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Yet you continue to use single numbers for other countries and continue manipulating the Venezuela data to come up with a single number to represent it. These actions indicate that there isn't a problem with judging countries (including Venezuela) by single numbers. The objection isn't to the single numbers themselves, it's to someone else using those single numbers to demonstrate that your arguments are flawed.
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...those 7 cities in Venezuela are almost 28.5% of the country.
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Correct. And even after removing them, EVERY country in the world
with only three exceptions STILL had a lower murder rate.
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No, unfortunately, as the charts themselves show, it's not.
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After removing all the high-murder rate urban areas in Venezuela, the rest of the country still ended up having the
fourth* highest murder rate in the world--when compared to other countries which did NOT have all their high-murder rate urban areas removed from the statistic.
That would be a high murder rate even if the statistics hadn't been manipulated by removing the 7 areas with the highest murder rates. The fact that it ranks that high even after removing over a quarter of the population of the country with all the highest murder-rate areas is actually quite alarming.
Furthermore, it's important to note that the manipulation performed to prove how skewed the overall murder rate statistic for Venezuela is,
only moved it a SINGLE position in the world rankings. From third most dangerous in the world to fourth most dangerous in the world.
If your own manipulation of the statistics only moves Venezuela's ranking by a single position, how can it reasonably be argued that the original number significantly misrepresents reality?
If the manipulation had dropped Venezuela down a significant number of places--especially when compared to similarly manipulated statistics for other countries--then there might be a valid point. As it is, it hardly changes the rankings at all--in spite of the fact that it's comparing a manipulated statistic to unmanipulated statistics for the rest of the world's countries.
*When I said it was the fifth highest initially, I forgot that one of those above it was Venezuela itself. The manipulated statistic removing the seven highest murder-rate areas in the country places it fourth highest when compared against overall murder rate statistics for other countries.