posted by
janrinok
on Thursday November 28, @07:05PM
from the How-I-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-The-People dept.
from the How-I-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-The-People dept.
Before reading the article ask yourself "What percentage of Americans do you think are [fill in the blank]?"
- Transgender
- Muslim
- Jewish
- Black
- Live in New York City
- Gay or Lesbian
Now go see how you did.
Yesterday Jemele Hill recirculated a study YouGov did in 2022 about the gaps between people's perceptions and reality.
YouGov asked a series of questions on "What percentage of Americans do you think are [fill in the blank]?" with the [blank] being all sorts of qualities: black, gay, Christian, left-handed, own a passport, etc.
TLDR: there are a lot of stupid people out there.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28, @07:43PM (10 children)
This can't be real, right? Nobody seriously believes 30% of the population lives in NYC, right? Demographics could be misperceived if the social circle is imbalanced or the demographics of the geographical area don't match the national average, but it's pretty well known that NYC has ~10M people and the country has ~350M.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28, @07:47PM
Surveys are often biased in and of themselves, but part (much?) of the stupidity is in the people analyzing the survey.
The problem is mostly the news media. They're the ones who keep capitalizing on people's curiosity about such things, making big news out of very small isolated problems.
My take on the survey results is more about people's perception due to news media.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 28, @08:17PM (2 children)
To be fair, ~10% of the population does live in the New York Metropolitan area, although (see my comment below) only ~2.5% of the population lives in NYC proper.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by anotherblackhat on Thursday November 28, @08:55PM (1 child)
Maybe, if by '~' you mean rounding to the nearest 10%.
Wikipedia claims 22 million people in the greater metropolitan area, and 334 million in the U.S. 22/334 = 6.5%
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 28, @09:43PM
Fair enough.
I did mention in another post that "I'm not gonna look it up," so I used 30,000,000 as the population of the NY metro area.
Then again, 6.5 does round to 10. Sort of . :)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Troll) by Gaaark on Thursday November 28, @09:25PM (4 children)
You've got Americans that can't even find the USA on a map.
-- https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/12/13/Study-One-fifth-of-students-cant-find-US-on-a-map/2120471762000/ [upi.com]
And here's why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww [youtube.com]
Pretty well know OUTSIDE the US, but how many Americans know this?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday November 29, @08:38AM (1 child)
> You've got Americans that can't even find the USA on a map.
That should be American 12 year olds! In the same article it said US came about midway out of the few developed nations who were also tested.
Completely misrepresenting the article.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday November 30, @03:12AM
So you find it okay that a kid in grade 7 can't find the country they live in on a map? Grade. 7. Two years from high-school. I find that sad.
Not really misrepresenting anything.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday November 29, @09:04AM
Here's a much better, and funnier, example [youtube.com]. The best one was when they took a map and labelled Australia "North Korea" and Tasmania "South Korea" and asked people to indicate which one the US should attack: "Gosh, I never knew North Korea was so much bigger than South Korea", although labelling Australia as "Iran" came a close second.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday December 01, @02:23AM
Marked as Troll for pointing out only the truth. Nice.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Funny) by Mykl on Thursday November 28, @09:44PM
Around 30% of TV shows are set in New York, therefore 30% of the population must also live in New York.
Checks out.
(Score: 2) by esperto123 on Thursday November 28, @07:49PM (5 children)
Because how the hell they can think that the whole WASP population is 13%? because given that people who are muslim are not jewish and would not likely declare themselves gay and that adds up to about 87% (jews are more open to it, but lets face it, whoever thinks 30% o people are jewish wouldn't think they are progressive).
But the most absurd is the 21% transgender, honestly, who the fuck thinks that?? even the 1% figure from the yougov seems way too high.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 28, @08:41PM (3 children)
Step #1: they don't think, they react.
In their world view, there were zero LGBTMuslim Jews in their world, and now they are being forced to not only acknowledge their existence but accept them as people of equal rights. Infinite growth rate, slippery slopes, where will it all end?!?!! Best to just push them back into non-existence.
Now, I do have to ask: WTF was Sports Illustrated doing with a trans Swimsuit model? One per year and they go with a tranny? That's not exactly representative of the population, and certainly seems like a trick intended to outrage...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Thursday November 28, @09:23PM (2 children)
Yes, but I have to give a wry chuckle, because it has got you talking about Sports Illustrated to people who were probably unaware of it. From their point of view it is a success. Someone once said "There is no such thing as bad publicity".
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 28, @09:46PM
The boys who read Sports Illustrated, particularly the avid Swimsuit Edition fans, when I was in school are likely a lot of the lower economic strata conservative voters these days...
I get that Playboy is run by a woman with an agenda or two, but the die hard SI fans of my past likely burned their collections and cancelled their grandsons' subscriptions in response to that stunt.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Touché) by Mykl on Thursday November 28, @09:56PM
Except in this case. The fortunes of Sports Illustrated have tanked since that stunt. Readership plummeted, it was sold off and has not published an issue for months.
Who knew that the reader base, almost exclusively heterosexual males, would not be enthusiastic about a trans swimsuit model?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by EEMac on Friday November 29, @05:34PM
> Because how the hell they can think that the whole WASP population is 13%?
Modern advertising, television, and movies.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday November 28, @08:07PM (4 children)
( https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population [yougov.com] )
So, I'm gonna go on a limb here and say the people filling out online YouGov surveys aren't representative of anything in particular.
Btw, for reference, it wasn't asked but Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans are
respectively.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 28, @08:45PM (1 child)
Native American is an interesting question... My father is sufficiently native blooded to join a tribe, though I am marginally under the threshold. Does he count in that 2%? It wasn't so long ago that half bloods would deny their Native heritage to attempt to escape the discrimination.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday November 29, @12:41PM
Yeah these types of questionnaires never seem to have a good way to weigh on mixed heritages and ethno-religions.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Friday November 29, @09:11AM (1 child)
People tend to waaaaaay overestimate unlikely events and probabilities, so this result isn't actually that surprising. This is why people worry about ridiculously unlikely risks while mostly ignoring the big ones like smoking, health-related heart issues, etc, a prime example being fear of flying when the biggest risk you're taking is getting to the airport.
Can anyone find the original survey? TFA says "see how you did" but there's nowhere I can see to see how I did.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday November 29, @09:14AM
Ah, hit submit too early, I was looking to complete the same survey with the same wording as the sample population did in case that affected the results, rather than just writing down numbers next to the text summary.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Adam on Thursday November 28, @08:11PM (2 children)
The numbers seem to line up with media coverage, television panel makeup, demographics of sitcom characters and generally align with the mindshare the groups have.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Thursday November 28, @08:31PM (1 child)
They actually match up pretty well with the demographics of Biden's cabinet.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29, @12:55AM
Not really, no. The only one that matches is the proportion of Jews. There are no transgender or Muslims, Blacks are slightly overrepresented relative to the population, but not to the degree of this of survey, AFAICT only Yellen and Blinken are New Yorkers, and there appear to be only one gay and one lesbian insofar as that information is made public.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 28, @08:15PM (2 children)
But:
Transgender <1%
Muslim ~2-3%
Jewish <1%
Black ~12-13%
Live in New York City ~2.5%
Gay or Lesbian ~8-10%
The disheartening part is that some folks (apparently, given their panic over some or all of those groups) believe that one of any of those folks is worth at least 10 "normal" folks because they keep screaming about how all these horrible people will destroy our nation. Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 28, @08:27PM
I was wrong about the Jews. There are ~7 million jews in the US [statista.com] making it ~2% of the population.
And, apparently, there are ~4.4 million muslims in the US [wikipedia.org], making them ~1.3% of the population.
And while Wikipedia says that ~7% of the US population is LGBT (see breakdown here [wikipedia.org]) I suspect it's a bit higher, so I stand by my initial estimate.
As for NYC residents and African Americans, I stand by my estimates as well.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 28, @08:47PM
They are the camel's nose under the tent flap... If you don't repel them decisively, it won't be long before the whole camel is in the tent. /S
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Username on Thursday November 28, @08:32PM
Oh, are these the answers to the DEI crossword puzzle I got at work!? Three down was "Third most oppressed minority," I just can't figure out which one it is; I just know it isn't straight white male, right?
There is a lady at work named LaDonna. She told me she hates it when people put above others just because of her title or how many years she worked there. That she is just a person, not any label. How does that make you feel, knowing a black lesbian rejects intersectionality?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday November 28, @10:05PM (2 children)
If those numbers are correct, the only one you could probably be somewhat certain of are the amount of people living in NYC. Blacks are probably somewhat accurate to, the only issue might be then if people start to discuss how black someone is -- as in how black do you have to be to be considered to be black? Same applies to white, asian, indians/natives etc.
All the others are somewhat open to interpretation. But still lets assume they are somewhat correct. If these groups only make up about a percentage or so of the total population then why is the mainstream media catering so damn hard towards them? Does it make sense to have all the pride/lbtq+ things or cater to religious groups that are so small that they are basically insignificant when compared to the whole or the majority? What is the value of these groups if they are so small? Why do advertisers and politicians go so hard trying to appeal to groups that make up a single percentage of the entire population? They should be utterly irrelevant. Shunned by the almighty $ or vote.
After all you could take very fringe issues and notice that very large portions of the population appear to believe in them. Should they be catered to then? A disturbing amount of people believe that aliens from space are here looking at us, abducting us, experimenting on us etc. How many still believe that the moonlanding was fake? That the earth is flat? These are groups of people then that are so much larger in size then any of these minor grouping they feel an urge to cater to.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/350096/americans-believe-ufos.aspx [gallup.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28, @11:06PM
Why? To cause division and marginalize people. Why else race swap old characters in popular media and gear everything to tiny minorities? Nothing can be fun anymore and is meant to lecture you on how much of a "bad" guy your are.
This country isn't for you. You didn't build that. This movie isn't for you.
It's never even stories that come from said minorities themselves because it's not genuine. Pick up artists have the strategy negging women to get in their pants.
You are being negged to destroy your history and demoralize you so that you can be atomized and easily controlled. Even if you realize, you're ire will get directed at insignificant populations while the architects get off scott free. Enjoy.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Mykl on Friday November 29, @12:31AM
I think you answer it yourself later, but the point is not to market to these groups exclusively per-se, but to market to those people that support causes relating to those groups (which is a larger cohort, though arguably still a minority depending on the specific cause).
Public companies, including media companies, have a further reason to support these causes though - being eligible to have their stock included in some of the largest government funds such as the California Public Employees Retirement System and many others. You must publicly support the right causes in order to be eligible for your stock to be bought by those funds (and therefore increase your market value due to that whole supply-demand thing).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28, @10:10PM (4 children)
> Gay or Lesbian
Why do they include both? Are lesbians not gay?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29, @09:15AM
Most of the ones I've met are pretty damn morose.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VanessaE on Friday November 29, @12:41PM
If I had to guess, a lot of people probably don't realize they're essentially the same thing, just gendered, so if you ask about "gay" people without mentioning "lesbian", you'll probably be more likely to get answers that only take men into account, and vice versa.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 30, @06:46AM
Although gay is often used nowadays as a generic term to describe homosexuality, most historical uses to denote sexuality refer to men (perhaps worth noting "lesbian" appears to have gained it's modern meaning roughly contemporaneously but slightly earlier?).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 30, @11:22PM
Nope. You got your rug munchers (lesbians) and your fudge packers (gays), because nothing says enlightenment like vulgar tropes. Amirite?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday November 28, @10:25PM (4 children)
And that sort of snobbish attitude is what lost the dems the election.
People aren't stupid:
- They're being relentlessly bombarded by grossly misleading, simplistic, blame-this-group-for-your-problems exaggerated world views from populists like the orange utan and his minions,
- They lack the critical thinking abilities required to see through the BS.
You need an educated population to make educated decisions, and the education system in the US is severely lacking. But lack of education isn't stupidity.
Also, saying people are stupid in a non-sequitur that does nothing to begin to solve the problem.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 28, @11:50PM (2 children)
I read "stupid" in TFS to mean "uninformed," rather than "lacking in cognitive capability."
Although George Carlin was and continues to be right and the median IQ score is still 100.
Regardless, you're being almost as condescending as if Snotnose actually meant "stupid" (not sure why there's editorializing by the submitter in TFS, that's generally better saved for the comments IMHO).
No. People aren't necessarily lacking the requisite mental capacity to read a wikipedia page to find out actual numbers or to defeat attempts to gaslight them with tales of transgender predators lurking in every school bathroom, legions of gay men stalking the suburbs for children to molest, children being brainwashed by evil marxist teachers who want to destroy America by making our children hate themselves. And on and on and on.
Sure, there are some small number folks who *can't* figure this stuff out.
But most folks who claim to believe the above (and/or the 15 or so other tropes/conspiracy theories (take your pick) that are cynically being pushed for a variety of reasons -- usually to make someone money and also to amass political support for policies to -- yeah, you got it -- make someone money.) don't want to learn differently -- for a number of reasons. I imagine you can enumerate those just as well as I can. Probably better, even.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday November 29, @12:26AM (1 child)
I'm pretty sure Snotnose meant "stupid" in the "not the sharpest knife in the drawer" sense. There are people who seem stupid when they're simply uneducated. Then there are people that are stupid because they can't be bothered to rub 2 neurons together.
It's just a fact of life that people with brains the size of grapes have mouths the size of watermelons. -- Aunty Acid
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 29, @05:33AM
I think the terminology is grossly inaccurate. All the terms such as stupid, dumb, idiotic, and moronic all mean pretty much the same inaccurate thing, which is that such a person is bad at everything. In most cases, that's not so. An example of an area many are pretty cunning about is sex. They're hyper focused on sex, very quick to see cuckoldry, even imagine they see it when it's not there. They work hard on appearances, the better to succeed in endeavors that have to do with procreation, and money. Many are so skilled at faking it that they're naturals at b. s. They're at home in bars. Pretty good at dancing. Extroverted. Most geeky people are notoriously poor in such environments and at such endeavors.
Better terminology could help a lot. I don't know what term would best describe the sorts of people I have outlined above, other than maybe "normies". Those high school labels I think do better, but are still lacking. The idea of boiling intelligence down to a single number, IQ, is another highly problematic thing.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday November 29, @02:07AM
No surprise that Trump wants to dismantle the Department of Education so the bible thumping red states can force jesus into classrooms. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dismantling-department-education-trumps-plan-schools-term/story?id=115579646 [go.com]
(Score: 1) by cascadingstylesheet on Friday November 29, @01:19AM
Advertising and entertainment are a sort of iconography.
These are the demographics a lot of people - at least people who make advertising and entertainment - wish we had, apparently.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bart9h on Friday November 29, @02:42AM
Why would the percentage of people in Congress (more or less) match the percentage of the population?
You have 27% of woman in the Congress!
And here in Brazil we actually have around 56% of blacks/mixed in the population, but only 16% in the Congress.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by ChrisMaple on Friday November 29, @03:27AM (3 children)
TFA claims that at 89% of the population has at least a high school degree. Since most people are 17 or 18 when they graduate high school, only about 75% of the population is even old enough to have a high school degree. If the pollsters screw up that badly, how can anything they claim be trusted?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29, @03:45AM
Are you really that dumb?
Or do you just play a moron on SoylentNews?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29, @03:51AM
Trolling piece of shit [wikipedia.org]
Fuck right off.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 29, @12:44PM
Do you really think the pollsters screwed up that detail? Really? Excluding invalid data is a common problem in polling.
They also ask how many people have 1 child and more than 1 child.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Friday November 29, @05:46AM (1 child)
I find this interesting and perplexing at the same time.
I suppose it all depends on context, how these questions are framed, and who answered them, but based on what I've heard from people around the USA after the election, one recurring theme was, "The Democrats seemed more worried about these small minorities than the other 90%."
From that perspective, it seems to tell the story that they knew (some of) these groups were a small percentage and they wanted to hear more about how the government would help the 90% instead of being told why the 90% should cater to the minority.
To be clear, no one I talked to brought up Blacks or Muslims specifically, but the other groups mentioned in the article were mentioned by different people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 30, @11:32PM
I'm curious, did the folks you speak to talk about what, specifically, they meant by "catering" to minorities?
As a straight, white male, I don't see it as 'catering' to anyone. Rather, I think it's important that such minorities be treated exactly the same as everyone else. I don't know any LGBTQIA+++, Jews, Muslims, African Americans or just about anyone else who demands special treatment.
They'd just prefer it if they weren't discriminated against, insulted, beaten and sometimes killed. I realize that's a big ask, because if we can't abuse minorities, then who are we going to abuse?
The above isn't a rhetorical question. I honestly don't get what "catering" means in this context.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by vistic on Friday November 29, @07:49AM (1 child)
You don't say?! Why... Its almost as if there were a right wing political movement in America that operates on spreading fear of minorities or something! Turning vulnerable communities into outsized boogeymen that then become the target of hatred fear and prejudice! All just a greedy cynical move at power, achieved by declaring themselves free from feeling shame in this life? Could that be THIS country???
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 29, @02:43PM
There are several groups responsible for the current state of affairs. 1st, the super rich who are sick with greed, willing to feed people's and group's paranoia about one another, and trash science and education for several reasons, all ultimately to turn a bigger profit.. They want to delay findings that their products pose various dangers. They'd prefer that most people be completely unable to seek out knowledge. They want to keep secret their knowledge and learning that gives them an edge. Big Oil is one of the worst of these. 2nd, with some overlap, is the media who piles on with reporting that is highly biased to the dramatic, the better to get more clicks. 3rd are the demagogues. Particularly odious are those demagogues who also want education broken, eagerly joining the greedy super rich in attacking science and education, the better to sucker people. Educated people are harder to sucker. 4th, and by far the largest group, are the "useful idiots"-- the suckers, the authoritarians. They're the ones who are far too willing to check their skepticism at the door, for any persons who are or seem powerful and who will agree to prop up their false narratives that they want to believe so very much.
And what do authoritarians want? They want to believe that their troubles are someone else's fault. And that they're superior. That "Master Race" hooey that was used in WWII is an example of feeding them a load of bull that they found very tasty and ate right up. And they want things simple. Don't make them think! Many religions cater to these desires, and many demagogues are to be found in cult leadership positions.