For sure. Many Americans are confused by percentages. They do not understand that 20% is equivalent to saying “in a room of 100 people, 20 of them are trans”, and even if they did understand that, they wouldn’t have the proactive reasoning to make sure their percentage estimates add up/overlap in a way that makes sense, e.g not implying that 20 people in the room are all Hispanic Asian atheist Catholic bisexual transgender millionaires.
Yeah, and this is before we even get into availability heuristic biases that would screw over people who do understand percentages. Most people are very bad estimators. If they live in a town with 40% Hispanic people, they’re gonna overestimate the total % of Hispanic people.
Before traveling to California, I had people in my neighborhood plead with me not to go because the whole state is a “disaster area” and that the cities are burning and that there are “drug needles everywhere you walk” and that I was putting my life and those of my loved ones in serious danger. They thought with 100% certainty that Los Angeles was completely on fire from looting and I was going to some kind of Mad Max hellscape. Without exaggeration. They wouldn’t listen to reassurance and were genuinely worried.
Granted some of these people were older, they weren’t suffering dementia and could still drive. They just park in front of FOX news all day, every day, 24-hours a day swallowing conservative propaganda. They also have algorithmic filtering on their facebook and twitter.
Our perspectives of each others worlds has been damaged beyond repair because of this filtering. We have it on the left/progressive side too, showing us a different reflection of a pandering, emotionally validating worldview. Not as malicious maybe, but we are all trapped.
Well, the survey does not show the distribution of answers. So my guess (it’s a guess, not data) is the people living in densely populated areas answered lower numbers, and people living in rural or remote areas ridiculously overestimated the number of trans people based on how much of a big “issue” medias are making of them.
Imagine thinking 1 in 5 people are trans… Just… This has to be a math understanding issue, right??
For sure. Many Americans are confused by percentages. They do not understand that 20% is equivalent to saying “in a room of 100 people, 20 of them are trans”, and even if they did understand that, they wouldn’t have the proactive reasoning to make sure their percentage estimates add up/overlap in a way that makes sense, e.g not implying that 20 people in the room are all Hispanic Asian atheist Catholic bisexual transgender millionaires.
Yeah the moment I saw 40% Hispanic, I had to go see how they answered on other races. 40 Black, 40 Hispanic, 30 Asian, 60 White. 170%
Yeah, and this is before we even get into availability heuristic biases that would screw over people who do understand percentages. Most people are very bad estimators. If they live in a town with 40% Hispanic people, they’re gonna overestimate the total % of Hispanic people.
Before traveling to California, I had people in my neighborhood plead with me not to go because the whole state is a “disaster area” and that the cities are burning and that there are “drug needles everywhere you walk” and that I was putting my life and those of my loved ones in serious danger. They thought with 100% certainty that Los Angeles was completely on fire from looting and I was going to some kind of Mad Max hellscape. Without exaggeration. They wouldn’t listen to reassurance and were genuinely worried.
Granted some of these people were older, they weren’t suffering dementia and could still drive. They just park in front of FOX news all day, every day, 24-hours a day swallowing conservative propaganda. They also have algorithmic filtering on their facebook and twitter.
Our perspectives of each others worlds has been damaged beyond repair because of this filtering. We have it on the left/progressive side too, showing us a different reflection of a pandering, emotionally validating worldview. Not as malicious maybe, but we are all trapped.
Well, the survey does not show the distribution of answers. So my guess (it’s a guess, not data) is the people living in densely populated areas answered lower numbers, and people living in rural or remote areas ridiculously overestimated the number of trans people based on how much of a big “issue” medias are making of them.
I’d honestly believe the opposite, with people living in liberal cities overestimating. Personallt, in a friend group of about 15, 4 are trans.
Just because you’re progressive, doesn’t mean you’re good at math or understand statistics.