• mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 hours ago

    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.

    • dinckel@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      We’re talking about a population, where a 1/3lbs burger was rejected for being smaller than the 1/4lbs. But even besides that, the fear-mongering, and the propaganda, have clearly worked

    • pajam@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      they wouldn’t have the proactive reasoning to make sure their percentage estimates add up/overlap in a way that makes sense

      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%

      • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
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        6 hours ago

        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.