People think 30% of the U.S population lives in New York?
That’s what actually brought me to the comments. The fuck? OK, so now NYC pop is about 10mil, non-NYC NY is about 10 mil, and non-NYC NYC metro is about 10 mil. How do you get even 30 mil to represent 30% of 350mil? Confuse it with the Iranian population of 92mil? And 30% is the average of the responses!
My 3 year old has a college degree? Dang! No wonder I can’t understand half the shit he says.
Holy, holy, holy…they actually thought 21% of people are transgender? 1 in 5?? The only thing this proves is the polled Americans are stupid AF. 🙄🙄🙄
Americans believe a single city (New York) represents 30% of the American population?
Another third lives in all of Texas?
Forget that. They think one out of their first 3 friends they have is gay. Assuming they’re straight that means 50% of their friends are gay. Fuck that means they think 25% of their first 4 friends are trans.
Math is not their strong point apparently
TBF if you join random chat groups to meet people you might find abkut that proportion, but not roaming the parks and streets, no.
Okay but Americans are numerically illiterate.
They think almost 25% of people are trans?? Jesus fucking christ
It explains so much when it’s played up so heavily in talk shows, despite the reality always having been very minor. Honestly I didn’t realize me being gay was that much of a minority either. I kind of wish ADHD had been one in the list; if I remember the reality is like no more than 3-5% of the population but people assume it’s over diagnosed as hell and like…not really. Maybe when there was the initial “rush” of sorts for parents during the 90’s because of it seeming to help “unruly” kids, often just meaning imaginative or creative. In my case my parents didn’t even know until my kindergarten teacher told them I should get evaluated, and yep.
Or vice versa, people have that perception because the media and social networks fixate on it so much.
Frequently meaning well, but the attempt to be very inclusive creates for some crazy unrealisitc representations.
Hold up.
83% have a driver’s license but 88% have a car?
So 5% of Americans either have a car for the hell of it, or they drive without a license?
And there’s only 3% that are atheists? More people drive without a license than are atheists?
Excuse me?
If these numbers are correct, the US is more fucked than I thought.
Its possible they have lost their licence and still own a car, or the car is just in their name.
3% Atheists is such a bullshit number. There is a famous Pew poll, where they asked people two questions side by side, “are you an atheist” and “do you believe in any god”, and 4% answered no to the first one and something like 20% answered no to the second one.
4% answered no to the first one and something like 20% answered no to the second one.
Where did the other 76% go?
I think “atheist” carries the connotations of being irreligeous, not just not believing in any gods. So some people may not believe in any gods, but maybe they do have some kind of spirituality, or believe in ghosts or something. Buddhism as a religion doesn’t mandate God-belief, though some schools do interact with devas. I’m unsure if any other religions don’t require gods to work, but even if they exist, I imagine they and Buddhists, despite not believing in any gods, will be very hesitant to describe themselves as “atheist.”
According to the same research, 1% of US adults are Buddhist, and they fall in a separate cathegory.
All the polls are weird, and very much depending on how you ask the question and how you slice the data.
But you’re right, the word atheist carries some baggage in a christian nationalist country, but that was kind of almost my point. So many people are afraid of the word atheist, but are “not religious, don’t believe in any gods, don’t follow any practices”, which is, actual textbook definition of the word.
Sounds about right, there’s a difference between atheism and agnosticism, which is what the 2nd question is asking.
This isn’t the difference. Agnosticism postulates that knowing if any god exist is categorically unanswerable. The matter of your personal believe is a parallel question entirely. “We cannot be sure, but I personally don’t believe any gods” makes an atheist, but so does “There is absolutely no evidence for any gods so I don’t believe any”. “We cannot be sure, but I personally believe in Sobek, may his sperm be neverending” makes a theist.
I think the bigger difference is “I don’t believe but I also don’t think others are wrong” is a kind of mentality often. I think that and people are used to seeing self-proclaimed atheists being assholes loudly and go “well I’m not that”. Atheism got fucked over by people who just want to be dicks to religious folks.
Here’s how I’m reading the questions:
“are you an atheist”. 4%
4% of respondents have a firm belief that gods do not exist. (atheist)
“do you believe in any god” 20%
20% of respondents do not believe in a god, but do not necessarily think they don’t exist either. They don’t have enough knowledge to form a belief, i.e. they don’t know. (agnostic)
Agnosticism is the separate category in that questioneer. Pew is weird about it, they just list every major religion and sect, then “other” then “agnostic”, “atheist”, and “nothing”, and you need to chose one, which might be the source of confusion, and I can’t see any good explanation on why do they do it like that. LIke I said, bullshit number. “Don’t believe in any gods, don’t follow any religion, not an agnostic” is an atheist, by definition. Separating it into “atheist” and “atheist but different word” can only serve one purpose, to dilute the numbers so christians don’t feel threatened by all the evil heathens.
Mmm, in that case just sounds like unreliable data.
I did a quick check on one of the facts, the christian one, this says 70% in 2022 but i see 62% for 2022, which is a lot closer to the 58% estimate. Makes me feel a bit sketched out about possible cherry picking, but cool notion still.
30% Jewish, 27% Muslim, 58% Christian, 33% atheist. A very odd mix to estimate.
Well only 8% of the population lives outside California, Texas, and NYC.
If giving 110% is good, then giving over 148% is even better.
But I can believe it, it’s not like they asked people to enumerate all at once, they presumably asked one at a time to estimate, and it’s not like they are likely to try to reconcile those guesses with each other even if made in one sitting.
How incredible to see the effect of political messaging on citizen/voter perception. It is that the exaggerations, lies, and outrage marketing clearly have an outsized effect. I wouldn’t say the US population is dumb. But I would say the manipulation of perception is too much for the average person to do their own research and come up with unbiased facts.
***To those dismissing this based on inconsistencies between topics, you can’t make those comparisons. There is some blending of data in the methodology that is appropriate in order to look at the range. This is only about the gap between perception and reality, and a stack rank.
The average person is easily manipulated by propaganda. Highly intelligent people who should know better are easily manipulated by propaganda. This is why propaganda is so dangerous and should be tightly controlled.
A great ideal so long as you’re the one in charge of deciding what propaganda is.
Most of Western Europe has severe limits on advertising. They ban things like comparative advertising and don’t even allow advertising for prescription medication.
It is not about deciding what propaganda is allowed, it is about setting up regulations to prevent misinformation.
Our current model in the US is the good will outweigh the bad. That people will be able determine the truth and ignore lies. This is of course poppycock.
Unfortunately propaganda works really well and if you allow misogynists and Nazis to have a mouthpiece their numbers will grow.
Control is not a bad thing, those that push toxic freedom and “free speech” have moved the goalposts so far it is hard to believe. We have been so propagandized to it is hard to separate reality from the lies at times.
The truth is propaganda, misinformation, and public relations are working to sow discontent and manipulate people and it is wrong. We are supposed to protect people, not throw them to the richest wolves who convince them that they should enjoy getting eaten.
they estimated 21% of the population are trans, lol I wish 😂
If 21% of the population was trans, republicans ain’t winning elections again.
You underestimate the proportion of dumb people. Trans people can also be dumb.
Yeah that’s bananas. I wonder if people saying 1 in 5 people are trans even know a trans person
What morons did they ask? Holy shit.
92 % of the population lives in either California, new York or Texas?
Don’t you know? The only city in the USA is either New York or Los Angleas or San Francisco. If its a movie about alien invasion then Washington, DC will also show up.
If its UK, the only city is London.
If its China, the only cities that exist are Beijing or Shanghai.
If its Japan, the only city that exist is Tokyo.
Welcome to Hollywood!
If its UK, the only city is London.
It is well known that if you are a being with access to all of time and space in your bigger-on-the-inside ship you will suspiciously hang out a lot in current day London.
It’s kinda funny though, I have six friends I stay in touch with who live in the UK. They’re all in London. No I didn’t meet them there. Coincidence also reinforces confirmation bias. I know believe it is the only city.
Imagine thinking 1 in 5 people are trans… Just… This has to be a math understanding issue, right??
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.
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.
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
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%
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.
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.
You know, thinking back about how big the number is, it’s probably both.
