• li10@feddit.uk
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      10 months ago

      If anything the people pointing out how others are missing the point, are actually missing the point…

      There’s a middle ground between ‘autistically measuring in decimals’ and blowing something completely out of proportion to make a forced point.

      People are just getting defensive because it’s an underlying point they agree with (rightly so) and going on attack for anyone calling it out for being disingenuous.

      • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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        10 months ago

        Nope. That’s just objectively wrong.

        The choice of 1 almost certainly wasn’t a deliberate exaggeration of the actual amount. It’s just the nearest number that isn’t too specific to distract from the overall argument and/or small enough that pro-gun advocates can use it as an argument for gun violence not being a problem at all.

        • li10@feddit.uk
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          10 months ago

          You can’t say they’re just rounding up when they randomly decided to choose 400 as the starting point…

          • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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            10 months ago

            So what you’re saying is that 400 is completely random and because of that, it follows that 1 is meant to be accurate? 🤔

            I’d say that it’s much more likely that they’re operating under the (incorrect but commonly believed) assumption that the US population is closer to 400m than 300m and both numbers are rounded up for simplicity.

            • jaspersgroove@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              The post says “at least 1” which implies that if anything they’re rounding that number down, because on some days that number is 2. So they’re suggesting that on any given day between 800,000 and 1.6 million Americans get shot, or that every single person in the country gets shot every 13 months or so.

              If they’re going to use a number that wildly inaccurate then I immediately assume that every other number in the statement is equally inaccurate, even if that’s not actually the case.

    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      Oh no I see the point, but I’m hardly going to believe a point that’s surrounded by obvious mistakes or embellishments

      • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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        10 months ago

        In this case, being more accurate would have distracted from the overall point.

        Granted, attracting the dismissive comments of insufferable pedants and the wilfully obtuse isn’t ideal either, but here we are 🤷

        • OmegaMouse@feddit.uk
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          10 months ago

          How would being more accurate distract from the point? I agree with what the post is saying, but making up statistics doesn’t really help IMO and takes away from the credibility

            • OmegaMouse@feddit.uk
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              10 months ago

              It doesn’t seem like this post was meant to be hyperbolic though? Hyperbole doesn’t work well in the context of numbers. If someone said 1 in 100 people drive a Toyota, how would I differentiate that from being an actual figure or hyperbole? It’s not obvious unless you look into it. Likewise, if someone told me that 1 in 400 people in the US get shot every day I’d struggle to tell if that’s true or not, given how much I hear about gun crime over there.

              This post is quite clearly framed in a way that sounds like fact.

        • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 months ago

          Ok so you’re saying that you need to outright lie to get people to side with you?

          That makes you sound like a politician, not a human rights advocate, but sure

            • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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              10 months ago

              Exact and false numbers given as proportions aren’t hyperbole, they’re misrepresentations, ie lies.

              • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
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                10 months ago

                “Say you’re in a room”

                It’s literally at the start of the post. Anyone who has eyes and can read now understands this is hypothetical

                  • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
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                    10 months ago

                    It’s a hypothetical. Not misinformation. It’s a hypothetical argument meant to make a philosophical point, not to be a case study on sociological statistics

                    You fucking dipshits getting hung up on the wrong thing means you don’t have enough brain cells to process the argument at hand.