Your Own Facts

[Qcks@hotmail.com]

[Malice]

Fox News: 8.9 < 8.6 = 9.0

[baconbotsforever]

I always look at graphs and statistics keeping the following in mind:

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If you're at all skilled in the art of statistical manipulation, you can make a survey or a group of data points say nearly anything you want. Use a log scale, use a deliberately framed graph which either emphasizes or minimizes the differences in the data, or use excessive extrapolation from a limited amount of data points and you can twist any data set like a pretzel to meet your own preconceived notions.

As for Santorum, I always picture some poor senior citizen or someone who's not very net saavy googling about Santorum and getting the suprise of their lives. I would feel badly for Santorum, but that intolerant jerk friggin' deserves it.

[Kea]

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If you're at all skilled in the art of statistical manipulation, you can make a survey or a group of data points say nearly anything you want. Use a log scale, use a deliberately framed graph which either emphasizes or minimizes the differences in the data, or use excessive extrapolation from a limited amount of data points and you can twist any data set like a pretzel to meet your own preconceived notions.

That fox news graph wasn't even nearly as sophisticated as that. It was just plain old wrong.

[baconbotsforever]

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If you're at all skilled in the art of statistical manipulation, you can make a survey or a group of data points say nearly anything you want. Use a log scale, use a deliberately framed graph which either emphasizes or minimizes the differences in the data, or use excessive extrapolation from a limited amount of data points and you can twist any data set like a pretzel to meet your own preconceived notions.

That fox news graph wasn't even nearly as sophisticated as that. It was just plain old wrong.

True that. Now the graphs that Paul Ryan used to "explain" his budget plan, those were extrapolation turned up to 11.

I doubt the majority of the voting public looked at that chart and realized how full of bull leavings that "current path" extrapolation truly was, and how long the time scale actually was. I mean, how exactly do you extrapolate an exponential curve like that with the data he had????? You don't, not if you're interested in making an accurate graph.

[Kea]

Yes well, Krugman has ripped Paul Ryan's budget into millions of microscopic little pieces. In addition to this Extrapolaganza Graph, there was a completely unrealistic and unsupported assumption that he would somehow manage to slash the federal budget down to Calvin Coolidge levels. His plan basically went:

1. Cut taxes
2. Trim waste and fraud
3. ????
4. Prosperity!

Not that Obama wasn't also churning out overly-rosy economic predictions, but he's a complete amateur compared to Ryan.

[Kea]

Sorry to revive a dead thread but I just found this:

Well-educated Republicans more likely to believe myths about death panels, Obama being a foreign Muslim, and global warming

What accounts for the “smart idiot” effect?

For one thing, well-informed or well-educated conservatives probably consume more conservative news and opinion, such as by watching Fox News. Thus, they are more likely to know what they’re supposed to think about the issues—what people like them think—and to be familiar with the arguments or reasons for holding these views. If challenged, they can then recall and reiterate these arguments. They’ve made them a part of their identities, a part of their brains, and in doing so, they’ve drawn a strong emotional connection between certain “facts” or claims, and their deeply held political values. And they’re ready to argue.

Conclusion: Education is not the problem, nor is more of it the solution. Education makes Republicans better at fact-resistant thinking.

[baconbotsforever]

American politics are slowly devolving into two groups that aren't just in disagreement about policy or ideas but the basic facts from which one would draw an opinion from. It's an accepted fact on the right that Obama is a spend-and-tax liberal, and yet tax rates are at a 50 year low right now. It's an accepted fact in the bubble that there are still, even after the long form certificate was released, questions about the President's birth status.

It's highly difficult to do anything as long as this remains true.

[Kajin]

A lot of people are complaining that Bioware is on a slippery slope in regards to the day one DLC they have packed in with the new Mass Effect 3. Apparently the DLC will give the player a new squad member in the form of a Prothean. I don't know too much about the Mass Effect lore, but apparently that's supposed to be a huge deal. Many people are claiming they aren't going to buy the new Mass Effect in protest of the fact that Bioware is essentially holding important story information hostage, or so that's what they're saying.

This in spite of the fact that the game hasn't even come out yet and no one knows for sure if the squad member in question will have any actual impact on the story to begin with. Does anyone find this a little odd? Is anyone in agreement with that, or do you all think that people who believe that are fools? I'm inclined to think the latter, but I'm not so certain.

[FreakyBoy]

Well, I'm not buying Mass Effect 3 because Mass Effect 2 sucked, but I think whomever decided to do this DLC didn't think it through enough; they should have known that the prospect of a Prothean on your squad, whatever the details, would cause controversy if charged for.

For those that don't know, the reason a Prothean is a big deal is because the Protheans are extinct, their technology is the basis of Human advancement, and they are the reason why there's any chance to beat the Reapers at all.

Supposedly the DLC only makes this character available as a squad member on missions (and adds a mission of his own), who is otherwise already present in the game, but it was still a bad idea.

[quantumcat42]

Is this some sort of meta-discussion of broken political dialog, or were the Mass Effect posts meant to be in the Video Games thread?

[Grillick]

People can get very opinionated about video games.

[FreakyBoy]

I think Kajin was bringing up a point about people making up their own facts about the Mass Effect 3 DLC.

[Kajin]

It seemed like it belonged. This is a thread about people who believe things that aren't entirely based in reality and you wouldn't believe how much some of the people I know have been ranting and hollering about how horrible this is and how it's going to bring about the downfall of the videogame industry. This is all in concern about a game that isn't even out yet, so no one can really be sure if half of the arguments being made are even valid.

I also may have had multiple links open. But it actually does still apply, if you think about it hard enough.

[quantumcat42]

Oh, I think it's a wonderful illustration of how political discourse often consists of each side operating in their own echo-chamber to the point that when they actually do interact they wind up just talking past each other, as if they were having entirely different conversations.