Asmodai wrote:
Again, this is all about design.
Look Mr. design fetishist, the problem with these is that at best they're simplified hand-holding and at worst they spread misinformation while presenting them as facts. I will only talk about the two things I wrote papers about but:
1. The whole 52 women and 48 men thing, is almost ceirtainly outdated and untrue. China is the most populous country in the world and PRC'S one child policy significantly increased the number of abortions when the pregnancy is a girl, cases of female infanticide are widespread in rural areas, too.
In India most illegal abortions are caused by the pregnancy being confirmed as a girl, too. So if the two countries that have billion+ populations have more (in China's case vastly more) boys being born, then assuming a 52%-48% girl-boy ration worldwide is insane. There is in fact data that suggests more pregnacies turn out to be girls than boys, yes. But that doesn't translate to more women actually living on Earth.
2. The number of homosexuals is completely unverifiable too, because most of humanity lives in places where outing yourself as gay is dangerous. So there was one famous study in the 90's that concluded that it
could be around 10%. But analysis of countries where tolerance towards gays is at a very high level (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) shows that the actual number is between 3,5%-5%. The studies that give numbers in the 10% range usually have very broad definitions of homosexuality like "anyone who's had a single homosexual experience" doesn't even have to be intercourse.
Just for the record I'm in favor of gay rights, I just think that overestimating the number of gay people is doing nobody a favor.
I can't link you any sources because most of the ones I used in my papers were either books and/or in Polish, but if you google "one child policy" and "demographics of sexual orientation" you'll get some data I'm sure.
BUT
Asmodai wrote:
Well... yeah. I dont go out looking for statistics like this
That's why this annoys Sentios. This is showing dodgey statistics from a single study to lazy people and presenting them as undeniable facts with zero background info on criteria. Like the computer thing, we don't know what "computers" are meant. Anything that calculates? Only PC'S? We have to guess. Is "design" worth it that I can't even be sure what information I just learned and that I have to make, possibly wrong, assumptions? Or the freedom thing, how did they count that? Are all people in China automatically considered not free? Cause the top-brass is pretty fucking free to do whatever they want.
So you like the design, ok. But Sentios' point was that this is a bad way of educating anybody. It patronizes and misinforms. With the plague of "infotainment" running rampant:
http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/why-tv-news ... on-dollars I share his sentiment.
_________________
Stanisław Lem wrote:
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet.
