• VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

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

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

    • OmegaMouse@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      1 year 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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          1 year 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.

            • OmegaMouse@feddit.uk
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              I don’t think the personal attack is really necessary. I do legitimately want a discussion about this, but people are getting the impression that I want to distract from the point of the post, which I promise you is not my intention. I apologise if anything I’ve said has come across that way. I shall leave things here.

      • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        1 year ago

        Expressing the number of people shot as a tiny fraction of 400 million people would raise at least as many questions about accuracy and make it EASIER for people like you to distract from the point by obsessing over an unimportant (to the point being made) detail.

        Analogies and third decimal-accurate statistics just don’t fit together.

        • OmegaMouse@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘people like me’. To be 100% clear, I agree with the point of the post but I just don’t think they’ve gone about explaining it in the best way. To somewhat agree with what you’re saying, I’d say yes, analogies and accurate statistics don’t fit well together, but neither do analogies and statistics in general. Either stick to written analogies/hyperbole OR use actual statistics.

          • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            1 year ago

            I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘people like me’

            Pedants, the easily sidetracked, those who will jump at the opportunity to distract from the message itself by hyperfocusing on an insignificant technical detail.

            Take your pick.

            • OmegaMouse@feddit.uk
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              1 year ago

              You seem to have a very binary view of things though. Is it not possible for someone to agree with a message, but think we can improve on how we tell it? If we want to convince people of something, is it not best to provide as convincing an argument as possible? I’m not trying to distract from the message, I’m wondering how we can tell it better.

              • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                You seem to have a very binary view

                Of distracting from the actual topic by needlessly fixating on an only tangentially relevant detail? Yeah, I’m kooky like that.

                Is it not possible for someone to agree with a message, but think we can improve on how we tell it?

                Sure, but that’s not what you’re doing. You’re, deliberately or not, pulling all attention away from the message by demanding a fix to something that, in the specific case, is unimportant.

                If we want to convince people of something, is it not best to provide as convincing an argument as possible?

                As I said before, being more exact would invite MORE distracting arguments about it, not fewer.

                I’m not trying to distract from the message

                You’re also not trying to NOT distract from the message either, though. Or you are and you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.

                I’m wondering how we can tell it better

                It was told just fine. You’re actively obscuring the salient point with your pedantry.

    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year 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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          How about you address the fact that you’re saying that telling the truth would distract from the point instead of pulling up distractions? Sounds like whataboutism to me

          • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            13
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Let me put it another way.

            There’s 4,947,342.562 kinds of people in the world: those who obsess over needless numeral exactitude when faced with a rhetorical argument, and those who don’t.

        • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

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

          • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year 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
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year 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.