There's this thing in public opinion where whatever people are mad about, they also overestimate how common it is by like a crazy amount.

Off the top of my head people think we should stop giving away so much money to poorer countries. Ask them how much of the budget goes to aid, they'll say something nuts like 20% when it's actually like 1%.

I haven't done this experiment in person but I bet I'd get a pretty ludicrous answer if we asked what percent of us are trans.

And it'd be pretty easy to debunk too. "oh you think it's 10%? So count the next ten customers to walk in. You think you typically serve a trans customer before 9am, and never noticed it?"

"......uh well maybe not 1/10. Maybe more like 1/100".

Where this is all going: you can convince a person that they are off by a crazy large amount fairly easily but you can never ever convince a person they're wrong.

Does this mean convincing people to be less enthusiastic about their wrong opinion is more viable than getting them to abandon wrong opinions?

Next time my facebook coworker screeds on the mythical girl who identifies as a cat and carries a litter box to school, I'm going to test his estimates. I bet I can't change his mind but I bet I can get him to be quieter.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'm getting the feeling that Americans might not trust percentages below double digits. They might not see that 1 percent means 1 in 100. They'll say 30% are Muslim because the actual value of around 1-2% of Americans being Muslim sounds so statistically inconsequential it may as well be zero.

      I've had people tell me directly "A million people isn't that many." When they live in a town with 3,000 in it.

      I've found it easier to try and explain things through comparison, like I've used the comparison there are about as many trans people in America as there are people born with ginger hair and freckles. There are about as many Muslims as there are people who live in NYC. That works way better to give perspective than numbers from experience.

      • spectre [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I’ve had people tell me directly “A million people isn’t that many.”

        I can guess what conversation resulted in that quote

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Uncritical support to the trans Muslims destroying the American empire

    • buh [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      :amerikkka:

      :is-this: :wtyp-gang: