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Rule of 400
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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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.
Why are you using 'autistic' as an insulting word?
Because that’s literally what people are doing for anyone calling this out
And that makes it okay for you to do it?
I used it as an example and put it in quotes…
I’m literally calling people out for using it incorrectly.
why does that make it fine to use as an insult?
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.
You can’t say they’re just rounding up when they randomly decided to choose 400 as the starting point…
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.
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.