this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] teolan@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Americans believe a single city (New York) represents 30% of the American population?

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[–] DickFiasco@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Here's the methodology according to the YouGov website:

Methodology: This article includes findings from two U.S. News surveys conducted by YouGov on two nationally representative samples of 1,000 U.S. adult citizens interviewed online from January 14-20, 2022. The first survey included questions on groups involving race, education, income, family, gender, and sexuality, while the second survey included questions on religion, politics, and other miscellaneous groups. The samples were weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the 2018 American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, as well as 2016 and 2020 Presidential votes (or non-votes). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. citizens. Real proportions were taken from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, YouGov’s internal poll results, and the results of other well-established polling firms. Most estimates were collected within the past three years; the oldest is from 2009. Because the real estimates presented cover a range of time periods, they may differ from actual population sizes at the time our survey was conducted.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

Sample size of 1000 is absolutely nothing for so many detailed/granular questions. Let alone then weighing the few sub-groups etc.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

People just have no idea what numbers mean. And, look at how education works here, who could blame them?

[–] potoo22@programming.dev 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Reminder that a McDonald's new burger campaign failed because people thought a ⅓ lb burger was smaller than a ¼ lb burger.

[–] huppakee@feddit.nl 10 points 1 week ago

They really should have started selling ⅕ lb burgers to make up for their losses

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Imagine thinking 1 in 5 people are trans... Just... This has to be a math understanding issue, right??

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Before traveling to California, I had people in my neighborhood plead with me not to go because the whole state is a "disaster area" and that the cities are burning and that there are "drug needles everywhere you walk" and that I was putting my life and those of my loved ones in serious danger. They thought with 100% certainty that Los Angeles was completely on fire from looting and I was going to some kind of Mad Max hellscape. Without exaggeration. They wouldn't listen to reassurance and were genuinely worried.

Granted some of these people were older, they weren't suffering dementia and could still drive. They just park in front of FOX news all day, every day, 24-hours a day swallowing conservative propaganda. They also have algorithmic filtering on their facebook and twitter.

Our perspectives of each others worlds has been damaged beyond repair because of this filtering. We have it on the left/progressive side too, showing us a different reflection of a pandering, emotionally validating worldview. Not as malicious maybe, but we are all trapped.

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[–] Subversive@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 week ago (5 children)
  • 64% white
  • 39% hispanic
  • 41% black
  • 29% asian
  • 30% jewish
  • 27% native americans

All the 230% of US population.

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago

Funny that more people own a car than have a driver's license.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago (4 children)

People think 30% of the U.S population lives in New York?

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[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

So looking at that chart the average person thinks that (roughly), one in four people are native American, one in four people are Asian, two in five people are black as well as two in five people being Hispanic. Or to use the given percentages the average American thinks that 136% of Americans are non-white. I suppose that explains a lot of the "white genocide" hysteria.

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[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

92% of their population lives in either California, Texas, or NYC, if you do the maths.

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[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 week ago

What morons did they ask? Holy shit.

[–] GaMEChld@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

I wonder how much of MAGA knows the entire population of illegal immigrants is estimated at a WHOPPING 3% of our population.

[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

92 % of the population lives in either California, new York or Texas?

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[–] Kowowow@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wouldn't have guessed you guys would have more vegans than union members

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[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Part of this is people obviously not thinking about one per hundred and just giving a random percentage like number. Everything is clustered around 25, and 50 percent. This isn't reasonably measuring much(if anything as I can assure you nobody believes 90 percent of people live in either Texas, California, or NYC). The headline should be "don't poll people by asking what they think about qualitatively and asking them to translate it into quantitative percentages because you'll receive nonsense." Trying to reach other conclusions from such absolute noise really is just making things up.

[–] prunerye@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Honestly the most shocking number to me is that 65% of Americans own a house. How can 62% have a household income "over $50,000" and 65% own a house? Is it all old people?

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[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

30% Jewish, 27% Muslim, 58% Christian, 33% atheist. A very odd mix to estimate.

[–] formergijoe@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

Well only 8% of the population lives outside California, Texas, and NYC.

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[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

........ Honestly, this isn't too surprising with how saturated the media is with minority groups. Almost every show I see on various streaming products ends up having heavy LGBTQ+ plots rammed in, trans characters showin up, always a multicultural combo of characters and fewer and fewer generic CIS white people. When the media is constantly blasting you with minorities and minority issues, in a highly biased way, it's totally not surprising at all that people would start thinking they're a way bigger slice of the population.

Like someone once pointed out that there were more airplane pilots in North America than trans people. So imagine if every TV show you watched, suddenly had an airplane pilot show up and talk about airplanes a bunch, had whole episodes dedicated to his occupational trauma, regardless of what the main plot of the show may be. That would be more representative of the general public, than having trans people in every fucking show going on about trans trauma.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 13 points 1 week ago (5 children)

its called corporate virtue signalling, or rainbow capitalism, alot of people complained how it ruins shows, and i do agree, its a distraction from poor writing and plots.

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[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The math contributes some to this. Let's say the correct answer is 1%, and out of ten people, 9 of them guess 1% and the other guesses 51% - that one guess shifts the average from 1% to 6%. And if it's 1%, then there's no room for people to underestimate and bring the number back down, and the same is true of numbers close to 100%. The numbers closer to the middle don't necessarily mean that people were more correct on an individual level, but that some people overestimated and others underestimated and it came out closer to the right number. The graph ought to give information about the spread of errors and not just the raw average.

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[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

29% Asian? 🤣

I fucking wish

As an Asian American, I don't feel safe going to a red jurisdiction.

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