Americans believe a single city (New York) represents 30% of the American population?
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Holy, holy, holy...they actually thought 21% of people are transgender? 1 in 5?? The only thing this proves is the polled Americans are stupid AF. πππ
Okay but Americans are numerically illiterate.
I did a quick check on one of the facts, the christian one, this says 70% in 2022 but i see 62% for 2022, which is a lot closer to the 58% estimate. Makes me feel a bit sketched out about possible cherry picking, but cool notion still.
They think almost 25% of people are trans?? Jesus fucking christ
It explains so much when it's played up so heavily in talk shows, despite the reality always having been very minor. Honestly I didn't realize me being gay was that much of a minority either. I kind of wish ADHD had been one in the list; if I remember the reality is like no more than 3-5% of the population but people assume it's over diagnosed as hell and like...not really. Maybe when there was the initial "rush" of sorts for parents during the 90's because of it seeming to help "unruly" kids, often just meaning imaginative or creative. In my case my parents didn't even know until my kindergarten teacher told them I should get evaluated, and yep.
Or vice versa, people have that perception because the media and social networks fixate on it so much.
Frequently meaning well, but the attempt to be very inclusive creates for some crazy unrealisitc representations.
bullshit there is no way people believe that 34% of the population is lefthanded.
30% Jewish, 27% Muslim, 58% Christian, 33% atheist. A very odd mix to estimate.
If giving 110% is good, then giving over 148% is even better.
But I can believe it, it's not like they asked people to enumerate all at once, they presumably asked one at a time to estimate, and it's not like they are likely to try to reconcile those guesses with each other even if made in one sitting.
Well only 8% of the population lives outside California, Texas, and NYC.
3% Atheists is such a bullshit number. There is a famous Pew poll, where they asked people two questions side by side, "are you an atheist" and "do you believe in any god", and 4% answered no to the first one and something like 20% answered no to the second one.
I think "atheist" carries the connotations of being irreligeous, not just not believing in any gods. So some people may not believe in any gods, but maybe they do have some kind of spirituality, or believe in ghosts or something. Buddhism as a religion doesn't mandate God-belief, though some schools do interact with devas. I'm unsure if any other religions don't require gods to work, but even if they exist, I imagine they and Buddhists, despite not believing in any gods, will be very hesitant to describe themselves as "atheist."
According to the same research, 1% of US adults are Buddhist, and they fall in a separate cathegory.
All the polls are weird, and very much depending on how you ask the question and how you slice the data.
But you're right, the word atheist carries some baggage in a christian nationalist country, but that was kind of almost my point. So many people are afraid of the word atheist, but are "not religious, don't believe in any gods, don't follow any practices", which is, actual textbook definition of the word.
Sounds about right, there's a difference between atheism and agnosticism, which is what the 2nd question is asking.
This isn't the difference. Agnosticism postulates that knowing if any god exist is categorically unanswerable. The matter of your personal believe is a parallel question entirely. "We cannot be sure, but I personally don't believe any gods" makes an atheist, but so does "There is absolutely no evidence for any gods so I don't believe any". "We cannot be sure, but I personally believe in Sobek, may his sperm be neverending" makes a theist.
I think the bigger difference is "I don't believe but I also don't think others are wrong" is a kind of mentality often. I think that and people are used to seeing self-proclaimed atheists being assholes loudly and go "well I'm not that". Atheism got fucked over by people who just want to be dicks to religious folks.
Here's how I'm reading the questions:
"are you an atheist". 4%
4% of respondents have a firm belief that gods do not exist. (atheist)
"do you believe in any god" 20%
20% of respondents do not believe in a god, but do not necessarily think they don't exist either. They don't have enough knowledge to form a belief, i.e. they don't know. (agnostic)
Agnosticism is the separate category in that questioneer. Pew is weird about it, they just list every major religion and sect, then "other" then "agnostic", "atheist", and "nothing", and you need to chose one, which might be the source of confusion, and I can't see any good explanation on why do they do it like that. LIke I said, bullshit number. "Don't believe in any gods, don't follow any religion, not an agnostic" is an atheist, by definition. Separating it into "atheist" and "atheist but different word" can only serve one purpose, to dilute the numbers so christians don't feel threatened by all the evil heathens.
very very interesting indeed. i wonder what are the effects of this ..
What morons did they ask? Holy shit.
92 % of the population lives in either California, new York or Texas?
Don't you know? The only city in the USA is either New York or Los Angleas or San Francisco. If its a movie about alien invasion then Washington, DC will also show up.
If its UK, the only city is London.
If its China, the only cities that exist are Beijing or Shanghai.
If its Japan, the only city that exist is Tokyo.
Welcome to Hollywood!
If its UK, the only city is London.
It is well known that if you are a being with access to all of time and space in your bigger-on-the-inside ship you will suspiciously hang out a lot in current day London.
It's kinda funny though, I have six friends I stay in touch with who live in the UK. They're all in London. No I didn't meet them there. Coincidence also reinforces confirmation bias. I know believe it is the only city.
How incredible to see the effect of political messaging on citizen/voter perception. It is that the exaggerations, lies, and outrage marketing clearly have an outsized effect. I wouldnβt say the US population is dumb. But I would say the manipulation of perception is too much for the average person to do their own research and come up with unbiased facts.
***To those dismissing this based on inconsistencies between topics, you canβt make those comparisons. There is some blending of data in the methodology that is appropriate in order to look at the range. This is only about the gap between perception and reality, and a stack rank.
The average person is easily manipulated by propaganda. Highly intelligent people who should know better are easily manipulated by propaganda. This is why propaganda is so dangerous and should be tightly controlled.
A great ideal so long as you're the one in charge of deciding what propaganda is.
they estimated 21% of the population are trans, lol I wish π
Yeah that's bananas. I wonder if people saying 1 in 5 people are trans even know a trans person
If 21% of the population was trans, republicans ain't winning elections again.
You underestimate the proportion of dumb people. Trans people can also be dumb.
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