They don’t commit the majority of crime, they don’t qualify for hardly any government assistance, and they are often exploited by businesses. They make up only 4.2% of population. Sounds like a group that should be protected, not vilified.
There is a wealth of content on various video platforms like YouTube and TikTok, featuring individuals from the affected cities and towns. They can provide a more accurate depiction of the numerous issues they are facing. It’s not just a few people, it’s many.
At some point in your adulthood, you’re going to need to learn the difference between anecdotes and actual statistics/evidence. And guess what, you’re going to often find out that your initial thoughts were completely incorrect.
But that’s fine because it means you learned something.
Maybe that thing for you, today, could be that no number of personal anecdotes, no matter how powerful they may seem, can form a cogent argument. It’s basically meaningless at any statistically significant level.
Statistics also say there are plenty of jobs available and that the economy is healthy, but we know those numbers can be manipulated.
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Trusting YouTube and TikTok over… Hmmm, I don’t know, the US census, US department of Labor, dozens of scholarly studies, hundreds of reputable modern American sociologists, anthropologists, and other educated people who’ve come to a general consensus, seems like a bad start to form an educated opinion.
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The average human is sorrowfully terrible at understanding scale. “It’s not just a few people, it’s many” is a vague statement. What is many? Compared to what? “Almost 500 THOUSAND cases of cholera were reported last year!! Half a million people!! It’s going to kill us all!!” Yeah, but that’s 0.0000625% of humans. More than twice that many people die from accidents while playing sports for recreation. It doesn’t mean we don’t help people with cholera, and it doesn’t mean we ban sports globally; to use that as an example of a greater issue is just disingenuous or ignorant.
“Many” doesn’t mean most, it doesn’t even mean a considerable percentage. Many could just as easily be an insignificant percentage.
Can you describe the actual effects somebody has described in one of those? I’m not even demanding a link, I’m just curious what the most common stories are.
But otherwise don’t expect this post to get a lot of support. “People are saying” is a very empty sounding Trump-like argument. Plus there’s the old saying that the plural of anecdote is not data.
Do you believe unverified platformers and anecdotal scenarios experienced by specific people speaking of a problem as fact and accurate?
If I got on tiktok and spewed nonsensical problems and attributed them to a rat outbreak that may or may not exist, will that become truth? How many viewers will I need for it to become truth?
It appears people have already made up their mind whether it’s accurate or not, so there is no use in continuing the conversation. At what point is something truth vs. anecdotal. Do you need 100 videos, 1000 videos, or more? I’ll just leave this point and end the conversation here. If that’s what you truly want for your area, embrace it no matter what the outcome.
