this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 1 week ago (9 children)

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.

[–] DaedalousIlios@pawb.social 16 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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."

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[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (4 children)

they estimated 21% of the population are trans, lol I wish 😂

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If 21% of the population was trans, republicans ain't winning elections again.

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 week ago (6 children)

The 42% are democrats and 47% are republicans is the true surprise. That is a huge difference even though it might not seem like it.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] sartalon@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Well, I have been a registered Republican as long as I have been voting.

And have been voting straight Democrat for over a decade now.

I wonder if there are more like me?

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[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Okay but Americans are numerically illiterate.

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[–] mgtzbos@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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 wouldn’t 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 can’t 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.

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[–] Matt3999@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Only 4% union members - no wonder the US is so fucked for workers

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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.

[–] 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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[–] 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.

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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.

[–] 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.

[–] 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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[–] 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.

[–] 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.

[–] 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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[–] 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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[–] prunerye@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 week ago (2 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?

[–] Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A lot of older generations own a house pretty much

It's easier to put into perspective when you look at how much cheaper houses were before they got bought up by private equity

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