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Is it just me or has it become more common for journalists to write about decreases by saying "X-fold" or "x times"? I always get confused, I find it much easi

Is it just me or has it become more common for journalists to write about decreases by saying "X-fold" or "x times"? I always get confused, I find it much easier to say "by 97%".

TheCraiggers 6y ago
Many people don't have a clue what "30-fold" even means, and therefore it sounds big and scary. Basically, it's just one of the tools in the sensationalist headlines toolbox.
- afavour 6y ago
  …is that true? I understand “30-fold” to mean “30x” and I’m pretty sure I have from a very young age. I haven’t checked but I’d be surprised if my peers weren’t the same.
  - LeifCarrotson 6y ago
    I think people understand 30-fold to mean 30x, but don't always intuit that "slashed by 30-fold" is equivalent to a reduction by 97% of the original deal. They especially don't understand that the difference between a 20-fold, 30-fold, and 50-fold reduction is the same as a 95%, 97%, and 98% discount. This is especially evident in the mental gymnastics required to understand retail sales pricing. How good is a "Buy two, get one 50% off!!" deal? Brains easily give up on the hard questions and substitute easy answers. "What's it actually worth? Bought one at another store last month, do difficult pricing history memory, or easy answer, the original price is listed right there. How good is the deal? Complicated math, or easy answer, it's at least a good enough deal to merit a big sign, bright colors, and two exclamation points. And it's good for a limited time only? Better not miss out, buy now!" Here, the scope of the reduction is kind of irrelevant. They basically scrapped the old deal and tried to write a new, smaller one. Had they scrapped the megafactory plans and decided to open a fast food franchise it could have been reduced a million fold! The new agreement offers $80M and asks Foxconn to spend only $672M on a factory that will employ only 1,454 people by 2025. The original deal offered Foxconn $2.85B (or $2850M) to spend $10B ($10000M) and hire 13,000 by 2032. Big numbers are hard, but running the math it's now $55k/job and $0.13/dollar of capital investment, it was $220k/job and $0.285/dollar. $80M is 2.8% or a 30-fold reduction from $2.85B, but the full story is they've simultaneously reduced the ratios of the incentives and the scope of the required investment. A complete understanding of what those numbers mean is really hard to develop, and isn't really distilled by a substitution in the headline of 30-fold to 30x. Human brains in general are busy and don't like to work too hard, and whether we use "30 fold" like "four score" in our daily vernacular or they say 97% and 80, the headline's effect is the same. It conveys to readers who don't want to run all the numbers about average salaries and payroll taxes and capital depreciation and so on that the previous administration tried to offer an excessively generous deal but the current government has rolled that back to something a lot smaller, don't worry about exactly how much but just trust that it's a lot.
lordgrenville 6y ago
I think for x > 1 "x-fold" is clearer. "Ten times bigger" sounds simpler to me than "1000% growth".
- dasil003 6y ago
  Yes, for growth. But in this case they are using x > 1 or shrinkage.
notRobot 6y ago
This phrasing always confuses me, slashes 30 fold means that it is now 1/30th the ordinal?
notRobot 6y ago
This phrasing always confuses me, slashes 30 fold means that it is now 1/30th the original?
- clankyclanker 6y ago
  Yes.
  - notRobot 6y ago
    Thanks
realityIsntHere 6y ago
Percentages can be just as bad. Increase by 100% is 2x
Invictus0 6y ago
It's terribly confusing. I made this graph to show why: https://i.imgur.com/7wYWWfs.png https://i.imgur.com/7wYWWfs.png Fold decreases are parabolic, fold increases are linear.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  so confusing, I always assumed 30 fold was the same as 30x, meaning 30 times smaller.
myrmidon 6y ago
I believe everyone (with a basic education) should be able to understand both, but I think the X-fold representation is much clearer-- just compare how similar decreases by 80%, 90%, 95% appear at first glance-- but there is a full order of magnitude between EACH of those (while 50% and 55% is basically the same thing)! Calling it a 5-fold, 10-fold or 20-fold decrease makes the difference between them much more immediately obvious, IMO. Its similar with the miles/gallon vs. liters/100km metrics for fuel consumption, where one of them just seems immediately more intuitive to grasp and use (to me).
- luckylion 6y ago
  I find x-fold to be totally clear and intuitive for increases, but I find it weird for decreases. "We've decreased it by 5 times" sounds to me like "We've decreased it by 500%", which it obviously doesn't mean. "We've decreased it to 1/5th", "we've decreased it by 80%" makes more intuitive sense to me. Maybe it is similar to miles/gallon vs liters/100km and depends on where you grew up. I feel like the usage frequency changed, but it could just be that I'm noticing it more.
phailhaus 6y ago
It's because percentages are more misleading for humans than "x-times". 95% and 97% sound very close, right? They're not. 95% is a 20x reduction, while 97% is a 30x reduction. Percentages create a singularity at 100, which is why the effect is more pronounced the closer you get to 100. It's just like how saying something is "95% effective" sounds very convincing until you realize that's a 1-in-20 failure rate.
- function_seven 6y ago
  My favorite example of this were the labels on lunch meats back in the day. They'd say things like, "97% Fat Free!", or "98% Fat Free!". So one of them had 50% more fat than the other, but they both look pretty close to "Fat Free"

Is it just me or has it become more common for journalists to write about decreases by saying "X-fold" or "x times"? I always get confused, I find it much easier to say "by 97%".

TheCraiggers 6y ago

Many people don't have a clue what "30-fold" even means, and therefore it sounds big and scary. Basically, it's just one of the tools in the sensationalist headlines toolbox.

afavour 6y ago
…is that true? I understand “30-fold” to mean “30x” and I’m pretty sure I have from a very young age. I haven’t checked but I’d be surprised if my peers weren’t the same.
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  I think people understand 30-fold to mean 30x, but don't always intuit that "slashed by 30-fold" is equivalent to a reduction by 97% of the original deal. They especially don't understand that the difference between a 20-fold, 30-fold, and 50-fold reduction is the same as a 95%, 97%, and 98% discount. This is especially evident in the mental gymnastics required to understand retail sales pricing. How good is a "Buy two, get one 50% off!!" deal? Brains easily give up on the hard questions and substitute easy answers. "What's it actually worth? Bought one at another store last month, do difficult pricing history memory, or easy answer, the original price is listed right there. How good is the deal? Complicated math, or easy answer, it's at least a good enough deal to merit a big sign, bright colors, and two exclamation points. And it's good for a limited time only? Better not miss out, buy now!" Here, the scope of the reduction is kind of irrelevant. They basically scrapped the old deal and tried to write a new, smaller one. Had they scrapped the megafactory plans and decided to open a fast food franchise it could have been reduced a million fold! The new agreement offers $80M and asks Foxconn to spend only $672M on a factory that will employ only 1,454 people by 2025. The original deal offered Foxconn $2.85B (or $2850M) to spend $10B ($10000M) and hire 13,000 by 2032. Big numbers are hard, but running the math it's now $55k/job and $0.13/dollar of capital investment, it was $220k/job and $0.285/dollar. $80M is 2.8% or a 30-fold reduction from $2.85B, but the full story is they've simultaneously reduced the ratios of the incentives and the scope of the required investment. A complete understanding of what those numbers mean is really hard to develop, and isn't really distilled by a substitution in the headline of 30-fold to 30x. Human brains in general are busy and don't like to work too hard, and whether we use "30 fold" like "four score" in our daily vernacular or they say 97% and 80, the headline's effect is the same. It conveys to readers who don't want to run all the numbers about average salaries and payroll taxes and capital depreciation and so on that the previous administration tried to offer an excessively generous deal but the current government has rolled that back to something a lot smaller, don't worry about exactly how much but just trust that it's a lot.

lordgrenville 6y ago

I think for x > 1 "x-fold" is clearer. "Ten times bigger" sounds simpler to me than "1000% growth".

dasil003 6y ago
Yes, for growth. But in this case they are using x > 1 or shrinkage.

notRobot 6y ago

This phrasing always confuses me, slashes 30 fold means that it is now 1/30th the ordinal?

notRobot 6y ago

This phrasing always confuses me, slashes 30 fold means that it is now 1/30th the original?

clankyclanker 6y ago
Yes.
- notRobot 6y ago
  Thanks

realityIsntHere 6y ago

Percentages can be just as bad. Increase by 100% is 2x

Invictus0 6y ago

It's terribly confusing. I made this graph to show why: https://i.imgur.com/7wYWWfs.png https://i.imgur.com/7wYWWfs.png Fold decreases are parabolic, fold increases are linear.

flavius29663 6y ago
so confusing, I always assumed 30 fold was the same as 30x, meaning 30 times smaller.

myrmidon 6y ago

I believe everyone (with a basic education) should be able to understand both, but I think the X-fold representation is much clearer-- just compare how similar decreases by 80%, 90%, 95% appear at first glance-- but there is a full order of magnitude between EACH of those (while 50% and 55% is basically the same thing)! Calling it a 5-fold, 10-fold or 20-fold decrease makes the difference between them much more immediately obvious, IMO. Its similar with the miles/gallon vs. liters/100km metrics for fuel consumption, where one of them just seems immediately more intuitive to grasp and use (to me).

luckylion 6y ago
I find x-fold to be totally clear and intuitive for increases, but I find it weird for decreases. "We've decreased it by 5 times" sounds to me like "We've decreased it by 500%", which it obviously doesn't mean. "We've decreased it to 1/5th", "we've decreased it by 80%" makes more intuitive sense to me. Maybe it is similar to miles/gallon vs liters/100km and depends on where you grew up. I feel like the usage frequency changed, but it could just be that I'm noticing it more.

phailhaus 6y ago

It's because percentages are more misleading for humans than "x-times". 95% and 97% sound very close, right? They're not. 95% is a 20x reduction, while 97% is a 30x reduction. Percentages create a singularity at 100, which is why the effect is more pronounced the closer you get to 100. It's just like how saying something is "95% effective" sounds very convincing until you realize that's a 1-in-20 failure rate.

function_seven 6y ago
My favorite example of this were the labels on lunch meats back in the day. They'd say things like, "97% Fat Free!", or "98% Fat Free!". So one of them had 50% more fat than the other, but they both look pretty close to "Fat Free"