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Sorry, I didn't mean the comparison to be a problem because Brits aren't familiar with Aarhus, but because I doubt the usefulness of this type of comparison. "

Sorry, I didn't mean the comparison to be a problem because Brits aren't familiar with Aarhus, but because I doubt the usefulness of this type of comparison. "It's a large number" isn't useful when it's a percentage of an even larger number. ~1% of people die each year. Larger cities or nations will obviously have higher absolute numbers -- but what does that tell us besides that more people live there? If you can't visualize 120,000, can you visualize 67,000,000? Would "We'd losing a population the size of Aarhus if our population was the size of 100 Aarhuses" really make things clearer than saying "about 1% of the population dies in any given year"?

dijit 4y ago
How would you communicate such figures. There are a total number of people who have died who wouldn't have otherwise. It's not about "what is the delta" it's about imagining a literal city full of people who have died prematurely. In terms of absolute numbers, "7%" is high, but not enough to really evoke any emotion in the reader. How would you prefer to convey emotion to the fact that people's family members are no longer with us because of an economic policy which doesn't actually save the country money and has more in common with religion than economic science.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > It's not about "what is the delta" it's about imagining a literal city full of people who have died prematurely. That's the thing though, there's always a city full of people who die, and it's pretty much always prematurely if you ask anyone that cared about them. There's no reason to help people visualize the actual number because the actual number is irrelevant. Would a 7% increase in the death rate be less shocking in Denmark even though it'd just be five villages and not half a city in absolute numbers? Looking at absolute numbers to visualize things that are relative confuses people, because you'll need to play weird games when you want to get your point across but your population is 5m. "If we had 50m citizens, this would be half a city" is weird, people will rightfully say "but we don't, what are you talking about?" I don't believe news should be aiming to convey emotion, or be manipulating. I also don't believe that the "how many football fields is that?" approach to news is useful.

dijit 4y ago

How would you communicate such figures. There are a total number of people who have died who wouldn't have otherwise. It's not about "what is the delta" it's about imagining a literal city full of people who have died prematurely. In terms of absolute numbers, "7%" is high, but not enough to really evoke any emotion in the reader. How would you prefer to convey emotion to the fact that people's family members are no longer with us because of an economic policy which doesn't actually save the country money and has more in common with religion than economic science.

luckylion 4y ago
> It's not about "what is the delta" it's about imagining a literal city full of people who have died prematurely. That's the thing though, there's always a city full of people who die, and it's pretty much always prematurely if you ask anyone that cared about them. There's no reason to help people visualize the actual number because the actual number is irrelevant. Would a 7% increase in the death rate be less shocking in Denmark even though it'd just be five villages and not half a city in absolute numbers? Looking at absolute numbers to visualize things that are relative confuses people, because you'll need to play weird games when you want to get your point across but your population is 5m. "If we had 50m citizens, this would be half a city" is weird, people will rightfully say "but we don't, what are you talking about?" I don't believe news should be aiming to convey emotion, or be manipulating. I also don't believe that the "how many football fields is that?" approach to news is useful.