7 ms·

> You say that like it's some huge number. 70 million or not, it's still 1%. Numbers get their significance relatively, not in themselves. Relative to what? I

> You say that like it's some huge number. 70 million or not, it's still 1%. Numbers get their significance relatively, not in themselves. Relative to what? I can't believe I'm having this conversation. 70 million people is more than the number of people killed in both world wars. 70 million people is more than the population of the UK or Canada. Are you claiming that the world wars caused negligible deaths, or that the populations of the UK or Canada are negligible? You can't just say 1% is a negligible amount without context. Whether 1% is a negligible margin of error is entirely dependent on context. 1% blood alcohol will probably kill you, 1% error on your taxes, if intentional, is enough to put you in jail, 1% error in floating point arithmetic is the difference between a missile that hits its target and a missile that lands in a civilian residence. But numbers get their significance relatively, right? 70 million people is a lot of people.

esrauch 12y ago
> 70 million people is more than the number of people killed in both world wars Not that I necessarily disagree with your sentiment, but the world population was lower when those wars happened, so the the same number of people dying was far more than 1% at the time. Looks like WW2 alone was 3-4% of the global population. The world wars were also important for reasons other than number of deaths anyway.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  That's a fair point on the change in population since WW2. However, I think that the atypically-sexed population is important for reasons other than numbers, too.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Sure, but that's a totally different argument.
    - copsarebastards 12y ago
      It's the argument esrauch was making.
threatofrain 12y ago
Yes, but so what? How do you link this argument back? 70 million is a lot of people in MORAL terms. What about scientifically? We aren't talking about killing 70 million people. We're talking about the strength of constructs in terms of scientific utility. This is also the problem with huge numbers. It's very hard to process and we are intuitively intimidated by the largeness, such as with numbers from the state budget. $70 billion? Oh my god. How am I supposed to process that number? Also note that 1% is a figure arising from the most inclusive definitions.
- panzagl 12y ago
  People are reading too much into this article- it's more like "1% of the population has this interesting genetic condition that may have impacts under some conditions" not "1% of the population is being discriminated against"
  - threatofrain 12y ago
    Yes, I think people are playing border politics without realizing it. They want to be more inclusive, but this is about construct validity and adding something new to the table, not talking about how 70 million people dying is tremendous.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > Yes, but so what? How do you link this argument back? 70 million is a lot of people in MORAL terms. What about scientifically? What about scientifically? Scientifically, there's no concept of negligible or not negligible. On what scientific grounds did you decide 1% was negligible? The negligibility of a percentage is only choosable based on your values and how much you value what exists in that percentage. My argument is that in most contexts, you probably care about 70 million people. If that's not the case, you may be a sociopath. But my guess is that you aren't a sociopath--you're just operating under some temporary delusion that because you've decided to say 1% of people instead of 70 million people, your decision that the group of people in question is negligible is scientific. > We aren't talking about killing 70 million people. We're talking about the strength of constructs in terms of scientific utility. If you're claiming that 70 million people have no scientific utility, I'd like to see what utility function you're using. > This is also the problem with huge numbers. It's very hard to process and we are intuitively intimidated by the largeness, such as with numbers from the state budget. $70 billion? Oh my god. How am I supposed to process that number? I'm not sure how the fact that large numbers are hard to process means that 70 million people is negligible. Certainly saying 1% instead of 70 million makes it easier to process, but playing to human mental limitations isn't a particularly good source of truth. > Also note that 1% is a figure arising from the most inclusive definitions. I'll happily make similar arguments about 7 million people instead of 70 million.
ajkjk 12y ago
I can't believe you're having this conversation either. You're correct, obviously; you've thrown out tons of trivially correct examples to make it clear to everyone just how right you are, none of which have anything to do with this. You are of course aware that 1% out of a population has nothing to do with the concept of a 1% error on your taxes or 1% blood alcohol. Alcohol does not affect you 1% of the time if you have a 1% BAC. Everyone here knows that if you make the population arbitrarily large, the 1% sample becomes large too. But can you really argue that being able to represent 99% with a binary spectrum isn't a pretty good approximation? What percentage would be good enough for you? Or are you going to say "99.9% isn't good enough because 7 million is a lot of people. that's more than died in X'?
- Retric 12y ago
  Context is important, a 1% rate of serial killers would be a ridiculously huge issue for a country.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > I can't believe you're having this conversation either. You're correct, obviously; you've thrown out tons of trivially correct examples to make it clear to everyone just how right you are, none of which have anything to do with this. You are of course aware that 1% out of a population has nothing to do with the concept of a 1% error on your taxes or 1% blood alcohol. Alcohol does not affect you 1% of the time if you have a 1% BAC. So you agree then that whether 1% is negligible is based on context? > Everyone here knows that if you make the population arbitrarily large, the 1% sample becomes large too. But can you really argue that being able to represent 99% with a binary spectrum isn't a pretty good approximation? What percentage would be good enough for you? Or are you going to say "99.9% isn't good enough because 7 million is a lot of people. that's more than died in X'? Yes. In case you didn't notice, 7 million people is a lot of people.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >So you agree then that whether 1% is negligible is based on context? Yeah, or as I put it: "Numbers get their significance relatively, not in themselves". Whereas you repeatedly stated how 70 million people is a huge number in itself. E.g. If I told you there are 70 million people that have blue eyes, is that "a huge number?" No, it's actually a small number. One would expect blue-eyed people to be in the 100s of millions or billions.
mreiland 12y ago
> Relative to what? Relative to the total. Are you that fucking stupid?
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > > Relative to what? > Relative to the total. Are you that fucking stupid? Since we're answering rhetorical questions here, no, I'm not stupid. My point is that the choice to compare the number to the total population is entirely arbitrary. That's why I compared it to the numbers of people killed in the world wars, and the populations of major countries. Why is your arbitrary choice of comparison somehow more valid than mine?
  - mreiland 12y ago
    In other words, you're fucking stupid.
    - copsarebastards 12y ago
      Cool story bro.
Zancarius 12y ago
> 70 million people is more than the number of people killed in both world wars. I've seen some estimates that suggest 72 million were killed in WWII alone, either from direct involvement or as civilian casualties. Considering the world population was ~2 billion at that time, close to 3.6% of the total world population died as a consequence of the war. Oftentimes, it's helpful when comparing approximate statistics from different eras that you use the same relative baseline--in this case world population at the time those statistics were estimated rather than now. Edit: Didn't see esrauch's sibling comment. Give 'em an upvote.
maratd 12y ago
> 70 million people is a lot of people. So one person isn't a lot of people ... are you saying one person is negligible? That one person's life doesn't matter? Two can play this game. 1% is 1%. Every life is important, but 1% is still 1%. And 1% is not a lot. Whether it's people, apples, or pencils doesn't matter. It's a ratio.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > So one person isn't a lot of people ... are you saying one person is negligible? That one person's life doesn't matter? Can we make laws, do medical research, etc. that will effectively help 1 person? I don't think so. If I see one person by the side of the road with a flat tire, I'll help that 1 person, but in the context of policy and research, 1 person usually doesn't matter because policy and research can't usually create a meaningful impact. We can, however, make laws and do medical research that has an impact on 70 million people. I present as evidence for this the fact that life has gotten better (according to a variety of shared values which we could agree upon--fewer suicides, less violence) in the last few decades for people of atypical sexes. > 1% is 1%. Every life is important, but 1% is still 1%. And 1% is not a lot. Whether it's people, apples, or pencils doesn't matter. It's a ratio. No, context matters. If you don't think 1% is a lot in any context, maybe let's get you up to a 1% blood alcohol and see how you feel (hint: you won't feel).
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >We can, however, make laws and do medical research that has an impact on 70 million people. Which is nothing this thread of discussion was about. Nobody said not to study or legally hep those people. Just that 1% is not enough to describe the total of cases as a "spectrum".
    - copsarebastards 12y ago
      > Which is nothing this thread of discussion was about. > Nobody said not to study or legally hep those people. > Just that 1% is not enough to describe the total of cases as a "spectrum". Assuming that your medical and social policies are at all data-driven, failure to include people in your data is a guaranteed way to ensure that they are not studied or legally helped.
coldtea 12y ago
>Relative to what? I can't believe I'm having this conversation. Relative to the total population. Whether it's Canada, the US, France, or the Whole World you're taking into account, it's still 1% of it. >You can't just say 1% is a negligible amount without context. Probably you missed TFA and the whole conversation thread you're answering to? The context was if only 1% of the population doing them is enough to call sexual preferences "a spectrum" (with regard to those "atypical sexual practices"). Something divided in 99% and 1% is not a "spectrum" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact there's a word for that 1%, outliers. >1% blood alcohol will probably kill you, 1% error on your taxes, if intentional, is enough to put you in jail, 1% error in floating point arithmetic is the difference between a missile that hits its target and a missile that lands in a civilian residence. But numbers get their significance relatively, right? Of course. 1% blood alcohol gets its significance not in what it is ("1% oh, so much") but RELATIVE to the amount that's OK for a human to stand. 1% error in missile calculations gets its significance RELATIVE to the target area it has to hit and the acceptable margin of error.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > Probably you missed TFA and the whole conversation thread you're answering to? TFA and whole conversation are exactly the context which makes it ridiculous to claim that 1% is an acceptable margin of error. > Of course. 1% blood alcohol gets its significance not in what it is ("1% oh, so much") but RELATIVE to the amount that's OK for a human to stand. > 1% error in missile calculations gets its significance RELATIVE to the target area it has to hit and the acceptable margin of error. Agreed. 1% error in judging the gender of people is significant relative to medical and social policy targets. On what grounds are you claiming that 70 million people are ignorable in medical and social policy? Ironically, the only argument from you I've seen so far against sex being considered a spectrum is basically, "1%, oh, not so much". You said: "You say that like it's some huge number. 70 million or not, it's still 1%." And ultimately, this is in research before we are even talking about medical and social policy. I'm not sure why we should just discard that 1% of data at all--there's no reason to artificially create error in reasoning that isn't imposed by data collection methods.

esrauch 12y ago

> 70 million people is more than the number of people killed in both world wars Not that I necessarily disagree with your sentiment, but the world population was lower when those wars happened, so the the same number of people dying was far more than 1% at the time. Looks like WW2 alone was 3-4% of the global population. The world wars were also important for reasons other than number of deaths anyway.

copsarebastards 12y ago
That's a fair point on the change in population since WW2. However, I think that the atypically-sexed population is important for reasons other than numbers, too.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Sure, but that's a totally different argument.
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    It's the argument esrauch was making.

threatofrain 12y ago

Yes, but so what? How do you link this argument back? 70 million is a lot of people in MORAL terms. What about scientifically? We aren't talking about killing 70 million people. We're talking about the strength of constructs in terms of scientific utility. This is also the problem with huge numbers. It's very hard to process and we are intuitively intimidated by the largeness, such as with numbers from the state budget. $70 billion? Oh my god. How am I supposed to process that number? Also note that 1% is a figure arising from the most inclusive definitions.

panzagl 12y ago
People are reading too much into this article- it's more like "1% of the population has this interesting genetic condition that may have impacts under some conditions" not "1% of the population is being discriminated against"
- threatofrain 12y ago
  Yes, I think people are playing border politics without realizing it. They want to be more inclusive, but this is about construct validity and adding something new to the table, not talking about how 70 million people dying is tremendous.
copsarebastards 12y ago
> Yes, but so what? How do you link this argument back? 70 million is a lot of people in MORAL terms. What about scientifically? What about scientifically? Scientifically, there's no concept of negligible or not negligible. On what scientific grounds did you decide 1% was negligible? The negligibility of a percentage is only choosable based on your values and how much you value what exists in that percentage. My argument is that in most contexts, you probably care about 70 million people. If that's not the case, you may be a sociopath. But my guess is that you aren't a sociopath--you're just operating under some temporary delusion that because you've decided to say 1% of people instead of 70 million people, your decision that the group of people in question is negligible is scientific. > We aren't talking about killing 70 million people. We're talking about the strength of constructs in terms of scientific utility. If you're claiming that 70 million people have no scientific utility, I'd like to see what utility function you're using. > This is also the problem with huge numbers. It's very hard to process and we are intuitively intimidated by the largeness, such as with numbers from the state budget. $70 billion? Oh my god. How am I supposed to process that number? I'm not sure how the fact that large numbers are hard to process means that 70 million people is negligible. Certainly saying 1% instead of 70 million makes it easier to process, but playing to human mental limitations isn't a particularly good source of truth. > Also note that 1% is a figure arising from the most inclusive definitions. I'll happily make similar arguments about 7 million people instead of 70 million.

ajkjk 12y ago

I can't believe you're having this conversation either. You're correct, obviously; you've thrown out tons of trivially correct examples to make it clear to everyone just how right you are, none of which have anything to do with this. You are of course aware that 1% out of a population has nothing to do with the concept of a 1% error on your taxes or 1% blood alcohol. Alcohol does not affect you 1% of the time if you have a 1% BAC. Everyone here knows that if you make the population arbitrarily large, the 1% sample becomes large too. But can you really argue that being able to represent 99% with a binary spectrum isn't a pretty good approximation? What percentage would be good enough for you? Or are you going to say "99.9% isn't good enough because 7 million is a lot of people. that's more than died in X'?

Retric 12y ago
Context is important, a 1% rate of serial killers would be a ridiculously huge issue for a country.
copsarebastards 12y ago
> I can't believe you're having this conversation either. You're correct, obviously; you've thrown out tons of trivially correct examples to make it clear to everyone just how right you are, none of which have anything to do with this. You are of course aware that 1% out of a population has nothing to do with the concept of a 1% error on your taxes or 1% blood alcohol. Alcohol does not affect you 1% of the time if you have a 1% BAC. So you agree then that whether 1% is negligible is based on context? > Everyone here knows that if you make the population arbitrarily large, the 1% sample becomes large too. But can you really argue that being able to represent 99% with a binary spectrum isn't a pretty good approximation? What percentage would be good enough for you? Or are you going to say "99.9% isn't good enough because 7 million is a lot of people. that's more than died in X'? Yes. In case you didn't notice, 7 million people is a lot of people.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >So you agree then that whether 1% is negligible is based on context? Yeah, or as I put it: "Numbers get their significance relatively, not in themselves". Whereas you repeatedly stated how 70 million people is a huge number in itself. E.g. If I told you there are 70 million people that have blue eyes, is that "a huge number?" No, it's actually a small number. One would expect blue-eyed people to be in the 100s of millions or billions.

mreiland 12y ago

> Relative to what? Relative to the total. Are you that fucking stupid?

copsarebastards 12y ago
> > Relative to what? > Relative to the total. Are you that fucking stupid? Since we're answering rhetorical questions here, no, I'm not stupid. My point is that the choice to compare the number to the total population is entirely arbitrary. That's why I compared it to the numbers of people killed in the world wars, and the populations of major countries. Why is your arbitrary choice of comparison somehow more valid than mine?
- mreiland 12y ago
  In other words, you're fucking stupid.
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    Cool story bro.

Zancarius 12y ago

> 70 million people is more than the number of people killed in both world wars. I've seen some estimates that suggest 72 million were killed in WWII alone, either from direct involvement or as civilian casualties. Considering the world population was ~2 billion at that time, close to 3.6% of the total world population died as a consequence of the war. Oftentimes, it's helpful when comparing approximate statistics from different eras that you use the same relative baseline--in this case world population at the time those statistics were estimated rather than now. Edit: Didn't see esrauch's sibling comment. Give 'em an upvote.

maratd 12y ago

> 70 million people is a lot of people. So one person isn't a lot of people ... are you saying one person is negligible? That one person's life doesn't matter? Two can play this game. 1% is 1%. Every life is important, but 1% is still 1%. And 1% is not a lot. Whether it's people, apples, or pencils doesn't matter. It's a ratio.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> So one person isn't a lot of people ... are you saying one person is negligible? That one person's life doesn't matter? Can we make laws, do medical research, etc. that will effectively help 1 person? I don't think so. If I see one person by the side of the road with a flat tire, I'll help that 1 person, but in the context of policy and research, 1 person usually doesn't matter because policy and research can't usually create a meaningful impact. We can, however, make laws and do medical research that has an impact on 70 million people. I present as evidence for this the fact that life has gotten better (according to a variety of shared values which we could agree upon--fewer suicides, less violence) in the last few decades for people of atypical sexes. > 1% is 1%. Every life is important, but 1% is still 1%. And 1% is not a lot. Whether it's people, apples, or pencils doesn't matter. It's a ratio. No, context matters. If you don't think 1% is a lot in any context, maybe let's get you up to a 1% blood alcohol and see how you feel (hint: you won't feel).
- coldtea 12y ago
  >We can, however, make laws and do medical research that has an impact on 70 million people. Which is nothing this thread of discussion was about. Nobody said not to study or legally hep those people. Just that 1% is not enough to describe the total of cases as a "spectrum".
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    > Which is nothing this thread of discussion was about. > Nobody said not to study or legally hep those people. > Just that 1% is not enough to describe the total of cases as a "spectrum". Assuming that your medical and social policies are at all data-driven, failure to include people in your data is a guaranteed way to ensure that they are not studied or legally helped.

coldtea 12y ago

>Relative to what? I can't believe I'm having this conversation. Relative to the total population. Whether it's Canada, the US, France, or the Whole World you're taking into account, it's still 1% of it. >You can't just say 1% is a negligible amount without context. Probably you missed TFA and the whole conversation thread you're answering to? The context was if only 1% of the population doing them is enough to call sexual preferences "a spectrum" (with regard to those "atypical sexual practices"). Something divided in 99% and 1% is not a "spectrum" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact there's a word for that 1%, outliers. >1% blood alcohol will probably kill you, 1% error on your taxes, if intentional, is enough to put you in jail, 1% error in floating point arithmetic is the difference between a missile that hits its target and a missile that lands in a civilian residence. But numbers get their significance relatively, right? Of course. 1% blood alcohol gets its significance not in what it is ("1% oh, so much") but RELATIVE to the amount that's OK for a human to stand. 1% error in missile calculations gets its significance RELATIVE to the target area it has to hit and the acceptable margin of error.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> Probably you missed TFA and the whole conversation thread you're answering to? TFA and whole conversation are exactly the context which makes it ridiculous to claim that 1% is an acceptable margin of error. > Of course. 1% blood alcohol gets its significance not in what it is ("1% oh, so much") but RELATIVE to the amount that's OK for a human to stand. > 1% error in missile calculations gets its significance RELATIVE to the target area it has to hit and the acceptable margin of error. Agreed. 1% error in judging the gender of people is significant relative to medical and social policy targets. On what grounds are you claiming that 70 million people are ignorable in medical and social policy? Ironically, the only argument from you I've seen so far against sex being considered a spectrum is basically, "1%, oh, not so much". You said: "You say that like it's some huge number. 70 million or not, it's still 1%." And ultimately, this is in research before we are even talking about medical and social policy. I'm not sure why we should just discard that 1% of data at all--there's no reason to artificially create error in reasoning that isn't imposed by data collection methods.