How do we solve the problem of innumeracy? Do we start a petition to make high school students read John Allen Paulos? Every time I see something like this and attempt to politely adds nuance or correct them, I become "the asshole".
Yes, which is why many actuaries have also been wary of wading into this fight.
People do get very emotional over these numbers, even when they lack context to them. In general, when I first saw these I realized the context that was missing and I started working on the post instead of mixing it up on Twitter at the time. Just jumping in the Twitter fight while it's "hot" will definitely get people yelling at you.
Some of the posts I write come from the twitter arguments, but some of it comes from keeping my mouth shut and watching, and then carefully getting the numbers and graphs together, because I know it won't be the last time the issue comes up (the gun suicides vs. homicides was a post I wrote because I've seen that conflation many times over the years). I won't necessarily circle back and make the point -- I will use it the next time it inevitably comes up.
1. I don't argue on facebook (for one, it has the most idiotic AI for moderation). Usually, my friends there are emoting whatever, and I don't want to argue w/ them anyway. Sometimes, it's okay to let people be wrong.
2. I will argue on twitter. But I pick who I will argue with. If the person is just going to emote everywhere, or if it's someone who has a huge following who will swarm you, what's the point? I'm generally going to respond to people like WSJ columnists who get a fact wrong -- people who might actually run with a correction. And I make my correction as non-emotional/non-accusatory as possible. It's just a factual correction.
3. I'm generally "broadcasting" or just pushing out my posts. Sometimes people share them, and sometimes it just sits in the back of their heads. While mortality trends are a long-term interest of mine, it's not been a contentious interest until recently. My actual contentious interest has been public finance, which I've been arguing for 15 years. So I'm a bit patient.
How do we solve the problem of innumeracy? Do we start a petition to make high school students read John Allen Paulos? Every time I see something like this and attempt to politely adds nuance or correct them, I become "the asshole".
Yes, which is why many actuaries have also been wary of wading into this fight.
People do get very emotional over these numbers, even when they lack context to them. In general, when I first saw these I realized the context that was missing and I started working on the post instead of mixing it up on Twitter at the time. Just jumping in the Twitter fight while it's "hot" will definitely get people yelling at you.
Some of the posts I write come from the twitter arguments, but some of it comes from keeping my mouth shut and watching, and then carefully getting the numbers and graphs together, because I know it won't be the last time the issue comes up (the gun suicides vs. homicides was a post I wrote because I've seen that conflation many times over the years). I won't necessarily circle back and make the point -- I will use it the next time it inevitably comes up.
1. I don't argue on facebook (for one, it has the most idiotic AI for moderation). Usually, my friends there are emoting whatever, and I don't want to argue w/ them anyway. Sometimes, it's okay to let people be wrong.
2. I will argue on twitter. But I pick who I will argue with. If the person is just going to emote everywhere, or if it's someone who has a huge following who will swarm you, what's the point? I'm generally going to respond to people like WSJ columnists who get a fact wrong -- people who might actually run with a correction. And I make my correction as non-emotional/non-accusatory as possible. It's just a factual correction.
3. I'm generally "broadcasting" or just pushing out my posts. Sometimes people share them, and sometimes it just sits in the back of their heads. While mortality trends are a long-term interest of mine, it's not been a contentious interest until recently. My actual contentious interest has been public finance, which I've been arguing for 15 years. So I'm a bit patient.
"Sometimes, it's okay to let people be wrong."
I need a bracelet like those old "WWJD" ones from the late 90's on me to repeat as a mantra :)