this is from the article in The Washington Post which it clearly states in the end of the end of the post and provides a link to the article, so I do not play with anything.
I was not under the impression that you generated the numbers yourself. You play with it by quoting it in a given spirit. You knew the number 124 over two years is not a very impressive number, so you threw in a bunch of other numbers to try to make it more impressive. (which of course is also why the article author did it.) I mean, why else are those numbers there? Why would anyone care that 124 in Belgium is 3,500 over two years if ratcheted up to match America's 350,000,000 population? (which would be one out of 3.5 million people per two years, or one in 7 million people per year. See what I did there with the numbers.) The only reason is to try to make a small number seem more important.
If you thought the 124 number was important on its own, you wouldn't have bothered to cite the other manufactured numbers.
I think it's better debate if everyone is just honest about what they are doing and why, don't you?
I think that if you want to actually discuss this as a substantive thing, you need to look at what the protections are for people to ensure that they are giving actual consent. Or whether there is any suspicion that they are not based on some kind of circumstances.
Simply quoting the numbers is totally meaningless, it's a pure scare tactic. You're not looking at the system. You're not bothering to see if free will is involved. I don't know why you aren't doing that if you are actually concerned. But none of the reasons I can think of are flattering to you.
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Date: 2016-10-25 04:01 am (UTC)I was not under the impression that you generated the numbers yourself. You play with it by quoting it in a given spirit. You knew the number 124 over two years is not a very impressive number, so you threw in a bunch of other numbers to try to make it more impressive. (which of course is also why the article author did it.) I mean, why else are those numbers there? Why would anyone care that 124 in Belgium is 3,500 over two years if ratcheted up to match America's 350,000,000 population? (which would be one out of 3.5 million people per two years, or one in 7 million people per year. See what I did there with the numbers.) The only reason is to try to make a small number seem more important.
If you thought the 124 number was important on its own, you wouldn't have bothered to cite the other manufactured numbers.
I think it's better debate if everyone is just honest about what they are doing and why, don't you?
I think that if you want to actually discuss this as a substantive thing, you need to look at what the protections are for people to ensure that they are giving actual consent. Or whether there is any suspicion that they are not based on some kind of circumstances.
Simply quoting the numbers is totally meaningless, it's a pure scare tactic. You're not looking at the system. You're not bothering to see if free will is involved. I don't know why you aren't doing that if you are actually concerned. But none of the reasons I can think of are flattering to you.