America the Ignorant

[ParanoiA]

Hm. Why? Why is it important to know? I know that it's in the Middle East. I know that they are in turmoil due to the fact that tribal civilization still reigns supreme and that religion is a major cause/catalyst to most conflicts. I know that the Islams in that area are oft divided on many issues. But I don't understand why knowing Iraq borders Syria is instrumental in my being able to cope with the world.

 

I know most of the names of the Justices. I deemed that knowledge worthy of remembering, because I link names with 'ideology' and those nine people make some of the most important decisions in the nation. But knowing Iraq is 169,234 square miles? Not so important.

 

Are you sure that it's irrelevant to know what nation states border Iraq and who the US might have to work with in order to launch a war? Are you sure that you really don't need to know how big or small the nation is to gauge what kind of war we might be fighting? Is it really worthless to know the geography of a world in which a handful of countries would like to wipe you off the map with nuclear weapons with limited range? Not curious who's closest to reaching you, even?

 

I think prioritizing what you need to know is important and maybe geography makes it further down the list than understanding your government. But I think it helps to understand the world's people and their cultures and how it changes from region to region when you consider them geographically. And that kind of knowledge will impact the way you analyze international politics and how we interface with the world.

[needimprovement]

FYI, "most of the world" is China and they are governed by an atheist communist party.

I'm sorry, you must be requiring remedial math, most of the world is not China. There are 6,697,254,041 people in the world. There are 1,324,655,000 people in China, which means it has 20% of the worlds population. India with 17% of the worlds population has a 80.5% Hindu population.

 

But just to toy on the notion about China, cause almost a 3rd of them openly admitted to being religious when asked.

The accuracy of the religious data in China from census sources is questioned. While official data estimated 100 million religious believers in China, a survey taken by Shanghai University found that 31.4% of people above the age of 16, or about 300 million people, considered themselves religious. The survey also found that the major religions are Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and Christianity, accounting for 67.4 percent of believers. About 200 million people are Buddhists, Taoists or worshippers of legendary figures such as the Dragon King and God of Fortune, accounting for 66.1 per cent of all believers, while Christianity accounted for 12% of believers, or 40 million people.

World Wide, there is a big number of people who believe in Religion over all (per the CIA World Fact book).

 

1. Christians 33.32%

1. Roman Catholics 16.99%

2. Protestants 5.78%

3. Orthodox 3.53%

4. Anglicans 1.25%

2. Muslims 21.01%

3. Hindus 13.26%

4. Buddhists 5.84%

5. Sikhs 0.35%

6. Jews 0.23%

7. Baha'is 0.12%

8. other religions 11.78%

9. non-religious 11.77%

10. atheists 2.32%

 

 

So your in the 11.77% or the 2.32%?

[Pangloss]

Returning to politics, I think it's interesting that these "ignorance" surveys so often focus on liberal or anti-conservative talking points. I wonder why they don't ask what the percentage is of Americans who know what the 2nd Amendment says, or that America admits more legal immigrants every year than every other nation on the planet combined.

[vordhosbn]

So your in the 11.77% or the 2.32%?

<off>

I can't give a short answer, my "Relationship status" with God is... "It's complicated".

</off>

 

I wish you were checking your facts as thoroughly as you do mine.

Otherwise I highly doubt all people who identify themselves as "religious" believe literally in creationism.

 

Returning to politics, I think it's interesting that these "ignorance" surveys so often focus on liberal or anti-conservative talking points. I wonder why they don't ask what the percentage is of Americans who know what the 2nd Amendment says, or that America admits more legal immigrants every year than every other nation on the planet combined.

That's just because conservatives are stupid!

Just kidding, your point is valid.

[CaptainPanic]

Thank you, Pangloss. I do not consider myself a fool, so I was surprised to read that. It's true that I know nothing of geography, but that doesn't make me anything other than admittedly ignorant.

 

And to CaptainPanic, I wasn't professing any great knowledge on those regions. I was simply using my own personal reasons for "remaining" ignorant on some things to explain my opinion on why some people do not believe in a heliocentric solar system.

 

And I have since looked it up. I said, "Oh, of course," and went back to the studying required by my major. No need to be mean.

I am sorry if you took this too personal. First of all, you just explained that you don't qualify as a fool (according to my definition) because you actually did look up the map, and you did educate yourself a bit.

 

I was referring to all people who deliberately and knowingly withhold information from themselves even when it is relevant and available. I guess that I am actually mean to people who do that, and I will call them fools... People who deliberately remain ignorant, out of laziness or whatever reason, undermine our system, our democracy, and themselves... and I find it very difficult not to be mean to such people...

 

And the same time, I shall attempt harder to remain polite. I was under the impression that "fool" wasn't such a strong word. However, I should have made my other post less personal, and more general.

[iNow]

...or that America admits more legal immigrants every year than every other nation on the planet combined.

Not once you normalize the data and compare legal immigrant admittance as a percentage of overall population.

We're just larger than most countries and have a higher net number of immigrants as a result. Once you use a valid and normalized comparison (like immigrants as a percentage of total population), you quickly see that the US really isn't so stellar on that front.

 

I won't call you ignorant, though.

[ParanoiA]

I was referring to all people who deliberately and knowingly withhold information from themselves even when it is relevant and available. I guess that I am actually mean to people who do that, and I will call them fools... People who deliberately remain ignorant, out of laziness or whatever reason, undermine our system, our democracy, and themselves... and I find it very difficult not to be mean to such people...

 

High five. I am certainly ignorant about 99% of reality, but it's not deliberate, no matter what my wife says.

 

Returning to politics, I think it's interesting that these "ignorance" surveys so often focus on liberal or anti-conservative talking points. I wonder why they don't ask what the percentage is of Americans who know what the 2nd Amendment says, or that America admits more legal immigrants every year than every other nation on the planet combined.

 

I've noticed the same thing. But I have to say, I've noticed a lot of antiquated ignorance out of conservatives and a lot of logical fallacies. It's partly why I think the left gets accused of being elitist. Of course, I'm talking about conservative talk radio callers as well as the yoyo's I work with. The ignorance of the left doesn't seem so obvious.

 

So, why not come up with your own "ignorance" survey? Could be fun. I'd love to hand it to some liberal junkies here at work and see how they rate.

[iNow]

A neg rep for that post? Give me a break. Maybe I'm not so much tired of how this place is run as much as I'm tired of the people who post here.

[Klaynos]

A neg rep for that post? Give me a break. Maybe I'm not so much tired of how this place is run as much as I'm tired of the people who post here.

 

!

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[Saryctos]

Not once you normalize the data and compare legal immigrant admittance as a percentage of overall population.

We're just larger than most countries and have a higher net number of immigrants as a result. Once you use a valid and normalized comparison (like immigrants as a percentage of total population), you quickly see that the US really isn't so stellar on that front.

 

I won't call you ignorant, though.

And you shouldn't, since you refuted his point with a textbook straw man. Then you dismissed the claim by decreeing it to be invalid without providing any proof to substantiate this belief.

 

A neg rep for that post? Give me a break. Maybe I'm not so much tired of how this place is run as much as I'm tired of the people who post here.

I suggest you reduce the combativeness in your posts if you aren't capable of handling negative feedback.

[A Tripolation]

And you shouldn't, since you refuted his point with a textbook straw man. Then you dismissed the claim by decreeing it to be invalid without providing any proof to substantiate this belief.

 

He didn't provide any proof or data, but I'm having trouble seeing how this is a strawman, Saryctos.

[Pangloss]

Not once you normalize the data and compare legal immigrant admittance as a percentage of overall population.

We're just larger than most countries and have a higher net number of immigrants as a result. Once you use a valid and normalized comparison (like immigrants as a percentage of total population), you quickly see that the US really isn't so stellar on that front.

 

I won't call you ignorant, though.

 

Well let's expand the scale a bit: The United States is considerably smaller than the whole European Union (about 3/5ths the size)(source), but the US allows more legal immigration than every other country in the world combined (not just the EU)(source). That doesn't seem to support what you're saying.

 

It sounds like an interesting argument, though. Perhaps you could expand on it a bit? I admit math is not my forte.

 

-----------

 

Pondering this some more, I wonder how reliable that "all other countries combined" thing is. I don't see a lot of support for it from any sources, just news stories passing along a common phrase.

 

The only DATA I see for immigration are figures of 1-2 million/yr with data ending in 2006. If that's the case then that would suggest that we bring in something like 0.5-0.7%/yr legally. I question whether that figure jives with statistics like the total number of immigrants living in the US and our annual growth rate offset by the number of births. But if we do go with that figure it's not hard to see how we might not compare favorably with some nations.

 

But what are their numbers? Do China or India allow more than 55-65 million immigrants each year (0.5% of 1.1/1.3 bil)? I'm thinking probably not, but what if we compared with countries that are smaller in size? Unfortunately data seems scarce, but perhaps someone has a useful source here. Brazil, for example, is a prosperous South American nation and would seem a likely candidate for pressing immigration. But I don't have any data on Brazilian immigration.

 

But if I can't get that kind of data, I have to question where that "all other countries combined" phrase originates.

 

I did find one statistic that I thought was interesting. Immigration population as a percentage of the total number of immigrants in the world. The United States has roughly 5% of the world's population (if we go with the easy math of 300 million versus 6 billion). But according to this page, it has 20% of the world's immigrants. That certainly seems impressive enough.

 

Not that any of this has anything to do with the point I made in post #28, of course.

[Saryctos]

He didn't provide any proof or data, but I'm having trouble seeing how this is a strawman, Saryctos.

By changing the argument from overall immigration #s

...or that America admits more legal immigrants every year than every other nation on the planet combined.

to immigration as a % of population

Not once you normalize the data and compare legal immigrant admittance as a percentage of overall population.

 

The original comment was not about a %, but a flat value. The size of which may be disputed by Pangloss in the above post, however, the response from iNow was a rebuttal to dismiss the idea that America had a high % total.

[Pangloss]

While I appreciate the thought, I think a clear statement that when you look at some data from a different angle they produce a different impression is a reasonable thing to do. But I think you made a valid point in requiring support for the argument. I don't think he was really addressing my point at all, he just wanted to tackle that phrase about "all other countries combined", and in doing so he caused me to question it too, so that seems like a good thing. Now I'd like to see some data.

 

I mean, as long as he's not calling me "ignorant". Cuz we all know iNow would never do that.

[iNow]

Fair enough. I guess I thought my point was so obvious that it didn't require support. My mistake. Mea culpa.

 

 

The idea is that net number is useless. Bigger countries will have more immigrants, but that net number is an invalid comparison. In order to accurately compare this, and make any claims or assertions based on that data, one must first normalize it... Even the playing field, and instead look at number of new immigrants as a percentage of total population so the comparison becomes valid.

 

 

When you do that, you see the US really isn't so stellar. That was my point. I know Pangloss never said this, but he seemed to be implying that we're more open to immigrants than other countries... so much so that we "admit more legal immigrants every year than every other nation on the planet combined." Besides the fact that the assertion as it stood was false (we don't, in fact, let in more than every other nation on the planet combined), the implied argument was being made on a flawed use of the data. One only needs to look at Singapore to see why.

 

 

I'm doing this during a conference call, so please treat this as a back of the napkin kinda thing.

 

 

Population in Singapore is about 5 million. They accept almost 2 million immigrants per year. That means they allow immigration at a rate of nearly 40% of population. In my mind, that's a pretty open door policy to immigrants. YMMV...

 

 

Now... the US... They take almost 40 million immigrants per year, but they also have a population of 310 million. This means that the US allows immigration at a rate of roughly 13% of it's population.

 

Not bad, and clearly they take in almost 20 times as many immigrants as does Singapore, but they also have a population which is more than 60 times larger, so it seems clear that Singapore is MUCH more open to immigration than the US once normalized across total population. This speaks against the implied point that "the US is more open to immigrants than anywhere else." If Pangloss never meant to imply that point, then I apologize, but it sure came across that way and was also based on incorrect premises ta boot.

 

 

So... to recap... Yes, US has higher net number of immigrants. My point was not to strawman, but to show how that's not a valid measure.

 

 

Again, I thought my point was so obvious that it didn't need a reference. My apologies for making such a silly assumption.

 

 

Sources:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_int_mig_sto_tot-immigration-international-migration-stock-total

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/comparative.cfm

 

 

Regardless... getting back on the topic of the thread, this is probably WAY over the head of many ignorant americans, and even some who are not so ignorant. Pangloss was obviously making a general observation along the lines of Jay Leno's street walking series, and I was obviously being pedantic. Ain't life grand?

 

Now... who's gonna educate themselves on what pedantic means?

Edited September 3, 2010 by iNow

[Pangloss]

Besides the fact that the assertion as it stood was false (we don't, in fact, let in more than every other nation on the planet combined)

 

Yup, I agree, based on the NationMaster source (which I played around with a bit earlier but couldn't get it to produce that particular chart). In fact that chart shows Russia, Germany, Ukraine, France and Saudi Arabia adding up together to more than the US.

[JohnB]

Returning to politics, I think it's interesting that these "ignorance" surveys so often focus on liberal or anti-conservative talking points.

 

I find it interesting that nobody has brought up the point from Page 5 yet.

 

Wild views on 9/11 are in fact still rampant. In September 2009, Public Policy Polling found that a quarter of Democrats suspected Bush had something to do with the attacks.

 

That is a frightening figure.

[Pangloss]

Wow.