Some cause for optimism. Or pessimism. Take your pick.
May 31, 2013 2:39 PM   Subscribe

31 charts that show improving long term trends. Same charts, but with titles that will destroy your faith in humanity.
posted by bartonlong (37 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Optimism. Every single one of those WaPo takedowns was lazy.
posted by 256 at 2:42 PM on May 31, 2013 [9 favorites]


(so maybe not optimism regarding the state of journalism)
posted by 256 at 2:43 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


Guys guys don't fight, I hate both of you equally.
posted by The Whelk at 2:46 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


Was WaPo trying to be funny? I think they we're trying to be funny.

They failed.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:52 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


However, my reading this post correlates in a rise for my hate for WaPo. So there's that.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:53 PM on May 31, 2013


I hate to over-explain a joke, but the WaPo "takedowns" are intentionally silly, and get sillier as you go on

I chuckled at "6) Pretty much everyone in the United States can now read Fifty Shades of Grey." Humor is subjective I guess.
posted by muddgirl at 2:54 PM on May 31, 2013 [4 favorites]


#4 on the same charts link actually gives me a slight bit of hope for humanity.
posted by drezdn at 2:54 PM on May 31, 2013


And come on, "7) More 77-year-olds are dying than ever before" is a perfect encapsulation of a Platonic Ideal of pessimism.
posted by muddgirl at 2:55 PM on May 31, 2013 [17 favorites]


I've met a lot of wanna-be funny people – comic artists, writers, actors, even improv comedians. And without fail, the best part (only good part, really) of being around such people trying to be funny happens after they've completely exhausted whatever dollop of humor they thought they'd found, realize what they've come up with is nowhere near substantial enough to be worth a damn, and then, after a few moments of hesitant doubt, decide: DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES, THIS GAG'S TOO GOOD TO LET GO OF! And they plunge ahead, even less funnily than they were plunging before.

That WaPo article hit that point at the second of their thirty-one charts.
posted by Rory Marinich at 2:56 PM on May 31, 2013 [5 favorites]


Stop! you're destroying outragefilter!
posted by Ironmouth at 2:56 PM on May 31, 2013


As someone currently preparing for conference season, I dread the onslaught of blue-background, eye-searing graphs.
posted by bonehead at 3:01 PM on May 31, 2013


Something could be said about hiding real numbers behind percents. "More people are slaves right now than an any time in history." Sounds bad right?
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:02 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom DOOM DOOM DOOM doom


Doom I tels ya!
posted by lalochezia at 3:02 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm gonna sing the Doom song now!
posted by kyrademon at 3:03 PM on May 31, 2013 [7 favorites]


lalochezia I want to print your block-o-DOOOOMs and hang it on my wall as art
posted by nicebookrack at 3:04 PM on May 31, 2013


Oh those comments made it for me...

What is this a bait and switch? These graphs for the most part provide encouragement for the human race. I guess it tells us something about what the WP (and ourselves) feels is necessary to get our attention. - some dude with a fluttering US flag as a user icon.
posted by Jimbob at 3:06 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


The number of Kenyan communists in the White House is at an all-time high, though.
posted by chasing at 3:09 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES, THIS GAG'S TOO GOOD TO LET GO OF!

Yes and, you seem to be enjoying this butter substitute!
posted by en forme de poire at 3:09 PM on May 31, 2013


" “There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who's been pinching my beer?
And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye. ”
posted by The Whelk at 3:20 PM on May 31, 2013 [10 favorites]


6) Pretty much everyone in the United States can now read Fifty Shades of Grey.

Now this just makes me want to root for illiteracy.
posted by octobersurprise at 3:31 PM on May 31, 2013


Why on earth are hair brushes so much money? More than a rocking chair?!
posted by Gable Oak at 3:33 PM on May 31, 2013


There's a couple of common fallacies in the first link:

"7) People used to die at 47. Now people are living to 77."

That's not how life expectancy works. Life expectancy at birth is heavily affected by infant and childhood mortality. When life expectancy was only 47, that didn't mean that it was common for people to die in their mid-forties. It meant that lots of babies died.

"9) People with cancer are living longer."

People with cancer probably are living longer, but cancer survival rates are affected by screening in a way that's independent of treatment and outcome.

For example, imagine a hypothetical untreatable cancer that, on average, takes about six years from its onset (not detection, it's actual onset) to mortality. If medical technology limits possible detection to two years before mortality, the five-year survival rate for it will be low. If the technology improves and allows detection at four years, the five-year survival rate for it will rise, merely as a function of detecting it earlier in its development, even though it's still not treatable and the earlier detection makes no difference in the outcome.

This is important to understand in the context of discussions about regular screening protocols beginning at various ages. If you lower the age for the onset of regular screening for, say, prostate cancer from 45 to 40, then that will necessarily improve the five-year survival rate even if it doesn't improve outcomes.

Five-year survival rates shouldn't be used as direct proxies in measuring improved outcomes for earlier screening protocols. Obviously, earlier detection does often allow for more effective treatment and improves outcomes. But earlier detection also improves five-year survival rates simply as a matter of mathematics, not medicine.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:36 PM on May 31, 2013 [17 favorites]


If, in 2013, one of the punchlines for your "funny" posts is "We were promised jetpacks!" you might want to reconsider the whole idea.
posted by toxtethogrady at 3:43 PM on May 31, 2013


That's not how life expectancy works. Life expectancy at birth is heavily affected by infant and childhood mortality. When life expectancy was only 47, that didn't mean that it was common for people to die in their mid-forties. It meant that lots of babies died.

I keep meeting people who think that up until very recently, basically EVERYONE died in their 40s. It's annoying.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:44 PM on May 31, 2013


gonna sing the Doom song now!

I know that one..it goes like this. Only with out the sound effects and words.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 3:47 PM on May 31, 2013


Are you better off this evening than you were this morning?
posted by Postroad at 3:50 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


I guess this only works if you had some faith in humanity.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:37 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


Wait. SIDS is an infectious disease?
posted by DU at 6:01 PM on May 31, 2013 [4 favorites]


I keep meeting people who think that up until very recently, basically EVERYONE died in their 40s

It's a classic bugbear in history museums, along with "...they were shorter back then."
posted by Miko at 8:22 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


For every newborn that dies there is one person who lives to a million. It all averages out.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:34 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


Woah, why did slavery and serfdom spike back up in the '20's? Anyone?
posted by dry white toast at 8:36 PM on May 31, 2013


Totalitarianism.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 8:38 PM on May 31, 2013


Wait. SIDS is an infectious disease?

There does seem to be some evidence implicating bacterial infections in SIDS, in fact. Still, it does seem an odd one to include in that chart.
posted by yoink at 9:02 PM on May 31, 2013


However, my reading this post correlates in a rise for my hate for WaPo. So there's that.

Seriously, it's so tired and shitty i couldn't make it through the whole thing. The sad thing is they started off strong with the point about war and the sudden spike on the graph, but it seems like they COMPLETELY stopped trying after that. Or started trying too hard, or something.
posted by emptythought at 10:21 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


They weren't shorter back then? I'm pretty sure they were.
posted by DU at 3:10 AM on June 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


The stupid thing is that some of these actually did make me feel sad, but for different and less stupid reasons, like: it's now cheaper to do generate disproportionately massive CO2 emissions by flying; black babies are still dying far more often than white babies; we could probably massively reduce malaria deaths if we invested sensibly in it, but spending on R&D is still far too low; soap manufacturers have successfully convinced people us all that we smell disgusting.
posted by Acheman at 11:55 AM on June 1, 2013


A few weeks ago, I went to a TEDx talk by a local psychology professor, who studied how people will get negative thoughts lodged in their brain. (Alas, they didn't put the video online. Grrr.) Anyway, what they discovered was that if you did something like this, i.e. show one group that 70% of people were saved by an operation and show the other group that 30% died from it, of course people regarded it as good or bad. But when they switched how they looked at it-- told the first group that 30% died and the second that 70% lived-- both groups now thought badly about the operation. Once the bad thought was lodged in there, it was incredibly difficult to get out. People literally take longer to do the "bad news" math than they do the "good news" math of things like this.

So....that's what this is doing. Once you put the bad news in someone's head, it's dug in there.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:01 AM on June 2, 2013 [2 favorites]


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