Remembering all the math I did in high school, I can only say that looking at numbers can be confusing. Or just boring. But sometimes, they can offer you a better understanding of the world than a news show. And in a much more entertaining fashion, too.
In October, Redditor u/alexbbtkd asked other platform users, "What's a crazy statistic?" and has received plenty of answers. We've combed through all of them and picked out the most surprising ones just to broaden your horizons. So put on your smarty pants, get a notebook, and enjoy!
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If you were to compress earth’s existence into a 24 hour day, life would first appear at 4am, plants would first appear at 10pm, dinosaurs from about 11pm-11:40pm, and humans emerge at 11:59pm.
From Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
You are more likely to be bitten by a stranger in New York City than by a shark anywhere else in the nation.
You are more likely to be killed by a vending machine than by a shark.
What we can learn from this is that strange vending machines in NYC should be avoided at all cost
That the Catholic Church hid a (now self) reported 8.4 child rapes per day for over 71 years.
WTF. ONE is bad enough but over 8, and every day. Seriously that is so f****d up. Those poor kids.
That there are A LOT more empty homes in the US than there are homeless people.
I don't doubt that it would be the same in Australia. It's morally criminal that there are people living on the streets when there are so many empty houses. And if a homeless person goes into one of those houses they can be charged with trespassing.
40% of homeless are employed.
The top 10% of drinkers account 60% of all alcohol consumed in the US. And they drink the equivalent of 74 drinks per week.
So the entire alcoholic beverages industry is kept alive by severe alcoholics.
This is so sad. Alcohol is protected by long standing human custom and sometimes religion, and seems to be exempt from the common classification of a 'drug'. In NZ in level 4 covid lockdown (the first one, most extreme lockdown), we couldn't get takeaways etc delivered. Or go get them. We could only order essential items online, and children's winter clothing was added to the list after a while. BUT: alcohol delivery was all the time, even in level 4. To your door, advertised everywhere. More available for delivery than food. More essential than almost every item, even at one point more important and legslly available before being able to buy clothes for your child. This isn't about the lockdown, the point I'm making is that it was, almost unspoken and nationwide, a 'necessity'. Every other drug (street, pharma, tobacco etc) is treated so differently, but they are no different to alcohol. It is such a juxtaposition and it really upsets me sometimes EDIT: I understand that alcohol dependency is serious, and a person can die without alcohol when they are seriously addicted. That was not the point I was trying to make: I meant the free for all that governments and society allows on alcohol, despite it being a drug like any of the ones they ban/regulate/monitor. It's that unfortunate attitude around alcohol that leaves so many people dependent to the point where alcohol was essential during lockdown, despite no acknowledgement of why that needed to be available
There is more actual lemon in Lemon Pledge cleaner than there is in Country Time lemonade
More first responders and survivors have now died due to 9/11 related illnesses than the number lost at Ground Zero on the day of the attack. The number will continue to rise because of the huge amount of health problems caused by the dust and smoke that everyone in the surrounding areas inhaled when/after the towers fell.
Also, the number of fatal traffic accidents in the United States increased after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, for a period of 12 months due to flying avoidance.
The U.S government has 'misplaced' six thermonuclear warheads. They were either lost or stolen in transit and at this juncture, one of the largest nuclear superpowers in the world has no idea where they are.
It is estimated that bears kill over two million salmon a year. Attacks by salmon on bears are much more rare.
It's a fact that there are more airplanes in the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.
The most common cause of death for pregnant women is homicide
40% of cops are domestic abusers
86% of British people live within 8 miles from where they were born.
There are more combinations in a 52 deck of cards than stars in the known universe.
39% of the world's population is overweight and that number is only getting "bigger"
If you were born in 1923 in the Soviet Union as a male, you would have an 80% chance of dying in world war II.
In the US, you are more likely to be killed by a cow than you are to be killed by a coyote.
Your more likely to be killed by a cow than all the stereotypical deadly Australian creatures put together.
Humans, (Homo sapien sapien), appeared on earth ~200,000 yrs. ago and didn't reach a population of 1 billion until 1804. About one hundred years later, 1920's, there were 2 billion. We now add a billion people to the planet every 12 years.
That you can fit all the planets in our solar system between the Earth and the Moon and still have some room spare.
Mind blown
More energy from the sun hits Earth every hour than the planet uses in a year.
1 in 3 Australians will be diagnosed with a skin cancer by the time they're 70.
Edit. Google search actually says (multiple times) that "at least 2 in 3 will be diagnosed with skin cancer by 70"
F*ck.
Slip, slop, slap, seek and slide is our motto. Also no hat, no play for primary schools.
We are closer in time to the birth of Cleopatra than she was to the construction of the Great Pyramid
I’ve seen this one appear on these lists many times, and I don’t know why it’s so interesting to people. I don’t associate Cleopatra with the pyramids at all except they are both from Egypt. That would be similar to being shocked that we are closer to the birth of Gandhi than he was to the building of Taj Mahal just because they are both from India.
According to the FBI, there are currently more than 25 active serial killers in the US
The United States "land of the free" incarcerates more citizens per capita than any other country: US: 629 inmates per 100,000 citizens
Compared to other countries: Cuba: 510, Brazil: 381, Russia: 326, China: About 250, Mexico: 169, UK: 131, France: 100
Broccoli has more protein per calorie than a steak.
Not quite. 3 ounces of broccoli is 31 calories and 2.5g of protein. 3 ounces of New York strip is 195 calories and 18g protein. I suppose if you're using a much fattier cut of steak maybe. Regardless, you'd need to eat over a pound of broccoli to get the same amount of protein as the 3 oz portion of steak. And the broccoli is an incomplete protein anyway, so there's no real comparison...
1 out of 25 people are sociopaths. No automatic sense of empathy.
Obligatory "Sociopath does not immediately equal violent and/or serial killer" comment
Obligatory piggybacking "sociopaths and psychopaths aren't the same thing" addition
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Since I've been on Lexapro, for about 15 years now, I've pretty much lost all of my empathy for humans. Still feel it for animals, but people? Nope. No thank you.
Wow- Me too, all of it. Lexapro, hate people and love animals.
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Most CEOs of Fortune 500 companies meet the criteria of being a sociopath. Which makes sense, they know you have feelings, but don't really care.
According to my psychiatry textbook, studies show, that "functioning sociopaths" are also found a lot in high leading position in the finance industry...
This is simply not true! If you examine a US prison you will find around 15-25% are sociopaths (7-8% in UK prisons), however in the US as a whole it is between 0.6-1.2% of the total population (0.1% in the UK). 1 in 5 US corporate bosses are sociopaths. 3% of the population have sociopathic tendencies but are not sociopaths on the whole. Lack of empathy is not the only symptom of sociopathy and many sociopaths do have empathy (I for example do not have empathy towards humans but DO develop strong attachments to animals)! There are 3 main areas of sociopathy and several sub categories. You do not need everything from all categories. For example while I do have deviant sexual tendencies, I have never committed a sex offence. The thought of non-consensual disgusts me! My vanity requires that the person WANTS to do those things with me. My defiance of authority and self confidence are very strong, but my self endangerment is low). It its a spectrum, not a once glove fits all.
And I suspect about 20 out of 25 politicians and corporate officers are sociopaths.
Personality Disorders are extremely common. My dad was a Narcissistic Sociopath and my mom was a Borderline Histrionic.. I'm a Borderline at my core with self defeating masochist personality disorder. (Extreme people pleaser.) Everyone with a personality disorder has Complex PTSD. It's quite easy developing one as a child. Just an emotionally unavailable mother can trigger it.. especially if they don't attune to your needs. You learn to attune to theirs. Then the whole insecure attachment style you have to deal with. I live in the US.. without insurance.. Im selling my personal belongings to help pay for my therapy which is at a budget slider fee scale but still costly.
Due to the problems with empathy people with it has, aspergers syndrome used to be called "autistic psychopathy".
My lack of general human empathy was one of the symptoms that keyed my doctor into diagnosing with Aspergers. I'm perfectly willing and empathic to those suffering in front of me but can't bring myself to care as a whole. That and my capability of just cutting people from my life without any emotional drawback. I can cut my emotions off in any situation.
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My dad is a diagnosed one, the type of ‘love’ I learn from him was so unhealthy and I didn’t get it as a kid, I’m glad I can understand as an adult but he did f)&@ my little sister up. His was from biological and environmental factors growing up, 😂 you get counselling when your parents are diagnosed to help cope. Sad part is, I’m the fave thing and closest thing he’s expressed emotion too, and it’s not very emotional or loving but I still love my dad, he can’t help it.
So, since I have a lot of empathy, I can't be a sociopath? Good. I was worried :/.
I'd be interested to see the source and how this was determined as figures I've seen before estimated that it's closer to 2% of the population (global) - and this is double that.
Another made up statistic by a psychologist who knows nothing of experimental design.
It gives you a better chance of becoming the leader of your country, too.
Read an article on a recent(?) study indicating that they do indeed have a fully functional sense of empathy. They are well aware of how their actions affect others, that's how they're so manipulative. My interpretation is that the empathy isn't tied to their reward/punishment center.
I’ve been guilty of feeling no empathy for someone who broke their hand on a toddler’s face, or took a chunk of debris from the skull of the person they shot as close range, or became injured after crashing their car while running another person off the road as part of their gang initiation. Am I a sociopath? Or are there limits and conditions to acceptable empathy based on circumstances? Vague “facts” are of no use to us.
I honestly do not like my bankers for such statistics. Call me biased, but i always think of snakes in suits.
Psychopaths have little ability for empathy. Sociopaths have suppressed empathy. But neither have 0 empathy.
extremely believable considering sociopathy isn't necessarily a horrific thing.
There are approximately 78,000,000,000,000 000,000 atoms in a grain of sand.
Men are about 7 times more as successful at suicide than women.
Human life expectancy has increased more rapidly in the past 50 years than in the past 200,000 years.
According to the bible that's not quite true. Apparently Noah lived to be 950yo, Methuselah was supposedly the oldest living human that died at 969yo. Lol.
20% of produce and fruit in the usa is never sold and is left to rot
Note: this post originally had 54 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
There are more airplanes on the bottom of the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.
These threads are interesting, but I feel I have to check the facts on every post. And it seems lots of readers don't bother to do that. Scary.
Fun website giving perfect examples: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
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Thank you. I really think the US bashing is ridiculous. All countries have their problems and skeletons. It not just a US thing.
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None of these statistics mean anything without a citation saying where the information came from.
If you took all the arteries and veins in one man's body and laid them end to end, that man would die.
Do not believe any statistics you did not fake yourself. I do not have any use for these as none of them provides background or cites the sources.
More proof, if you needed any, that statistics as a subsection of math is stupid, pointless, and as the saying goes "can be used to prove anything".
You can twist statistics to support just about any viewpoint you want.
*Citation needed. My understanding is the correct figure is 100%
Load More Replies... There are more airplanes on the bottom of the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.
These threads are interesting, but I feel I have to check the facts on every post. And it seems lots of readers don't bother to do that. Scary.
Fun website giving perfect examples: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Load More Replies... Thank you. I really think the US bashing is ridiculous. All countries have their problems and skeletons. It not just a US thing.
Load More Replies... None of these statistics mean anything without a citation saying where the information came from.
If you took all the arteries and veins in one man's body and laid them end to end, that man would die.
Do not believe any statistics you did not fake yourself. I do not have any use for these as none of them provides background or cites the sources.
More proof, if you needed any, that statistics as a subsection of math is stupid, pointless, and as the saying goes "can be used to prove anything".
You can twist statistics to support just about any viewpoint you want.
*Citation needed. My understanding is the correct figure is 100%
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