Some, like mathematician Roger Antonsen, believe that numbers are the key to understanding the world. (Antonsen even gave a brilliant TED talk to explain this statement, which I highly recommend.) And there's a Reddit thread that vividly illustrates the point.
It started when platform user JustinMGH made a post, asking others to share facts and stats that sound like obvious exaggerations but actually aren't.
Immediately, people started delivering fascinating, weird, and even disturbing titbits of information, changing each other's perspective about everything around them, even if ever so slightly.
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The difference between million and billion is huge (relatively):
1 Million seconds = 11 Days
1 Billion seconds = 31 years
The budget to send to the Curiosity Rover to the Mars is less than the worldwide military expenditure for thirteen hours
Cleopatra was alive closer to the Moon landing than she was to the construction of the great pyramids.
I’ve heard this one a hundred times and it blows my mind every single time… what a history
USA citizens privately own more firearms than all countries combined. Even more than most militaries.
This must be why the USA is the safest country in the world. All them guns meaning people are safe from gun violence......
Load More Replies...(Paraphrasing Thanos) i used the guns to destroy the guns
Load More Replies...But half are not. And many kept unsecurely or are in the hands of currently sane, law-abiding, and not angry people. Will ALL of those tens of millions of gun owners remain sane, law-abiding or peaceful tomorrow... unlikely.
Load More Replies...Or Wyoming. Back in the 70’s and 80’s wasn’t uncommon to see teenagers trucks in the parking lot of the high school with gun racks with fishing poles and rifles hanging in the gun rack. But that was like 40 or 50 years ago. And I grew up in a town of less than 800 people if that. The town is smaller now of course. But I’m sure things are different now. Times are a changin.
Load More Replies...One young man falls off a roller coaster and dies so the Government is placing new regulations on Roller Coaster Construction. How many people have died from gunfire this week alone?????
Since all mass shootings are committed by males, we just need to ban males from owning guns. End of problem.
Load More Replies...When you are preparing for a civil war against the "commies", the Liberals, the lizard people and "the man" as well as a government take over of whatever c**p town you live in, you need the guns. You know to feel safe and act like an unlicensed, untrained cop or a poor facsimile of Rambo. A lot of those gun owners also drink alcohol while shooting, have way too much camo themed anything, and love things with the word "tactical" in front of it. Tactical dinnerware was my favorite thing marketed to these gullible folks.
Feeling the need to always be prepared for a bloody civil war, or any other kind of insane Fort Alamo situation, where you will have to kill your neighbour before they kill you. Such a sad way to live, such a horrific vision of the world if you just think about it.
And yet as a country they seem sadly passive about having terrible working and living conditions. It confuses the heck out of me.
Load More Replies...This makes me very concerned for my personal safety and the safety of those around me
I am an American who does not own a gun, but I know many people who have a small, personal arsenal. It's insane to need all those guns.
My (idiot) ex-husband owns 4 guns, 2 of which he has never even shot. I own zero guns. I have a very large dog for protection, and two smaller dogs as wireless doorbells to alert me if a leaf falls from the tree in the front yard. I feel safer now than I ever did while I was living with a drunk who likes to carry his guns around while he was wasted.
Load More Replies...Where's the troglodyte that says aN aRmeD sOcIeTy Is A pOlITe SoCiEtY
The amount of people that died to firearms between 2009 and 2019 in the US is higher than the casualities their military had in all wars since their independence combined.
In 2016, the Center for Disease control reported that since 1968, there were about 1.5 million gun deaths. At the time, all of US military war casualties combined amounted to 1.2 million. Both of these numbers are estimates and the truly accurate number is debated, but they are basically correct. This statistic surfaced just after the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017. Since then, war casualties have not increased significantly, but, for example, in 2020 the CDC recorded the highest number of civilian gun deaths in it's history of keeping records, with a daily average of 124 gun deaths, a total of 45222 deaths, or about 10000 less than died in 3 years of the Korean War, or around half those who died in the 11 years of the Vietnam war. While I could find no actual source making the 2009-2019 claim and I couldn't be bothered to do the math off of the CDC reports myself, what I could verify is bad enough.
Load More Replies...Yes, but you have to keep shooting innocent people because every gun and every bullet is profit for someone!
This is actually wrong in a really bad way. US civilians own almost 2.5 times as many small arms as all the world's militaries and police forces combined. A group called the Small Arms Survey (www.smallarmssurvey.org) works with the United Nations to track the number of guns in the world. The most comprehensive survey from 2017 shows that US civilians have 387,795,620 guns. 120 guns per 100 people. All law enforcement and militaries of the world have a combined 154,953,073 small arms. Here's a link with pretty maps and graphs to see how many your country has in each category (military, police, civilian). https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country. Note: This is small arms. Tanks, fighter jets, and 500lb bombs are not being counted.
You know the Arguments here. The logical and not. And how everyone is trying to disrespect others even though some people are just stating opinions or feelings really shows how divided we are as people. And why gun violence and such is so damn hard to solve. Yeah, there are dumbasses with guns, and there are smart people with guns. We can't decide on anything because everyone is just trying to shut everyone else up and tune people out if their opinion or answer to the problem is the slightest bit different. No wonder we're f^cked.
There is no reason a single country should have more guns than a whole a*s military. That does not work that way.
More than most militaries... Well, from 172 countries only 50 have more than 100000 soldiers. And we are comparing it to country with country with more that 300 millions of people (and gun obsession).
Wikipedia reckons 1.2 guns per head in the US; almost 400 million guns in total. The second largest is Islas Malvinas (incorrectly referred to as "Falkland Islands" for some reason) with a paltry 0.62 guns per head. A clear win for the US.
The Falkland Islands held a referendum on its political status: 99.8% of votes cast favoured remaining a British overseas territory. There's why it's "incorrectly" referred to as the Falkland Islands.
Load More Replies...I have like 15 in my basement. I'm not a psycho, they're from my grandpa! They're mostly antique, too, so good future money...
Over 60% of Americans do NOT live in a house that has a firearm in it or own one. Only 30% of Americans say they own a gun. So there's LOTS of stockpiling going on.
Sorry, I'll get voted down, it's eminent. I personally own no guns & never will. I'm in TX. My family hunts with guns & bows. The whole family benefits from the food they bring in. Also, some folks I know don't often carry a gun on them. It's to form a militia if need be ( hope it never gets to that point) and for food. :/
Your clarification is worth repeating. When the second amendment was written, the US had no standing army at all and that line about a militia was specifically for the government to call up civilians to defend the country if necessary. With no standing army and therefore no arsenal, it was necessary to allow civilians to own firearms for the defense of the country. It was not, as has been reinterpreted over the years, to allow for the formation of a militia in opposition to the government or any other entity.
Load More Replies...I've read that the 20/80 Rule applies to US gun ownership, with 20 percent of the gun owners having 80 percent of the guns.
Exaggerated. US citizens do, however, own more than the US military in terms of just handguns/longarms. But the military has tanks, grenades, bombs, etc., so ..... keep that in mind.
Before you downvote me, check out the ratio of private guns to military/police guns in Yemen: Nearly 15 million privately owned firearms in a country of 30 million is still reallllllly bad. The US doesn't have a monopoly on gun-related-stupidity, unfortunately.
Load More Replies...That is sad to hear. I don't mind people having guns I just think they should get rid of the ones that are only good in battle/war. I mean if someone comes to shoot up a school I'd rather they have 6 to 8 bullets and have to reload. With the guns that shoot hundreds of bullets at a time...you don't have a chance.
Seems that most mass shootings use AR15 style. I am a proponent of the 2nd...however..if you need more than 4-5 shots to take a deer, go sit down. Those who shake their testes over the 2nd and "original intent" should surrender all semi-autos and be provided with muzzle loaders, which were essentially what was available when the 2nd was adopted.
Load More Replies...Exactly! The right to bear arms is in our constitution. In case our government starts pushing the socialism agenda too hard we get to say "I don't think so!" Added plus: Home protection.
I know this isn't exactly gonna make me well-liked here but have you seen some of what's happening with our government? If we don't have access to guns in the case of needing to defend ourselves and they do, we are kinda screwed. Not only that but gun restrictions should be put in place. I don't disagree with that, however, the idea of banning them isn't smart, it isn't like places without guns are safe. The stabbings in the UK, the assault and r@pe in Japan. People just suck, guns are the selected weapon of choice yes, which is why we need restrictions, but if you think the crazy people who shouldn't have them will just give them up if you say they can't have them, you're dead wrong. It's a complicated thing there isn't an easy solution. There are good ideas but too little thought in place about the long-term effects. (Of course, feel free to give me or info or respond to this, I wanna hear what others think as well. I just wanted to state my piece for now.)
Stabbings in the UK? Your murder rate is five times higher than the UK's, or any other European country's. There are more deaths by stabbing in the USA every year than murders total in the UK. Places without guns are indeed much safer. And you aren't going to defend yourself against the US government with your guns, that's a pathetic fantasy.
Load More Replies...Ah yes, the paranoid wank-fantasy of gun obsessives that they will use their guns defending themselves from tyranny instead of, as is statistically far more likely, using them to commit suicide or accidentally injure themselves or a family member.
Load More Replies...Pocahontas and William Shakespeare died less than a year apart less than 150 miles away from each other.
Barbara Walters, Anne Frank, and Martin Luther King Jr were all born the same year.
The original height of Mount Everest was calculated to be exactly 29,000 ft high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 ft in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet was nothing more than a rounded estimate.
1 in 2 Australians will get skin cancer in their lifetime
Neutron stars are so dense that if you dropped a gummy bear from one meter away it would hit the surface in a microsecond with the force of 1,000 nuclear bombs.
The state of Maine has more Black Bears than black people.
This does actually appear to be more-or-less correct, depending on the estimation of the bear population and the accuracy of the first Maine demographic statistics which popped up in a quick web search. Also, with the same caveat, there seems to be approximately one black bear for every square mile of Maine.
Vatican city has a population of 2 popes per 1 square kilometer.
More silent films have been lost than saved
We live in an era where everything is saved, and it's hard to imagine such a massive loss of creative material. Plenty of films are lost, as late as the 1970s too.
Monsters Inc was released closer to the fall of the Berlin wall than to the present day.
All the ants in the world weigh about the same as all the people in the world.
Also, they work extremely hard and live only about 8 days, while turtles don't do shït and get to live 150 years. Let it sink in.
Nintendo existed at the same time as the Ottoman Empire.
You could walk from North Korea to Norway and only pass through one other country.
Also, your feet would be a little sore.
Radio astronomer here! You exert more energy when you unfold a single piece of paper than we have collected in *all* the radio waves we have *ever* collected from outer space.
In a room with 23 people there is a ~50% chance that 2 people share a birthday
According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, every two days human beings create as much information as we did from the dawn of time until 2003.
The same facts that BP has posted 20 million times before. This s**t has been posted over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Annoying af
I try posting new articles and for whatever reason BP just won't publish them. Wonder how many people try and get the same results.
Load More Replies...9 US states have more cattle than people. Texas is not one of them due to being very populous but Texas has more cattle than there are people in 45 states and DC.
A light bulb, which is known as the Centennial Light, has been burning at a Livermore, CA firehouse since 1901. It is very rarely turned off, which accounts for its longevity, since turning bulbs off and on contributes to wear and tear. To put it in perspective, this bulb has been around longer than powered flight, and was shining all through the Chicago Cubs' notorious World Series drought.
The same facts that BP has posted 20 million times before. This s**t has been posted over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Annoying af
I try posting new articles and for whatever reason BP just won't publish them. Wonder how many people try and get the same results.
Load More Replies...9 US states have more cattle than people. Texas is not one of them due to being very populous but Texas has more cattle than there are people in 45 states and DC.
A light bulb, which is known as the Centennial Light, has been burning at a Livermore, CA firehouse since 1901. It is very rarely turned off, which accounts for its longevity, since turning bulbs off and on contributes to wear and tear. To put it in perspective, this bulb has been around longer than powered flight, and was shining all through the Chicago Cubs' notorious World Series drought.