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The older I get, the more I think that the main driving force in human affairs is not greed or lust, still less anything positive like charity or piety: It is wishful thinking. I want it to be so; therefore it must surely be so! A survey of history suggests that all great civilizations were strongly averse to some aspect of reality; and that the aversion was, in each case, a contributing factor in civilizational downfall. — John Derbyshire
According to many on the right, ending our foreign aid programs or merely ending the funding to Israel would free up half the American budget. A few take it farther, claiming that if we end foreign aid, we could effectively redistribute that money to healthcare for veterans or immediately build homeless shelters. The reasoning here suggests that bureaucratic ineptitude magically vanishes when you get rid of foreign influences. Thousands of years of Chinese and Western political powers trying to limit corruption, and all they had to do was get rid of foreigners. Who knew it was that simple?
Foreign Aid in Britain is about 1% of its federal budget. They spend 15 times as much on pensions. Almost no British citizen knows this (as this video demonstrates). Meanwhile in the US, it is largely the same. The Brookings Institution has stated that "opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is in the range of 25 percent of the federal budget. When asked how much it should be, they say about 10 percent. In fact, at $39.2 billion for fiscal year 2019, foreign assistance is less than 1 percent of the federal budget."
I didn’t go into a deep dive of the data and voting polls because I’ve had enough personal experience to believe it. I've had to explain to a lefty guy that over fifty percent of the American budget was spent on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He was confident that fifty percent of the federal budget went to the military, when in fact, the figure is half of that. He was quite surprised, and when I saw him again he seemed to be in something I like to call an epistemic daze. Something he had believed to his core was wrong. I’ve experienced that daze myself. I find it unpleasant. I respect the guy for going through it. Not all do. <Link is NSFW>
I think most people simply don’t get numbers. I recall Gad Saad asking Joe Rogan how many Jews he thought there were in the world. Joe Rogan and his assistant said that there were 500 million Jews in the world. Apparently there are 16 million, plus or minus a million.*
Speaking of Jews, Jordan Peterson interprets the numbers in the Old Testament as being more mystical than realistic with regards to math. He mentioned that ancient peoples viewed numbers as a kind of magic rather than plain numbers.
Innumerate people in the ancient world had a completely different relationship with math. Math was something only priests and scribes could do, a bizarre arcane art form that could divine the world in strange ways regular language could not. And writing was already magic. Mathematics was viewed more as alchemy or numerology than regular Euclidean arithmetic.
Sadly, most people are still more mystical, vibe-based even. Educating people in numeracy hasn’t really changed that. I don’t think it can change because even if we educate human beings, we can’t alter their primarily superstitious and emotional nature.
I’m on the other end of the spectrum, there are those changed deeply by the truths uncovered by numbers in the work of Thomas Sowell. In his book Discrimination and Disparities, one finds number after number that refute claims I still hear. His work also made me appreciate how little a serious look at the numbers rarely advances the dialogue.
I view math as a tool that can reveal Truth. Proper protocols and skepticism are necessary, of course, but I believe that evidence should determine belief.
What numbers confound you or your friends? What statistics do you flat out not believe? What figures changed your mind?
Discussion (26)
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Ethniically, genetically, I'm probably nearly identical to the Irish people I met at the Cork Film Festival. One in particular was perceptive, wise, a great guy to talk and spend time with...but many attitudes common in the Olde Sod were wildly innumerate.
They were experiencing a slump in foreign companies filming in Ireland. In America, I said, we'd cut the prices (of wages, rental equipment, costumes, sets, etc) to bring in new business.
This baffled him. "No, it's just the opposite! You have to raise everyone's wages immediately, because they have fewer weeks of work. You have to make up for that, fair is fair."
I might as well had been trying to sell him on Ayn Rand's economics. His were, "Nobody is buying so raise the price".
Kids know that as the "Lemonade $100 a glass" strategy. "But we only have to sell one glass!"
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It's not just numbers on public policy. I see the occasional clip from the Whatever podcast, and the women there have wildly unrealistic estimates of various aspects of the available male population. You'll hear:
20% of men own a Lambo.
10% (or higher) own a private plane.
Average pay for men: $150-200k.
And on and on and on.
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Yeah, I think there are very few Democrats who have ever seen the pie chart at the end of the 1040 instructions.
National defense is smallish.
Welfare is enormous.
Interest on the debt will exceed national defense soon.
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2020 had some of those. Covid and the election.
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The same people think if we raise taxes on "billionaires" we can balance the budget. Even though if we just TOOK every penny owned by billionaires it would only fund the Feds for a few weeks or months. And then it's gone.
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