Quote:
Originally Posted by MsDemeanor
That's not what Aj said. You're the only one in this conversation who has stated that we're talking about a majority of or most Americans. This reflects part of our opinion that facts matter in critical thinking, in that it appears to me that you're trying to critically think and present an argument based on something that wasn't said.
President Obama gave his first Oval Office speech on the Gulf disaster recently. 32 million people watched - roughly 10% of the US population. Of the other 90%, some are young children, at work, infirmed, etc. and clearly not capable of watching or clearly too young. What about everyone else? Are they already so informed that they had no need to watch or do they not care enough to bother? Even more disturbing, the largest audience for post-speech coverage watched O'Reilly on Faux Newz. 3.6 million - 10% of the viewers and 1% of the population (roughly) - people chose as their source of post-speech analysis the single worst place in all of television in which to get anything resembling either facts or critical analysis.
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You're right. Dreadgeek did not say most. Dreadgeek asked how many people do we know who would check Google Earth and the CIA factbook and how many would look down their noses at those that did? These were rhetorical questions. The unstated response/belief behind that rhetorical question is....not many. The rhetorical question itself assumed that readers would agree. I just chose to point out that I didn't.
Unless Dreadgeek wants to correct my assumption and let me know that the question was literal and she wanted an actual number for how many people I personally know who would or would not scoff or who would or would not go to Google Earth and the CIA factbook. I can get those numbers but it might take a while. So I jumped in and answered the unstated assumption behind the rhetorical question and said Many. More than you give Americans credit for.
I happen to think more people would than would not. I mean, really, this is all we are arguing about. Opinions. Dreadgeek's opinion not so many, my opinion, more that you are willing to give credit for. Other than that I'm not disagreeing with anything you say. I'm debating a few points you make, that's all.
And based on the stats you used above about FOX I'm really happy that according to those stats only 10% of the viewers and only 1% of the population (where did you get those stats from? No link or citation was posted. ) tuned into Fox for post speech discussion.
So very tentitively based on those uncited stats whose credibility I have no way of checking because I don't know the source, I'll go out on a limb and say, America, I'm proud of ya for choosing not to click over to FOX News.
Perhaps, America, you found other sources of information that you think are more credible. Or, maybe you just went to bed. Or maybe you listened, thought about it, came to your own conclusions and chose not to tune into any of the post analysis opinions that clog the airwaves. Maybe you just watched a Seinfeld rerun.
And perhaps part of the 10% that did tune into Fox went there to see what the opposition was saying, then they jammed on over to MSNBC, then they hit the internet to check on their favorite blog sites, and so on because maybe they wanted to get a bigger view of all the various discussions because they didn't want to just be tied to one point of view or party line. Or maybe some of those 10% had FOX on because Uncle Walter was over for dinner and he refuses to watch anything but FOX, so to keep the family peace they just handed him the remote. We'll never know. All we have is that stat staring us in the face. Some will argue that stat is too high and proves x, y and z. Some might cheer, like me, and say yippee, only 1% of the population tuned into FOX's post analysis and this proves x, y and z.
And maybe stats don't tell us much after all.
Rufus