Brexit response also sad condemnation of humanity
I commented that the response to the Brexit vote was amusing. And it certainly is from some angles. But it is also sad and very condemning of humanity. We are idiots and will cling to anything that supports what we want to hear. The worst of it is a chart floating around on Twitter which (I'm sure most have already seen and) seems to imply that the 65+ age group somehow stole the vote from the younger generation.
The most remarkable response was someone who tweeted this and captioned it "This is disgusting". Actually. No. Your response is what is disgusting. Firstly, the data is purely misleading. Metrics are a wonderful thing. In something as complex as a vote you can focus on and slice the data any way you want until it tells the story you want it to.
Before I get to why that particular (seemingly now famous infographics is misleading). Let's just assume what it implies and how people are reading it is actually correct? What, pray tell, makes it disgusting? Such a response implies that retirees either don't deserve the right to vote, or don't deserve to vote in the way they desire. Unfortunately, if you hold either view, it isn't a democracy you want to live in anyway. (Side note: if you agreed it was disgusting, I hope you hang your head in shame when you realize; that age group consists of your WW2 vets who fought for your freedom, many of you may not be alive without them, let alone free to vote in the first place).
Consequently, that same age group could argue that while they may have the least amount of time left to deal with the outcome, the 18-24 age group has the least political knowledge and real world experience and is thus the least "qualified". Both arguments are, of course, nonsense.
But, as I said before, that infographic is misleading. Voter turnout for this referendum was astoundingly high. Apparently 72%. That actually makes it all the easier to debunk. Here is a site that offers a rough breakdown of the age groups in the UK. That 65+ age group accounts for just 17.5% of the total population. If we trim out the percentage which isn't eligible to vote (and round up a bit for sport), they could at most make up in the ball park of 25% of the voters. And is only if 100% of them turned out (not realistic). Then if 100% of them voted to leave (which we also know didn't happen) it would still have required more than twice that many people to have clinched the roughly 52% in favor of leaving.
In other words, even if you skew EVERY possible metric in favor of blaming the 65+ group, they still don't even amount for a majority of the leave vote.
In fact, the slice of ages between the youngest group of voters and the oldest is well over 50% of the population. It stands to reason that somewhere within the realm of 50% of all votes came from that group. Those people more or less set the stage. And while they may not have to live as long after the vote as the 18-24 group, based on that same infographic, we're still looking at a median of somewhere between 31-52 years to live afterwards. I think, that is more than long enough to "afford" them the right to vote (you sanctimonious jerks).
Now, back to the outcome. 51.9%. 2% voting the other way and the UK would have remained. Guess what, you could probably find that 2% in that 18-24 age group who voted to leave alone. Not to mention those in that group that didn't show up.
People don't think that way though, because, you see, people tend to paint certain groups as pro remain or pro leave. At which point people seem to start thinking (without acknowledging, or even perhaps without knowing) that everyone in certain group voted a certain way. Not every 18-24 year old voted to remain as indicated about. And not every 65+ year old voted to leave.
The moral here is humans suck at math and see what they want to see. The overwhelming majority of people are using this infographic to blame the retirees for the outcome without realizing that the 65+ group probably contributed to less than 15% of the leave vote (remember not 100% of them turned out, and not 100% voted to leave so that 25% number is frankly not realistic, even the 15% number may be too high).
They can only be portrayed to have pushed it over the top because they had the highest relative turnout and were one of the least divided groups.
Interestingly though, the 18-24 group was even less divided on the topic than the 65+ group. With that in mind, even with the lower turnout, they would have negated a decent chunk of the votes by the 65+ group.
What likely happened, quite simply, is the bulk of people in the UK (if split by age, it would be that 25-64 group) were more or less split evenly on the topic. The 65+ and 18-24 were more polarized. The group that turned out in the larger numbers "won". But, if that 25-64 group had been leaning strongly in either direction it would have been near impossible even for both group (even combined) to have overcome them.
And guess what? THAT is democracy. The majority (of voters) has spoken, and spoken in favor of leaving. Furthermore, the 65+ age group was neither a majority in and of themselves or even a majority of the leave vote. The above arguments should easily show that it isn't possible to logically (or accurately) arrive at either of those conclusions.
Of course unless we ever get hard data it will be impossible to even accurately try and blame any subsection of the voters for the result.
The smart move would be to drop age groups from the question entirely and simply say more than half of the voters voted to leave.
BTW, there are also a number of people who instead blaming based on age have found metrics to support blaming people on region. Others to blame based on education. And yet others to blame based on wealth. Like I said, when you have 10's of millions of data points (voters), each with hundreds of metrics to compare (age, gender, religion, earning, education level, work area, etc...), then you can simply slice the data however you want. Eventually you'll be able to find a way to skew the data so that it agrees with your personal beliefs.
In this case the data was skewed by making about it about 4 (unequal sized) age groups, polled from a very small sample of the population and then only shows results as percentages within those age groups. When I word it like that, doesn't it sound just a tad shady? Well, if you support what it says, then you probably don't. Confirmation bias.
What is most disconcerting to me is the seemingly rather arbitrary selection of age groups. They are neither of uniform size nor uniform portions of the population. 18-24 is just 7 years. 25-49 is a whopping 25 years, 50-64 is 15 years and 65+ is relatively undefined, but lets say 65-90 so 26 years.
The 18-24 group is not only the smallest range of years, it is also easily the smallest overall group size. The 25-49 group is likely the largest, and the remaining two are probably somewhere in between on the lower side.
Knowing that each bracket is a different percentage of the population and voters, showing the results as percentages within each age group only is misleading. It implies that each group has an equal impact on the outcome, but that is clearly wrong.
It would have been less misleading to post the implied percentage of total votes in each cell... but then it would likely have vilified that 25-49 group despite being slightly on the other side of the fence. But, the reality is, they probably contributed to the biggest slice of the leave vote, even if the majority of that group voted the other way.
But, I suspect that the whole point of the infographic was to paint those with the least amount of time after the vote as being those who "ruined" it for the rest. And putting in numbers which told a more accurate version of the story simply wouldn't have done that.
I'm sure post has been boring, long and redundant. I don't apologize for it.
I'd also like to take one last stab at those that think the infographic implies something disgusting. If the rest of the country was more or less divided and only the 18-24's and the 65+'s held strong opinions... if you instead opted to side with the 18-24's rather than the total vote, it would mean siding with the minority.
The most remarkable response was someone who tweeted this and captioned it "This is disgusting". Actually. No. Your response is what is disgusting. Firstly, the data is purely misleading. Metrics are a wonderful thing. In something as complex as a vote you can focus on and slice the data any way you want until it tells the story you want it to.
Before I get to why that particular (seemingly now famous infographics is misleading). Let's just assume what it implies and how people are reading it is actually correct? What, pray tell, makes it disgusting? Such a response implies that retirees either don't deserve the right to vote, or don't deserve to vote in the way they desire. Unfortunately, if you hold either view, it isn't a democracy you want to live in anyway. (Side note: if you agreed it was disgusting, I hope you hang your head in shame when you realize; that age group consists of your WW2 vets who fought for your freedom, many of you may not be alive without them, let alone free to vote in the first place).
Consequently, that same age group could argue that while they may have the least amount of time left to deal with the outcome, the 18-24 age group has the least political knowledge and real world experience and is thus the least "qualified". Both arguments are, of course, nonsense.
But, as I said before, that infographic is misleading. Voter turnout for this referendum was astoundingly high. Apparently 72%. That actually makes it all the easier to debunk. Here is a site that offers a rough breakdown of the age groups in the UK. That 65+ age group accounts for just 17.5% of the total population. If we trim out the percentage which isn't eligible to vote (and round up a bit for sport), they could at most make up in the ball park of 25% of the voters. And is only if 100% of them turned out (not realistic). Then if 100% of them voted to leave (which we also know didn't happen) it would still have required more than twice that many people to have clinched the roughly 52% in favor of leaving.
In other words, even if you skew EVERY possible metric in favor of blaming the 65+ group, they still don't even amount for a majority of the leave vote.
In fact, the slice of ages between the youngest group of voters and the oldest is well over 50% of the population. It stands to reason that somewhere within the realm of 50% of all votes came from that group. Those people more or less set the stage. And while they may not have to live as long after the vote as the 18-24 group, based on that same infographic, we're still looking at a median of somewhere between 31-52 years to live afterwards. I think, that is more than long enough to "afford" them the right to vote (you sanctimonious jerks).
Now, back to the outcome. 51.9%. 2% voting the other way and the UK would have remained. Guess what, you could probably find that 2% in that 18-24 age group who voted to leave alone. Not to mention those in that group that didn't show up.
People don't think that way though, because, you see, people tend to paint certain groups as pro remain or pro leave. At which point people seem to start thinking (without acknowledging, or even perhaps without knowing) that everyone in certain group voted a certain way. Not every 18-24 year old voted to remain as indicated about. And not every 65+ year old voted to leave.
The moral here is humans suck at math and see what they want to see. The overwhelming majority of people are using this infographic to blame the retirees for the outcome without realizing that the 65+ group probably contributed to less than 15% of the leave vote (remember not 100% of them turned out, and not 100% voted to leave so that 25% number is frankly not realistic, even the 15% number may be too high).
They can only be portrayed to have pushed it over the top because they had the highest relative turnout and were one of the least divided groups.
Interestingly though, the 18-24 group was even less divided on the topic than the 65+ group. With that in mind, even with the lower turnout, they would have negated a decent chunk of the votes by the 65+ group.
What likely happened, quite simply, is the bulk of people in the UK (if split by age, it would be that 25-64 group) were more or less split evenly on the topic. The 65+ and 18-24 were more polarized. The group that turned out in the larger numbers "won". But, if that 25-64 group had been leaning strongly in either direction it would have been near impossible even for both group (even combined) to have overcome them.
And guess what? THAT is democracy. The majority (of voters) has spoken, and spoken in favor of leaving. Furthermore, the 65+ age group was neither a majority in and of themselves or even a majority of the leave vote. The above arguments should easily show that it isn't possible to logically (or accurately) arrive at either of those conclusions.
Of course unless we ever get hard data it will be impossible to even accurately try and blame any subsection of the voters for the result.
The smart move would be to drop age groups from the question entirely and simply say more than half of the voters voted to leave.
BTW, there are also a number of people who instead blaming based on age have found metrics to support blaming people on region. Others to blame based on education. And yet others to blame based on wealth. Like I said, when you have 10's of millions of data points (voters), each with hundreds of metrics to compare (age, gender, religion, earning, education level, work area, etc...), then you can simply slice the data however you want. Eventually you'll be able to find a way to skew the data so that it agrees with your personal beliefs.
In this case the data was skewed by making about it about 4 (unequal sized) age groups, polled from a very small sample of the population and then only shows results as percentages within those age groups. When I word it like that, doesn't it sound just a tad shady? Well, if you support what it says, then you probably don't. Confirmation bias.
What is most disconcerting to me is the seemingly rather arbitrary selection of age groups. They are neither of uniform size nor uniform portions of the population. 18-24 is just 7 years. 25-49 is a whopping 25 years, 50-64 is 15 years and 65+ is relatively undefined, but lets say 65-90 so 26 years.
The 18-24 group is not only the smallest range of years, it is also easily the smallest overall group size. The 25-49 group is likely the largest, and the remaining two are probably somewhere in between on the lower side.
Knowing that each bracket is a different percentage of the population and voters, showing the results as percentages within each age group only is misleading. It implies that each group has an equal impact on the outcome, but that is clearly wrong.
It would have been less misleading to post the implied percentage of total votes in each cell... but then it would likely have vilified that 25-49 group despite being slightly on the other side of the fence. But, the reality is, they probably contributed to the biggest slice of the leave vote, even if the majority of that group voted the other way.
But, I suspect that the whole point of the infographic was to paint those with the least amount of time after the vote as being those who "ruined" it for the rest. And putting in numbers which told a more accurate version of the story simply wouldn't have done that.
I'm sure post has been boring, long and redundant. I don't apologize for it.
I'd also like to take one last stab at those that think the infographic implies something disgusting. If the rest of the country was more or less divided and only the 18-24's and the 65+'s held strong opinions... if you instead opted to side with the 18-24's rather than the total vote, it would mean siding with the minority.
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