Public opinion vs reality

Anyone willing to own up to any of the top 10 misconceptions?

http://www.rssenews.org.uk/2013/07/rss-commission-new-research-into-public-perceptions-of-statistics/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Autotweets

1. Teenage pregnancy: on average, we think teenage pregnancy is 25 times higher than official estimates: we think that 15% of girls under16 get pregnant each year, when official figures suggest it is around 0.6%.
   
2. Crime: 58% do not believe that crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19% lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53% lower than in 1995. 51% think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.
   
3. Job-seekers allowance: 29% of people think we spend more on JSA than pensions, when in fact we spend 15 times more on pensions (£4.9bn vs £74.2bn).
   
4. Benefit fraud: people estimate that 34 times more benefit money is claimed fraudulently than official estimates: the public think that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently, compared with official estimates of £0.70 per £100.
   
5. Foreign aid: 26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year. More people select this as a top item of expenditure than pensions (which cost nearly ten times as much, £74bn) and education in the UK (£51.5bn).
   
6. Religion: we greatly overestimate the proportion of the population who are Muslims: on average we say 24%, compared with 5% in England and Wales. And we underestimate the proportion of Christians: we estimate 34% on average, compared with the actual proportion of 59% in England and Wales.
   
7. Immigration and ethnicity: the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. Even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%. There are similar misperceptions on ethnicity: the average estimate is that black and Asian people make up 30% of the population, when it is actually 11% (or 14% if we include mixed and other non-white ethnic groups).
   
8. Age: we think the population is much older than it actually is – the average estimate is that 36% of the population are 65+, when only 16% are.
   
9. Benefit bill: people are most likely to think that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save most money from a list provided (33% pick this option), over twice the level that select raising the pension age to 66 for both men and women or stopping child benefit when someone in the household earns £50k+. In fact, capping household benefits is estimated to save £290m, compared with £5bn for raising the pension age and £1.7bn for stopping child benefit for wealthier households.
   
10. Voting: we underestimate the proportion of people who voted in the last general election – our average guess is 43%, when 65% actually did.
    

Anyone willing to own up to any of the top 10 misconceptions?

 

http://www.rssenews.org.uk/2013/07/rss-commission-new-research-into-public-perceptions-of-statistics/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Autotweets

 

 

1. Teenage pregnancy: on average, we think teenage pregnancy is 25 times higher than official estimates: we think that 15% of girls under16 get pregnant each year, when official figures suggest it is around 0.6%.
   
2. Crime: 58% do not believe that crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19% lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53% lower than in 1995. 51% think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.
   
3. Job-seekers allowance: 29% of people think we spend more on JSA than pensions, when in fact we spend 15 times more on pensions (£4.9bn vs £74.2bn).
   
4. Benefit fraud: people estimate that 34 times more benefit money is claimed fraudulently than official estimates: the public think that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently, compared with official estimates of £0.70 per £100.
   
5. Foreign aid: 26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year. More people select this as a top item of expenditure than pensions (which cost nearly ten times as much, £74bn) and education in the UK (£51.5bn).
   
6. Religion: we greatly overestimate the proportion of the population who are Muslims: on average we say 24%, compared with 5% in England and Wales. And we underestimate the proportion of Christians: we estimate 34% on average, compared with the actual proportion of 59% in England and Wales.
   
7. Immigration and ethnicity: the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. Even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%. There are similar misperceptions on ethnicity: the average estimate is that black and Asian people make up 30% of the population, when it is actually 11% (or 14% if we include mixed and other non-white ethnic groups).
   
8. Age: we think the population is much older than it actually is – the average estimate is that 36% of the population are 65+, when only 16% are.
   
9. Benefit bill: people are most likely to think that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save most money from a list provided (33% pick this option), over twice the level that select raising the pension age to 66 for both men and women or stopping child benefit when someone in the household earns £50k+. In fact, capping household benefits is estimated to save £290m, compared with £5bn for raising the pension age and £1.7bn for stopping child benefit for wealthier households.
   
10. Voting: we underestimate the proportion of people who voted in the last general election – our average guess is 43%, when 65% actually did.
    

So true. Many (most?) people's voting os based on myths or predjudice, not on reality.

I'll have a go.

1. Teenage pregnancy-Never really thought about it, but I would have guessed around a tiny %

2. Crime- Personally I think the figures are fiddled, there are too many stakeholders from Governments to Coppers who have a vested interest in ensuring the crime figures come down. depends on too many things from how it's reported , to what exactly constitutes a crime. I feel that people don't report stuff they would of 40 years ago. A lot of petty vandalism goes unreported and any drop in theft from cars is more to do with advances in technology than any positive action. If a bloke vandalises 4 cars in an evening is it four crimes or one? So I'm in the 58% bracket here.

3. JSA to pensions-Anyone who thinks we spend more on JSA than pensions is clearly an idiot.

4. Benefit fraud- The official figures are an "estimate", by the very nature of benefit fraud I seriously doubt the authorities have any sort of clue as to what the figure is. I suspect it's more widesporead than estimates, but that it's real low level stuff. It all depends on how you define "fraud". If someone on JSA sells a load of gear on ebay, should they declare any profits?Strictly speaking is that benefit fraud?

5. Foreign aid-Again, if you don't know the figure you're a bit of a numpty, seeing as the Government have pledged ( they may even have legigslated ) that we will spend a certain % of GDP.

6. Religion & Muslims-That'll really depend where you live. My guess would be lower because there aren't any round here. If the 5% are concentrated in 30% of the country, the people in the 30% are obviously going to have a higher figure. As for Christians, I'm surprised it's so high, but is it people who call themselves Christians or people who go to church?

7. Immigration-Same as above.

8. Age-That did surprise me, I'd have guessed around a third.

9. Benefit bill- Anyone with half a brain could work out that delaying pensions will save the most money.

10. Voting-Again I would have put it around the guess figure of 40% , so was surprised it was 65%.

[*]Teenage pregnancy: on average, we think teenage pregnancy is 25 times higher than official estimates: we think that 15% of girls under16 get pregnant each year, when official figures suggest it is around 0.6%.

Rubbish! The UK has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world and while maybe not 15% (prolly too high!) it is certainly at least 1-2% if not higher.

[*]Immigration and ethnicity: the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. Even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%. There are similar misperceptions on ethnicity: the average estimate is that black and Asian people make up 30% of the population, when it is actually 11% (or 14% if we include mixed and other non-white ethnic groups).

Simply not true. Unless whites spend their whole mornings and afternoons locked up in their flats and houses, a simple walk in the city centre will make anyone dismiss that figure as b0llocks!

Rubbish! The UK has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world and while maybe not 15% (prolly too high!) it is certainly at least 1-2% if not higher.

 

 

Simply not true. Unless whites spend their whole mornings and afternoons locked up in their flats and houses, a simple walk in the city centre will make anyone dismiss that figure as b0llocks!

So let me see, who to believe? The Royal Statistical Society or some **** on a footie forum?

Tough one.

Rubbish! The UK has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world and while maybe not 15% (prolly too high!) it is certainly at least 1-2% if not higher.

 

 

Simply not true. Unless whites spend their whole mornings and afternoons locked up in their flats and houses, a simple walk in the city centre will make anyone dismiss that figure as b0llocks!

You obviously know more than the Office of National Statistics whose figure for 2010 was 7 per 1000. I make that 0.7%. It's been steadily falling since 1998.

I don't think that a stroll around a city centre is a statistically valid method of measuring immigration numbers.

Immigration and ethnicity: the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. Even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%. There are similar misperceptions on ethnicity: the average estimate is that black and Asian people make up 30% of the population, when it is actually 11% (or 14% if we include mixed and other non-white ethnic groups).

----- which is about the same proportion of the population that are left-handed!

You think all teen pregnancies are reported/made public?

You think all non-white "immigrants" (legal or otherwise) are accounted for?

Some people.

11. 110_Persaint thinks that under 5% of SaintsWeb board members think he is a thick c**t, whereas the actual figure is 93%.

Rubbish! The UK has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the world and while maybe not 15% (prolly too high!) it is certainly at least 1-2% if not higher.

 

 

Simply not true. Unless whites spend their whole mornings and afternoons locked up in their flats and houses, a simple walk in the city centre will make anyone dismiss that figure as b0llocks!

Whites?

Are you seriously suggesting that all NON white people in this country are immigrants? You do realise that our multicultural society does actually have Black, Chinese, Asian and many other skin colour/type people who were born and bred in the country and who aren't immigrants don't you? Or are you really that stupid?

2. Is that figure for REPORTED crime? I'd guess that if you included non reported crime then the figure may well be higher.

8 and 10 I would've got wrong. There are some seriously misinformed people (newspaper readers) in this country.

Simply not true. Unless whites spend their whole mornings and afternoons locked up in their flats and houses, a simple walk in the city centre will make anyone dismiss that figure as b0llocks!

The percentage of immigrants or ethnic minorities in inner city areas would be higher so wouldn't reflect the national average.

2. Is that figure for REPORTED crime? I'd guess that if you included non reported crime then the figure may well be higher.

Wouldn't make any difference really as actual crime always has been higher than reported crime. Crime is and will continue to go down because of technology. Things like CCTV, mobile phones, forensic science and the internet make solving crime much easier than years ago.

8 and 10 I would've got wrong. There are some seriously misinformed people (newspaper readers) in this country.

People who don't read the news are even worse off, sadly.

You think all teen pregnancies are reported/made public?

 

You think all non-white "immigrants" (legal or otherwise) are accounted for?

 

Some people.

Reported? When babies are born they are registered with the General Register Office. They archive every birth and death in the UK. Difficult one to get wrong!

The report read: "even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%." We know these estimates can't be 100% accurate, but do you really think they're out by half? That they've not twigged nine and a half million people are illegal immigrants?

You're not supposed to stick the cotton buds that far in your ear, mate.

The next obvious question is "why do people believe these things?" Answer is equally obvious. It's what they're told, especially under the Conservatives.

I was more surprised by the dumb guesses than the actual figures. E.g you'd have to be pretty dumb to think more than a third of population is 65+ FFS!

Whites?

 

Are you seriously suggesting that all NON white people in this country are immigrants? You do realise that our multicultural society does actually have Black, Chinese, Asian and many other skin colour/type people who were born and bred in the country and who aren't immigrants don't you? Or are you really that stupid?

Chances are most whites are non-immigrants, and there's been fewer and fewer of them proportionally as of late to suggest immigrants are on the rise. When these changes are recent and relatively sudden in their appearance (only 10 or so years ago they were much less), chances are a large number of those new faces were not born and bred in this country, and are first generations from elsewhere.

Reported? When babies are born they are registered with the General Register Office. They archive every birth and death in the UK. Difficult one to get wrong!

When babies are born absolutely. Welcome to the real world mate. Not all babies are born unfortunately.

I was more surprised by the dumb guesses than the actual figures. E.g you'd have to be pretty dumb to think more than a third of population is 65+ FFS!

Slight correction. Dumb and watched one of the innumerable horror stories about the current pension bill or how we'll all be paying for those lucky baby boomers.

Chances are most whites are non-immigrants, and there's been fewer and fewer of them proportionally as of late to suggest immigrants are on the rise. When these changes are recent and relatively sudden in their appearance (only 10 or so years ago they were much less), chances are a large number of those new faces were not born and bred in this country, and are first generations from elsewhere.

 

When babies are born absolutely. Welcome to the real world mate. Not all babies are born unfortunately.

I'm going to be bold and guess that you're not a racist and have loads of black friends.

The next obvious question is "why do people believe these things?" Answer is equally obvious. It's what they're told, especially under the Conservatives.

Kind of. The Tories don't tell people they're spending more on JSA than pensions or that 31% of the population are immigrants, but the issues are so prevalent in the media that people think they're bigger than they are. And these misperceptions favour the Tories as it helps them to implement legislation. It's easy to cut people's welfare when the public think they're all scroungers who cheat the system!

I'm going to be bold and guess that you're not a racist, but have loads of black friends.

 

 

 

Kind of. The Tories don't tell people they're spending more on JSA than pensions or that 31% of the population are immigrants, but the issues are so prevalent in the media that people think they're bigger than they are. And these misperceptions favour the Tories as it helps them to implement legislation. It's easy to cut people's welfare when the public think they're all scroungers who cheat the system!

Certainly not the case for the educated bunch who know what lying scumbags the media can be.

Considering you believe the Royal Statistical Society are liars, who educated you on such matters and what are their credentials?

Not liars, just misinformed. You can't rely on official statistics for everything, especially when it comes to nationwide data in a country as ethnically and culturally diverse as this. Corruption and fraud are becoming ever more widespread and the most the authorities can hope for is the honest, bona fide people tell the whole impartial truth. And even that would only be a small proportion.

So you think the majority of the British population are liars? If only a small proportion are honest and tell the whole truth.

Again not liars! They simply opt out of answering such surveys or answer based on what they believe is right or proper. How many mums go around telling people "help! my teenage daughter is pregnant, what do I do???"

What evidence do you have that this is the case?

(Last chance to say something reasonable or I'm leaving this thread)

Can only speak from my experiences mate. A lot of illegal unethical sh*te happens everyday in this country from otherwise normal folks and I get told from friends of friends (of friends). Maybe it's just this day and age but my generation is certainly different from that in which you grew up in I'm assuming. Anything and everything happens and the law is no hindrance to doing as one pleases.

Therefore I can only assume other youth throughout the country are like many that I know, and that makes a large enough percentage to be taken seriously.

That reasonable enough? Or were you leaving anyway?

Chances are most whites are non-immigrants

Yeah cause there's no white polish immigration in southampton is there... And there's definitely not a large - now third genration at least - asian community here either.

I was having a chat with my 13 year old daughter on the way to the shops yesterday about the basic tenets of solipsism; the notion that the only thing you can be sure exists is your own mind. Everything else could conceivably be a product of that mind. It was part of a wider conversation about relative life experience, and in this particular instance, how her notions of Liverpool could completely differ from someone else's experience.

Though I don't agree with 110_Persaint, he's entitled to his perspective, although personally, I always take "friends of friends" stuff with a bit of salt. It's usually amusing and/or sensational, but it's often embellished or significantly altered in the retelling and sometimes, is complete boll*cks from the start. However, life is relative to the individual.

Outside of the information you get from friends, the other obvious source of information we have to go on is the media in all its forms. The media doesn't merely reflect public opinion; it creates it. On wider issues, it's the only thing that does. Relatively speaking, hardly anyone was in Woolwich on the day that the attacks took place, yet the vast majority have an opinion. Those opinions, my own included, were not collated from personal experience. The media made Woolwich into a nationwide event, and the reports in the media were the basis on which most opinions were made. Without the multiplying effect of media, no-one would have an opinion on much outside of their own direct experience.

The response to Woolwich, an event that most people had no direct experience of, was staggering. Numerous organs pointing out the barbarism of Islam (in relation to the decapitation), the re-emergence of #racism on Twitter and Facebook. Aren't we British? Didn't we used to be the sort of country to handle things calmly, quietly and without fuss?

Good post. Everyone has their personal perspective - and everyone's opinions will be shaped by personal experience, whether they like it or not - but it's strange to consider your own experience representative of broad issues such as these, when you're given hard facts and reliably sourced data.

The next obvious question is "why do people believe these things?" Answer is equally obvious. It's what they're told, especially under the Conservatives.

What a load of nonsense.

People have believed these things for years, its not that they suddenly started thinking this way 3 years ago. People were just as ignorant under labour and daily mirror readers just as ignorant as sun readers.

Take the crime stat, who deceives the public the Tory party who want people to think its down or labour who want people to think its going up. If Cameron stands up at pmq tomorrow and says crime is down, what is red ed going to say " you're right Dave"?

I'm not saying that personal experience is representative of broader issues. It never can be, but it's really the only tool you've got to process it all. Day to day, we use our personal experience subconsciously all the time, and put a great deal of trust in it. Every man on this forum has conducted numerous "threat assessments" on each and every trip to a kebab emporium in the wee hours of the morning. Every person (hopefully) does this every time they take a vehicle onto the public highways. It's innate, part of our survival mechanism, and it's not our only skill. We apply personal experience to every decision we make in life; it's the lack of personal experience in these broader events which is the problem.

In the absence of personal experience, everything is informed from other sources, whether it's friends, friends of friends, but mostly, it's mainstream media. Looking at the brain from the point of view as a retention device, what happens if you have no personal experience of Muslims yet have watched mainstream media? What actually gets filed in your brain under the Muslim department? I'd argue that it's just the stuff you see in mainstream media.

The interesting thing about all of this is that at the same time, people have become more individualistic and self-absorbed. Black mirror generation, anyone? That again, is part of the problem. This new-found individualism isn't the gateway to a higher state of being; it's endlessly refreshing a feed of updated celebrity gossip. Give me the Daily Mail of the 1930s over its celebrity-obsessed descendant any day; it was at least discussing multiple political systems.

What a load of nonsense.

 

People have believed these things for years, its not that they suddenly started thinking this way 3 years ago. People were just as ignorant under labour and daily mirror readers just as ignorant as sun readers.

 

Take the crime stat, who deceives the public the Tory party who want people to think its down or labour who want people to think its going up. If Cameron stands up at pmq tomorrow and says crime is down, what is red ed going to say " you're right Dave"?

Sorry mucker, you're in the wrong on this one. Labour were far from perfect. I really hated their Orwellian benefit cheats campaign. It was genuinely sinister.

I've added a further post which goes some way to explaining why people believe what they do. Mostly, it's lack of experience, but I'll let you read on before you decide whether I'm talking nonsense.

Sorry mucker, you're in the wrong on this one. Labour were far from perfect. I really hated their Orwellian benefit cheats campaign. It was genuinely sinister.

 

I've added a further post which goes some way to explaining why people believe what they do. Mostly, it's lack of experience, but I'll let you read on before you decide whether I'm talking nonsense.

You were talking nonsense when you appeared to be blaming the tory party for peoples perceptions, as you now appear to be backtracking from that position i take it you agree with my point that its basically apolitical.

I think the problem is the media fanning people's instinctive misconceptions.

The current government isn't doing anything to try to educate people however, because these misconceptions fit with their agenda. They prefer to capitalise by introducing caps on immigration and benefits rather than educating people about what is best for the economy or necessary for people on the breadline.

Labour has been guilty of this too, for example when ignoring scientific evidence and changing cannabis back to class B, because it was worried about public opinion. But at least that wasn't a serious economic matter. And of course there was the Iraq war lies which is worse really but slightly different because there wasn't a pre-existing prejudice among the public.

You were talking nonsense when you appeared to be blaming the tory party for peoples perceptions, as you now appear to be backtracking from that position i take it you agree with my point that its basically apolitical.

No-one was excluded Lord D, so it was always apolitical. Both parties do it. Tories do it more, and target the poor.

I went to a school with 2400 pupils in Devon and out of all those students there were 2 black students and one chinese. If you walked around most Devonshire town centers you would think there were no non whites. When I lived in Southampton there were clearly a more diverse population, The bits which are heavily white tend to not get so much exposure in our urban centered media world.

Anyone willing to own up to any of the top 10 misconceptions?

 

http://www.rssenews.org.uk/2013/07/rss-commission-new-research-into-public-perceptions-of-statistics/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Autotweets

 

 

1. Teenage pregnancy: on average, we think teenage pregnancy is 25 times higher than official estimates: we think that 15% of girls under16 get pregnant each year, when official figures suggest it is around 0.6%.
   
2. Crime: 58% do not believe that crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19% lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53% lower than in 1995. 51% think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.
   
3. Job-seekers allowance: 29% of people think we spend more on JSA than pensions, when in fact we spend 15 times more on pensions (£4.9bn vs £74.2bn).
   
4. Benefit fraud: people estimate that 34 times more benefit money is claimed fraudulently than official estimates: the public think that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently, compared with official estimates of £0.70 per £100.
   
5. Foreign aid: 26% of people think foreign aid is one of the top 2-3 items government spends most money on, when it actually made up 1.1% of expenditure (£7.9bn) in the 2011/12 financial year. More people select this as a top item of expenditure than pensions (which cost nearly ten times as much, £74bn) and education in the UK (£51.5bn).
   
6. Religion: we greatly overestimate the proportion of the population who are Muslims: on average we say 24%, compared with 5% in England and Wales. And we underestimate the proportion of Christians: we estimate 34% on average, compared with the actual proportion of 59% in England and Wales.
   
7. Immigration and ethnicity: the public think that 31% of the population are immigrants, when the official figures are 13%. Even estimates that attempt to account for illegal immigration suggest a figure closer to 15%. There are similar misperceptions on ethnicity: the average estimate is that black and Asian people make up 30% of the population, when it is actually 11% (or 14% if we include mixed and other non-white ethnic groups).
   
8. Age: we think the population is much older than it actually is – the average estimate is that 36% of the population are 65+, when only 16% are.
   
9. Benefit bill: people are most likely to think that capping benefits at £26,000 per household will save most money from a list provided (33% pick this option), over twice the level that select raising the pension age to 66 for both men and women or stopping child benefit when someone in the household earns £50k+. In fact, capping household benefits is estimated to save £290m, compared with £5bn for raising the pension age and £1.7bn for stopping child benefit for wealthier households.
   
10. Voting: we underestimate the proportion of people who voted in the last general election – our average guess is 43%, when 65% actually did.
    

Honestly, I can only say I'd have been clueless on number 9, because it took time to think about and the terms seem fairly vague. Though admittedly actually putting a figure on some of those isn't the easiest thing to do in the first place, the source of the other misconceptions is glaringly obvious to anyone who takes the time to listen to any of the racist anti-immigration, anti-muslim, anti-beard, anti-benefit cheat, ant-thing they're scared of, anti-"baddie", utter drivel that idiots spout.

You obviously know more than the Office of National Statistics whose figure for 2010 was 7 per 1000. I make that 0.7%. It's been steadily falling since 1998.

 

I don't think that a stroll around a city centre is a statistically valid method of measuring immigration numbers.

That's Office FOR National Statistics. A former employer of mine. You can also antagonise me by referring to "Registry Offices" rather than "Register Offices", as the General Register Office was also once an employer when it used to be within the remit of ONS.

I think the problem is the media fanning people's instinctive misconceptions.

 

The current government isn't doing anything to try to educate people however, because these misconceptions fit with their agenda. They prefer to capitalise by introducing caps on immigration and benefits rather than educating people about what is best for the economy or necessary for people on the breadline.

 

Labour has been guilty of this too, for example when ignoring scientific evidence and changing cannabis back to class B, because it was worried about public opinion. But at least that wasn't a serious economic matter. And of course there was the Iraq war lies which is worse really but slightly different because there wasn't a pre-existing prejudice among the public.

It's not just the current one, but the ones responsible for educating the last 25 years' worth I'm worried about. Not just regarding politics and the impact of these events on their lives, but just the ability to compose rational thought processes based on evidence generally.

I'm not saying that personal experience is representative of broader issues. It never can be, but it's really the only tool you've got to process it all. Day to day, we use our personal experience subconsciously all the time, and put a great deal of trust in it. Every man on this forum has conducted numerous "threat assessments" on each and every trip to a kebab emporium in the wee hours of the morning. Every person (hopefully) does this every time they take a vehicle onto the public highways. It's innate, part of our survival mechanism, and it's not our only skill. We apply personal experience to every decision we make in life; it's the lack of personal experience in these broader events which is the problem.

 

In the absence of personal experience, everything is informed from other sources, whether it's friends, friends of friends, but mostly, it's mainstream media. Looking at the brain from the point of view as a retention device, what happens if you have no personal experience of Muslims yet have watched mainstream media? What actually gets filed in your brain under the Muslim department? I'd argue that it's just the stuff you see in mainstream media.

 

The interesting thing about all of this is that at the same time, people have become more individualistic and self-absorbed. Black mirror generation, anyone? That again, is part of the problem. This new-found individualism isn't the gateway to a higher state of being; it's endlessly refreshing a feed of updated celebrity gossip. Give me the Daily Mail of the 1930s over its celebrity-obsessed descendant any day; it was at least discussing multiple political systems.

Why have you assumed that people base their assumptions on mainstream media ? The vast majority of people I see online in my friends feed on Facebook seem to base their opinions on absolutely nothing at all, and my personal interaction with "mainstream media" stretches as far as occasionally clicking a link I find interesting. I never watch the news, listen to the news, read the news or otherwise seek out the news.

You're completely right about individualism and self-absorption, I like football so I watch, discuss, play or simulate playing football basically all of my free time. It's not a higher state, but I do know a lot about football... and tv programmes my wife likes.

My "muslim" experiences are based on basically nothing apart from a few conversations and long-forgotten religious education classes, but I can still work out for myself that there are millions of muslims out there, as well as some other mysterious lots who aren't muslims but are also not white caucasian anglo-saxon types, and the massive majority are NOT blowing stuff up and being aggressive towards the west, why can't some other people figure this out ? Is it because they've already decided they don't want to know by the age of 8, or because their poorly-educated parents have decided that learning things isn't important ?

Why have you assumed that people base their assumptions on mainstream media ? The vast majority of people I see online in my friends feed on Facebook seem to base their opinions on absolutely nothing at all, and my personal interaction with "mainstream media" stretches as far as occasionally clicking a link I find interesting. I never watch the news, listen to the news, read the news or otherwise seek out the news.

 

You're completely right about individualism and self-absorption, I like football so I watch, discuss, play or simulate playing football basically all of my free time. It's not a higher state, but I do know a lot about football... and tv programmes my wife likes.

 

My "muslim" experiences are based on basically nothing apart from a few conversations and long-forgotten religious education classes, but I can still work out for myself that there are millions of muslims out there, as well as some other mysterious lots who aren't muslims but are also not white caucasian anglo-saxon types, and the massive majority are NOT blowing stuff up and being aggressive towards the west, why can't some other people figure this out ? Is it because they've already decided they don't want to know by the age of 8, or because their poorly-educated parents have decided that learning things isn't important ?

It really depends on your definition of mainstream media. If we constrain ourselves to the BBC ITV and other major TV channels, then you're right. They don't make documentaries moaning about the Polish, benefit cheats or not being allowed to fly the flag. Widen that definition to include newspapers like the Daily Mail and some of those social media opinions don't look too original.

Kudos to you for keeping an open mind despite your lack of contact with the Islamic community. I'm not so certain that others keep such a healthy distance away from hysteria.

 

Simply not true. Unless whites spend their whole mornings and afternoons locked up in their flats and houses, a simple walk in the city centre will make anyone dismiss that figure as b0llocks!

Don't be a mug. The only reason you think there are far more black or asian people is because you notice them more - how many hundreds of white people do you walk past and pay absolutely no attention to? Yet you see 2 or 3 black people in the space of 10 minutes and suddenly "they're everywhere".

Whites?

 

Are you seriously suggesting that all NON white people in this country are immigrants? You do realise that our multicultural society does actually have Black, Chinese, Asian and many other skin colour/type people who were born and bred in the country and who aren't immigrants don't you? Or are you really that stupid?

In fairness, he was responding to the ethnic demography rather than amount of immigrants.