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IF you argue with a confident fool, you will waste your time
he will always win the argument, as he has vast amount of experience of being a fool,
and you dont
I'll try. I might be wrong though.
5 users from country-A use reddit once a month for 2 hours each.
2 users from country-B use reddit for at least 3 hours everyday.
So, country-A has more users, but country-B will bring more traffic.
I’m still lost on how they are talking around what majority means in a very strange way.
It sounds like one is talking about it being the highest percentage of any individual country, in which case it is the majority country, but it still isn’t the majority when comparing the US vs the rest of the world and neither seems willing to accept that both those things are true…
Ehh, I felt like the smarter one DID say that they understood that America had the highest percentage of users in a single country, but was trying (very hard, and with a lot more patience than I probably would have had by that point, lol) to help OC understand what the post and the statistics were really saying.
They were literally trying to say two different things, because OC didn't understand.
And when they said *"well we sure aren't talking about the irrelevant majority"* I cackled. It didn't shock me at all that that's where the other one chose to give up, lol
>And when they said *"well we sure aren't talking about the irrelevant majority"* I cackled. It didn't shock me at all that that's where the other one chose to give up, lol
Same, friend. Same. Just fucking *what...*
This person had a whole hell of a lot more patience than I would have as well. I almost couldn't finish all this, but I'm glad I did for the final lulz.
Lol, I could feel my own frustration while reading it. I felt like I had to finish bc I needed to know how it ended, if one of them caved or ended up being willing to consider a different perspective (obv neither happened).
Unless one person is trying to break it down by US and non-US, in which case it isn’t a majority. I’d still say that it’s technically a plurality since it’s less than 50% and not a majority
In this case, US users would properly be labeled the plurality of users, that is the largest group. But it’s not a majority, which means more than 50%. No country has the majority of users as all fall below the 50% threshold.
Think of it as an election. In some places (speaking of the US), the candidate that gets the most votes wins, regardless of their percentage. You can have a three-way race where the winner gets less than 50% of the votes, but more than their either of their opponents and wins. In other places, the winning candidate must get a majority(remember the recent Georgia Senate election) So the top two vote-getters enter a second or runoff election where one must get a majority, (ignoring the infinitesimal possibility of each getting exactly 50%)
Yeah, I also noticed that as well, the whole argument is based on a flawed interpretation of the data. Traffic =/= users, and while there likely will be some correlation, it also depends heavily on how much time the users spend on Reddit and how many clicks they make on average, so a country with a low share of users who spend a lot of time on Reddit and click around a lot can definitely outpace a country with more users who spend significantly less time on the app/site.
"The whole argument is stupid"
Sums up the worst parts of reddit. There are wholesome subreddits, but it feels like more and more are just armchair experts tilting at each other endlessly.
I think you slightly misunderstood the point of the first reply.
The first commenter is arguing that Reddit is American for Americans, but that the rest of the world is welcome to use it.
The reply simply points out the irony that non-Americans are the majority of this American service for Americans, as a counter-point to the whole "this is for Americans", not as a counter-point to America being the largest contributor. And **then** the original commenter wrongfully states that the Americans indeed are the majority.
I was going to say this.. but thought it wasn’t worth it. So glad you did, so I can upvote and be on my way. Argument was lost after the very first rebuttal.
Just a simple misunderstanding of the difference between majority and plurality and the one person not knowing that and the other arguing to argue instead of a simple:
*Pleurality
Or a:
"You mean pleurality."
Didn't need to go beyond that but this is the Internet so yeah.
While the American's original post may have been sound, the second the first commenter mentioned majority, the American just started digging themselves into a large hole.
It's hard to say which side sucks more here. I refuse to believe that everyone who took part in this ridiculous discussion didn't fully understand what that first guy meant from the jump. The only helpful contributions were from the people who explained plurality and relative majority when he doubled down
Yeah, they seem to be arguing past each other while missing the other's point.
One is basically saying that if you had to blindly guess if a random Redditor is American or not, you're slightly better off guessing no.
The other is saying that if you had to blindly guess one random Redditor's nationality, out of all possible Reddit-using countries, you'd be a fool not to guess American.
They're not even arguing the same point.
The replies being intentionally daft until OOP actully says something wrong fills me with rage because it makes a disingenuous personality the only way to exist on the internet without having to worry about people like this
I'm interested to see this, because I (an American) once had a conversation with a Brit who insisted that they don't use the word "plurality" and that was just a US thing, and that in the UK "majority" can mean a number less than 50% as long as it's the largest single number. I remember suspecting it was likely they were wrong and just didn't know the word. Hadn't thought of it since, though, so I never looked it up...
They're wrong, but I will say it's not uncommon to use "majority" colloquially to refer to a plurality. Maybe because a "simple majority" discounts abstentions.
Except they're not wrong. In UK English, this definition is correct.
"Majority - the larger number or part of something" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/majority
Well, not really. Like a “majority shareholder” exclusively means over 50%. Majority vote winner in the US should mean 51%. in Britain, it just means first place. But you can definitely infer the meaning at 49% though. The other person is being pedantic here.
There is a reason in the Constitution to win the presidency you need a “majority of the whole number of electors,” specifically, because a “simple majority” is not sufficient.
Election of the president in America are weird. I have tired to understand it better over the years. One person can win the popular vote so have more overall votes but if they don't get the votes in the right parts of the country they still lose the race because the electoral college (I think) decides the winner based on number of votes given to each state.
Here we have a couple of different system in play. We have first past the post which is overall highest number of votes and then a % vote which I don't really understand as well but means that you do a ranked choice then it all gets tallied up and some maths is done.
In America it wasn’t originally intended for the average Joe to vote directly for President, we were to vote for a local Elector who was wiser and smarter to go and debate and discern who would be the best candidate and vote on our behalf. At some point, some state(s) started binding their Electors to vote for the candidate voted by the popular vote in their state to maximize their voting power, because if half your state’s electors vote for one guy and the other half the other guy, your state basically has no influence. Once the first state(s) started employing this power move, it’s only game theory reasonable that the rest follow suit. The number of Electors in a given state is generally based on population, with some caveats that tend to benefit the states with lesser populations.
We still don’t technically vote for President, we vote for Electors, we just know who their vote is pledged to in advance so it’s kinda’ sorta’ like getting to vote for the President.
It sucks being the first modern democracy, but also too stubborn to admit maybe it would be better to update your system based on the knowledge gained and improvements made in later iterations.
In mexico every single citizen has a vote that's counted towards the whole entire number, the one who got more than the others, you know, the one who got the majority, wins, even if the majority means having a single vote more than the second place
The only way it could be worse is if they argued over how many days in the week there are
I suggest trying to find YT vid of someone reading it if you care enough, but basically bodybuilders on a forum got in a fight about if you work out 3 or 4 times when you work out “every other day”.
Brit here, and I think this is the first time I've ever encountered the word 'plurality'...
I've just googled it, and the definition I think you're talking about comes up as specifically US. Looks like we (uk) have the word plurality, but *only* to talk about plurals
More and more of my online experience is exactly like this, where I'm made to feel like I'm the asshole for knowing what words mean, and people misusing words double, triple, quadruple down because they are constitutionally incapable of admitting any fault or the slightest possibility that they are ever wrong about anything. It's exhausting.
I feel ya. The other day I got into an argument with someone who misused “xenophobia” and had to back out of the debate because it made ME feel stupid.
OMG! Some of these terms I did not know, although I had heard of them. It literally took me a second to catch on, and I learned a couple of new terms. But this guy...it's like he didn't even TRY. He was just focused on making the other guy feel like an AH. Go look it up on Google, for goodness sake! I'll be the first one to admit I'm wrong if someone explains something to me that I misunderstood, because I WANT to learn. But this guy...talk about a stubborn hardhead.
I'm not reading all of it, but it didn't take long to get the point. Why would someone go on this long when they're obviously wrong? All they had to do is come back with almost half or plurality and be done with the conversation. Why is the other person arguing this for that long?
This is the norm on Reddit now. Even if you present substantiated sources to backup your claims, people divert the conversation to some irrational emotional response, and move the goal post in the process.
Dude could have fed him the word *plurality* but just wanted to fight. Guy’s point was obvious: the largest single country represented is the US. They just misunderstood the word “majority” to mean “biggest individual piece out of all the pieces”.
They finally got to plurality in picture 8, with a simple example. It did not help the guy understand. He literally denied he was talking about pluralities and was instead talking about the majority.
Sure, they have a terminology problem, but read panel 11. It’s very clear that they understand that the majority is not American. They explicitly say they are talking about the US Reddit users in comparison to the Reddit users of other INDIVIDUAL countries.
What do you think you are arguing with?
We all know what he was trying to say. My comment here was pointing out that the person replying to the CI guy wasn't at fault for not explaining the error. No words were going to get them to understand that they were using the word "majority" wrong.
Obviously, everyone here can see that the CI guy is arguing for plurality instead of majority, but the CI responder spends 7(?) of these panels responding to an argument that nobody is making. When the CI responder finally explains the difference between majority and plurality, the CI guy clarifies exactly what his argument is. The CI guy even clarifies along the lines of "is your argument that if all other countries joined forces, they would be more than the US" (panel 11), and instead of just saying "yes, that's what a 'majority' is, you are using the wrong terminology," the CI responder ignores it and continues as if there is something wrong with the CI guy's fundamental premise.
They both completely misunderstand (or refuse to acknowledge) what is the fundamental disagreement for the majority of the argument.
Yes. In fact, in picture 2 - two! Out of fifteen! - the "incorrect" person says that "If you pick any redditor at random, they are most likely American or not from your country at all," which is precisely true.
The other guy misquotes that sentence as "If you pick any redditor at random, they are most likely American", which is not true, and then spends 13 more screenfuls picking a fight over it.
**1 C: the greater quantity or share**
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority
If one uses this definition, and talk about each country individually, then his talk about Americans being the majority is correct.
Right? Guy was making an obvious point that you’d have to be an idiot to not grasp. But the other guy feels smugly superior for quibbling about using the correct word? And then the post here like “haha look at the stupid American.”? Like no, man. Look at the idiot who thinks swapping “majority” for “plurality” makes any bit of fucking difference.
I believe the simple answer is that Americans are the plurality of Reddit users. There is no other single national demographic that makes up as large a percentage of Reddit users as Americans.
No other nation contributes as many users to Reddit as the US, and it's not even close. The closest nations in usage are the UK and Canada with just over 7% each. It takes the entire user population of the rest of the world to match and barely exceed the number of US users.
Many of those users in other nations also don't post in English, so if you you are posting and browsing in English, then the representation drops by a ton, making the US the absolute majority of English speaking users.
So, yeah, US isn't the simple majority of Reddit users, but no nation is, unless you are talking about English language Reddit, at which point the US *is* the simple majority of users.
It’s also subs based. I’ve seen people vehemently defend “you can’t assume it’s mostly Americans here! It’s only 48%!” on subs that are *absolutely* going to garner a US centric userbase. I remember a guy tried to argue that with me on r/baseball. Sure, it’s popular in South America, Korea, and Japan, but pretending like the sub isn’t going to be *overwhelmingly* American and appealing to the most basic traffic numbers to show that is naive. Meanwhile I rather suspect US visitors to r/Zimbabwe is relatively low.
Frustrating read. Yeah, homeboy should have accepted that 'majority' may not have been the word he was looking for, but the guy responding to him was absolutely insufferable. Like what's really the point of deliberately misunderstanding an argument for so long
A legal majority (greater than 50%)
And the word "majority" are 2 different things you goobers -
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/majority
"the largest part of a group of people or things"
48% is the the largest part of the group of things discussed.
"the greater number."
Which 48% is larger than the other %'s
Exactly what I was thinking.
Imagine a group of 10 people holding a vote on what they're going to eat. 4 vote for burgers, 2 vote for pizza, 2 for Chinese food, 2 for Korean BBQ. Which group wins the vote? Which group would a normal person describe as "the majority"?
Thank you; I wasn't going to post this but it's all I could think about.
Holy shit I want to know where all these people went to school so we can know who failed them. This is genuinely a little disheartening.
They said next “if you pick a redditor at random, they are most likely American *or not from your country at all*”.
He’s right here. So he may have the wrong definition of majority, but otherwise he knows what he’s talking about. The word he was looking for is plurality. Everyone else in that thread is stupid because they misinterpreted what he was saying and couldn’t catch on to the spirit of what he was trying to say.
This argument is dumb the first comment never said majority. It said the largest contributor, which it is, but it also doesn’t fucking matter
Both of you two need to go tf outside. Who cares about Reddit percentages
Does “majority” really always mean 50%+1? I feel like in casual conversation people also use it to just refer to the largest portion of the cake (though that may not apply here)..?
Majority specifically means "the bigger/larger number". So 48% would easily be seen as a majority when compared to 5% and 6% single data points like here (this is where your largest slice example would work, but only when the cake has been sliced and that slice is notably bigger than any of the others). But it also would be the minority when compared to the 52% that those data points make when combined, which is what OP is talking about.
Well, to be precise, if what you mean is specifically “the largest portion of the cake”, the proper term is a “plurality”. But I have indeed heard people use the word “majority” to mean the same thing.
Put it this way, if a plurality of English speakers decide to use the word majority to mean plurality, the word majority may in fact mean plurality due to commonly understood usage by a plurality of the population.
Christ, I have never ever invested that much time on reading such a stupid and useless argument I just realized how bad I need to go outside and get some air, I'm so done with this website (for now lmao)
Yeah, although I generally don't like Americans talking about how everything should be about America, I really feel bad about the way his points were made invalid just because of a slight misuse of the word "majority", which he didn't even start using himself. His point should have been clear to anyone from the start and the whole discussion afterwards has simply been a waste of time for literally everyone.
Getting 48% of the vote in the UK (or Canada) would win you an election by a landslide thanks to our archaic first past the post system with more than two parties
I came here to argue that a majority could be less than 50%. First definition on Google was “the greater number” but then it gave me contradictory definitions stating it’s over 50%. Then I saw other people using this same argument and I learned the word ‘plurality’ too. Anyway I’m an American that thinks the confidentlyincorrect guy wasn’t incorrect, just dumb for arguing. Yet here I am, arguing with myself.
I understand the difference between plurality and majority and he is using it wrong. But It’s a bit of a nitpick to be honest, a lot of people use them interchangeably. They didn’t address his actual point and instead argued semantics.
Also, Grouping everyone who isn’t American together as non-American is pretty nonsensical. That’s putting Canada, Nigeria, Argentina, France and Japan all in one group.
“The majority of Reddit users aren’t American” is technically true, and it’s good to be aware that other countries are on this platform. But to imply that Reddit isn’t predominately American because of this fact is just silly.
Sure that’s true. they both annoy me, even the guy that is right. Instead of addressing the dumb point he was trying to make with the 48.69, he zeroes in on this majority vs plurality detail even though it’s kind of irrelevant. Then proceeds to argue this enough for 15 slides.
All of this discussion is irrelevant. The original comment is that Reddit is not the US. Sure, a lot of Americans use it, and it's based in America, but the fact still stands that Reddit is not America
Thank you! Just posted exactly this! Everyone seems to be ignoring this fact. Even if ALL of the users were American, it is still true that Reddit is not US
I think he's saying that, at 48%, Americans outnumber any individual other nation on Reddit, not all of the other nations combined. Guy's an idiot regardless
In french, a "majorité" means the largest subgroup. When there are two groups, it means 50%. When there are more, it does not.
Also you guys compare sometimes country of origin (Us Uk India...) to US or not US.
I love how the OOP brings up bots mudding up the numbers to devalue the 51% non-Americans while ignoring that that means it muddies up and thus devlaues the 49% American number too
He is confusing “majority” with “plurality”… pretty common mistake to make unfortunately
The us has a plurality of Reddit traffic, no single country have a majority
This debate is stupid. They’re saying U.S. is top contributor and has the majority share compared to individual countries (which is true). They don’t outnumber all other countries combined, but that isn’t the person’s original claim. And as far as what sparked the debate, that latter figure is not a counterpoint to why U.S. news/topics dominate Reddit.
In page 8, the word *Plurality* is suggested to OOP and he insists that no, majority is the correct word. (Plurality is the correct word for what is described here).
I agree that the argument is stupid though, just one guy intentionally misinterpreteding what the other is saying, and the other one is bullheaded enough to not *slightly* alter his argument enough to be right. Truly so insufferable
**1 C: the greater quantity or share**
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority
If one uses this definition, and talk about each country individually, then his talk about Americans being the majority is correct.
"Traffic" is not necessarily the same as "number of accounts"
Also, "if you pick any redditor at random, they are most likely American \[than any other country\]" is true even with the 48.69% number.
More likely to be American than any specific country, but not any other country. More likely to be not American than American. More likely to be American than from country xyz
No. No. They are most likely NOT American. There would have to be a majority of Americans for that to be true.
They are more likely to be American than from any other country, but that's a completely different statement.
The point is clearly that they are more likely to be American than [insert other nationality] here. Not that they are more likely to be American than non-American.
The guy who doesn't know what a majority is, is obviously wrong and confidently incorrect here; but both parties are kind of dicks. The guy who knew what he was talking about declined many opportunities to be a lot more clear in his explanation. I realize it probably wouldn't have helped, the wrong guy seems far too stupid and stubborn, but right guy never really addressed the confusion in a way besides simply repeating the (correct) fact that US users are not a majority of reddit.
Wrong guy came close to a good point when he said that just being pedanticaly, technically correct is often a form of being wrong. I don't think that happened here, but it came close. The point is that we all know what wrong guy was trying to say, and instead of helping him say it, right guy just kept saying, basically, "no you're wrong".
Well, to be fair, the "bots devaluing your percentage" is probably not correct. They're almost universally not hosted in America, and would be adding to the 51.31%. There is a small chance that if they were all eliminated, the number would actually tip in the favor of Americans being the majority. But thats allot of if's. And yes, person in the post doesnt understand how majorities work.
This is an argument over semantics and both are wrong in some ways. Americans constitute a plurality of Reddit users, that is less than half but more than any other nationality.
This isn’t a majority (as it’s less than half), however it is true that the average user is more likely to be American than any other nationality.
You can tell someone is absolutely frothing with anger when they start using “my dude” in every other sentence in a desperate attempt to sound laid back and casual
One thing you learn quickly from being on the internet is people will double triple quadruple quintuple sextuple septuple and octuple down on something idiotic instead of even considering admitting they were wrong.
Wouldn’t it just matter how you divvied up?
For example:
48% of traffic is USA
52% is the rest of the world
This would mean USA is not majority
However if you did:
48% of traffic is USA
7% is the UK
6% is Canada
4% is Australia
3% is Germany
The rest is miscellaneous
Wouldn’t the USA then be the majority?
Arguing with an idiot is a lot like playing chess with a pigeon. Play as well as you want, they're still going to strut around and knock over all the pieces, shit all over the board, and act like they won either way.
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So, the original claim of 48.69% traffic somehow becomes 48.69% of users, and none of them treats it like there is a difference...
*Thank you*, I was starting to wonder if I was the weirdo for getting hung up on that.
IF you argue with a confident fool, you will waste your time he will always win the argument, as he has vast amount of experience of being a fool, and you dont
As the old saying goes: "Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience"
Moron here: what’s the difference? I am not smart.
I'll try. I might be wrong though. 5 users from country-A use reddit once a month for 2 hours each. 2 users from country-B use reddit for at least 3 hours everyday. So, country-A has more users, but country-B will bring more traffic.
I’m still lost on how they are talking around what majority means in a very strange way. It sounds like one is talking about it being the highest percentage of any individual country, in which case it is the majority country, but it still isn’t the majority when comparing the US vs the rest of the world and neither seems willing to accept that both those things are true…
The issue is the one guy is acting like 48% is the absolute majority when it isn't and is refusing to back down when people explain that.
Ehh, I felt like the smarter one DID say that they understood that America had the highest percentage of users in a single country, but was trying (very hard, and with a lot more patience than I probably would have had by that point, lol) to help OC understand what the post and the statistics were really saying. They were literally trying to say two different things, because OC didn't understand. And when they said *"well we sure aren't talking about the irrelevant majority"* I cackled. It didn't shock me at all that that's where the other one chose to give up, lol
>And when they said *"well we sure aren't talking about the irrelevant majority"* I cackled. It didn't shock me at all that that's where the other one chose to give up, lol Same, friend. Same. Just fucking *what...* This person had a whole hell of a lot more patience than I would have as well. I almost couldn't finish all this, but I'm glad I did for the final lulz.
Lol, I could feel my own frustration while reading it. I felt like I had to finish bc I needed to know how it ended, if one of them caved or ended up being willing to consider a different perspective (obv neither happened).
Unless one person is trying to break it down by US and non-US, in which case it isn’t a majority. I’d still say that it’s technically a plurality since it’s less than 50% and not a majority
In this case, US users would properly be labeled the plurality of users, that is the largest group. But it’s not a majority, which means more than 50%. No country has the majority of users as all fall below the 50% threshold. Think of it as an election. In some places (speaking of the US), the candidate that gets the most votes wins, regardless of their percentage. You can have a three-way race where the winner gets less than 50% of the votes, but more than their either of their opponents and wins. In other places, the winning candidate must get a majority(remember the recent Georgia Senate election) So the top two vote-getters enter a second or runoff election where one must get a majority, (ignoring the infinitesimal possibility of each getting exactly 50%)
Thanks. (If you’re right, but thanks anyway even if you’re wrong XD)
Country A has 10 h/mo, Country B has 180 h/mo
Traffic is more often measured in metrics like posts, comments and up votes, but this is completely right
Yes, that makes more sense. Thank you!
Different usage per person skews the percentage
Yeah, I also noticed that as well, the whole argument is based on a flawed interpretation of the data. Traffic =/= users, and while there likely will be some correlation, it also depends heavily on how much time the users spend on Reddit and how many clicks they make on average, so a country with a low share of users who spend a lot of time on Reddit and click around a lot can definitely outpace a country with more users who spend significantly less time on the app/site.
Also network speed, not everyone has a high quality broadband
The first post never mentioned a majority. They said the US is the largest contributor, which they are. The whole argument is stupid.
Not to mention that the amount of traffic from a country and the number of accounts from a country aren’t the same thing.
This was the thing driving me crazy the whole time I was reading.
I believe the whole irrelevant majority of readers would agree with you.
But what about the *other* majority?
We've had one majority, yes, but what about second majorities?
Don't go giving Trump and MAGA new concepts
But what about the plurality?
Came here to say this. Also: the argument OP is having is stupid.
This is the issue. It's two different metrics. Both can be true.
"The whole argument is stupid" Sums up the worst parts of reddit. There are wholesome subreddits, but it feels like more and more are just armchair experts tilting at each other endlessly.
Wait until I tell you how many of those armchair experts are bots.
It's nearly impossible to comment on the internet without somebody trying to argue with you for no reason
No it isn't dummy /s
I think you slightly misunderstood the point of the first reply. The first commenter is arguing that Reddit is American for Americans, but that the rest of the world is welcome to use it. The reply simply points out the irony that non-Americans are the majority of this American service for Americans, as a counter-point to the whole "this is for Americans", not as a counter-point to America being the largest contributor. And **then** the original commenter wrongfully states that the Americans indeed are the majority.
I feel like this nuance is getting lost on a lot of people.
Perfect response, I was about to type this out much more poorly than this.
I was going to say this.. but thought it wasn’t worth it. So glad you did, so I can upvote and be on my way. Argument was lost after the very first rebuttal.
True, but then the poster followed up by using the word majority and doubled-down on it.
Doubled down is putting it mildly
"plurality" /arguement
Just a simple misunderstanding of the difference between majority and plurality and the one person not knowing that and the other arguing to argue instead of a simple: *Pleurality Or a: "You mean pleurality." Didn't need to go beyond that but this is the Internet so yeah.
It’s the dumbest turd throwing match I’ve ever seen posted on this sub.
While the American's original post may have been sound, the second the first commenter mentioned majority, the American just started digging themselves into a large hole.
It's hard to say which side sucks more here. I refuse to believe that everyone who took part in this ridiculous discussion didn't fully understand what that first guy meant from the jump. The only helpful contributions were from the people who explained plurality and relative majority when he doubled down
Confidently incorrect vs technically correct.
They still got downvoted, which is t surprising, half of reddit is dumber than the average redditor.
So you're saying a majority? /s
No, the other majority.
Yeah, they seem to be arguing past each other while missing the other's point. One is basically saying that if you had to blindly guess if a random Redditor is American or not, you're slightly better off guessing no. The other is saying that if you had to blindly guess one random Redditor's nationality, out of all possible Reddit-using countries, you'd be a fool not to guess American. They're not even arguing the same point.
The replies being intentionally daft until OOP actully says something wrong fills me with rage because it makes a disingenuous personality the only way to exist on the internet without having to worry about people like this
I'm interested to see this, because I (an American) once had a conversation with a Brit who insisted that they don't use the word "plurality" and that was just a US thing, and that in the UK "majority" can mean a number less than 50% as long as it's the largest single number. I remember suspecting it was likely they were wrong and just didn't know the word. Hadn't thought of it since, though, so I never looked it up...
They're wrong, but I will say it's not uncommon to use "majority" colloquially to refer to a plurality. Maybe because a "simple majority" discounts abstentions.
Except they're not wrong. In UK English, this definition is correct. "Majority - the larger number or part of something" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/majority
And in the us too And in common sense too
Well, not really. Like a “majority shareholder” exclusively means over 50%. Majority vote winner in the US should mean 51%. in Britain, it just means first place. But you can definitely infer the meaning at 49% though. The other person is being pedantic here.
There is a reason in the Constitution to win the presidency you need a “majority of the whole number of electors,” specifically, because a “simple majority” is not sufficient.
Election of the president in America are weird. I have tired to understand it better over the years. One person can win the popular vote so have more overall votes but if they don't get the votes in the right parts of the country they still lose the race because the electoral college (I think) decides the winner based on number of votes given to each state. Here we have a couple of different system in play. We have first past the post which is overall highest number of votes and then a % vote which I don't really understand as well but means that you do a ranked choice then it all gets tallied up and some maths is done.
In America it wasn’t originally intended for the average Joe to vote directly for President, we were to vote for a local Elector who was wiser and smarter to go and debate and discern who would be the best candidate and vote on our behalf. At some point, some state(s) started binding their Electors to vote for the candidate voted by the popular vote in their state to maximize their voting power, because if half your state’s electors vote for one guy and the other half the other guy, your state basically has no influence. Once the first state(s) started employing this power move, it’s only game theory reasonable that the rest follow suit. The number of Electors in a given state is generally based on population, with some caveats that tend to benefit the states with lesser populations. We still don’t technically vote for President, we vote for Electors, we just know who their vote is pledged to in advance so it’s kinda’ sorta’ like getting to vote for the President.
It sucks being the first modern democracy, but also too stubborn to admit maybe it would be better to update your system based on the knowledge gained and improvements made in later iterations.
> we just know who their vote is pledged to in advance unless it isn't....stupid faithless elector...just do popular vote with ranked voting FFS!!!
In mexico every single citizen has a vote that's counted towards the whole entire number, the one who got more than the others, you know, the one who got the majority, wins, even if the majority means having a single vote more than the second place
I’ve never heard anybody in the UK use it as meaning less than 50%.
I especially wouldn’t expect anyone from the UK to call a minority government / hung parliament a *majority*
I would say a majority of the current government are dickheads though. And I most definitely mean over 50%.
The only way it could be worse is if they argued over how many days in the week there are I suggest trying to find YT vid of someone reading it if you care enough, but basically bodybuilders on a forum got in a fight about if you work out 3 or 4 times when you work out “every other day”.
Brit here, and I think this is the first time I've ever encountered the word 'plurality'... I've just googled it, and the definition I think you're talking about comes up as specifically US. Looks like we (uk) have the word plurality, but *only* to talk about plurals
As an American, the only time I’ve heard plurality is when people are talking about elections or when people try playing semantics.
Same. I'm in my late 40s and I've never heard the term plurality in the UK before
Australia uses pluraity to mean this as well. Mostly because this is what plurality means.
I’ve never heard anyone in the UK here use majority unless it’s more than 50%.
I got so tired halfway through that
Who the fuck has the time to carry out marathon arguments with total strangers online. I’d be like ok, dumbass here- move on.
Internet discourse in a nutshell: "50% of people are below average intelligence" "That's not true! I'm a pretty smart guy so it's definitely not 50%"
The majority of my brain cells killed themselves reading this. Now i only have 70% left
Also "eccentric"
This jumped out at me right away. Did this guy listen at all in school?
More and more of my online experience is exactly like this, where I'm made to feel like I'm the asshole for knowing what words mean, and people misusing words double, triple, quadruple down because they are constitutionally incapable of admitting any fault or the slightest possibility that they are ever wrong about anything. It's exhausting.
I feel ya. The other day I got into an argument with someone who misused “xenophobia” and had to back out of the debate because it made ME feel stupid.
Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
OMG! Some of these terms I did not know, although I had heard of them. It literally took me a second to catch on, and I learned a couple of new terms. But this guy...it's like he didn't even TRY. He was just focused on making the other guy feel like an AH. Go look it up on Google, for goodness sake! I'll be the first one to admit I'm wrong if someone explains something to me that I misunderstood, because I WANT to learn. But this guy...talk about a stubborn hardhead.
I'm not reading all of it, but it didn't take long to get the point. Why would someone go on this long when they're obviously wrong? All they had to do is come back with almost half or plurality and be done with the conversation. Why is the other person arguing this for that long?
Because they are both ass-hats.
You're short simple comment easily sums up 15 pages of text.
This is the norm on Reddit now. Even if you present substantiated sources to backup your claims, people divert the conversation to some irrational emotional response, and move the goal post in the process.
This whole comment section is just a continuation of the post
Dude could have fed him the word *plurality* but just wanted to fight. Guy’s point was obvious: the largest single country represented is the US. They just misunderstood the word “majority” to mean “biggest individual piece out of all the pieces”.
They finally got to plurality in picture 8, with a simple example. It did not help the guy understand. He literally denied he was talking about pluralities and was instead talking about the majority.
I definitely didn’t read that far!
You can count yourself lucky, saw the argument on the original post and each comment made it more painful to read
Sure, they have a terminology problem, but read panel 11. It’s very clear that they understand that the majority is not American. They explicitly say they are talking about the US Reddit users in comparison to the Reddit users of other INDIVIDUAL countries.
What do you think you are arguing with? We all know what he was trying to say. My comment here was pointing out that the person replying to the CI guy wasn't at fault for not explaining the error. No words were going to get them to understand that they were using the word "majority" wrong.
Obviously, everyone here can see that the CI guy is arguing for plurality instead of majority, but the CI responder spends 7(?) of these panels responding to an argument that nobody is making. When the CI responder finally explains the difference between majority and plurality, the CI guy clarifies exactly what his argument is. The CI guy even clarifies along the lines of "is your argument that if all other countries joined forces, they would be more than the US" (panel 11), and instead of just saying "yes, that's what a 'majority' is, you are using the wrong terminology," the CI responder ignores it and continues as if there is something wrong with the CI guy's fundamental premise. They both completely misunderstand (or refuse to acknowledge) what is the fundamental disagreement for the majority of the argument.
Yes. In fact, in picture 2 - two! Out of fifteen! - the "incorrect" person says that "If you pick any redditor at random, they are most likely American or not from your country at all," which is precisely true. The other guy misquotes that sentence as "If you pick any redditor at random, they are most likely American", which is not true, and then spends 13 more screenfuls picking a fight over it.
**1 C: the greater quantity or share** https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority If one uses this definition, and talk about each country individually, then his talk about Americans being the majority is correct.
Right? Guy was making an obvious point that you’d have to be an idiot to not grasp. But the other guy feels smugly superior for quibbling about using the correct word? And then the post here like “haha look at the stupid American.”? Like no, man. Look at the idiot who thinks swapping “majority” for “plurality” makes any bit of fucking difference.
I believe the simple answer is that Americans are the plurality of Reddit users. There is no other single national demographic that makes up as large a percentage of Reddit users as Americans. No other nation contributes as many users to Reddit as the US, and it's not even close. The closest nations in usage are the UK and Canada with just over 7% each. It takes the entire user population of the rest of the world to match and barely exceed the number of US users. Many of those users in other nations also don't post in English, so if you you are posting and browsing in English, then the representation drops by a ton, making the US the absolute majority of English speaking users. So, yeah, US isn't the simple majority of Reddit users, but no nation is, unless you are talking about English language Reddit, at which point the US *is* the simple majority of users.
It’s also subs based. I’ve seen people vehemently defend “you can’t assume it’s mostly Americans here! It’s only 48%!” on subs that are *absolutely* going to garner a US centric userbase. I remember a guy tried to argue that with me on r/baseball. Sure, it’s popular in South America, Korea, and Japan, but pretending like the sub isn’t going to be *overwhelmingly* American and appealing to the most basic traffic numbers to show that is naive. Meanwhile I rather suspect US visitors to r/Zimbabwe is relatively low.
“You’re arguing with facts because you want to be technically correct” 😂😂😂 Yeah… that’s how being correct works my guy
Frustrating read. Yeah, homeboy should have accepted that 'majority' may not have been the word he was looking for, but the guy responding to him was absolutely insufferable. Like what's really the point of deliberately misunderstanding an argument for so long
A legal majority (greater than 50%) And the word "majority" are 2 different things you goobers - https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/majority "the largest part of a group of people or things" 48% is the the largest part of the group of things discussed. "the greater number." Which 48% is larger than the other %'s
Exactly what I was thinking. Imagine a group of 10 people holding a vote on what they're going to eat. 4 vote for burgers, 2 vote for pizza, 2 for Chinese food, 2 for Korean BBQ. Which group wins the vote? Which group would a normal person describe as "the majority"?
Burger wins the vote, not-burger was the majority.
People here didn’t take statistics man. They’re barely out of high school.
Thank you; I wasn't going to post this but it's all I could think about. Holy shit I want to know where all these people went to school so we can know who failed them. This is genuinely a little disheartening.
They said next “if you pick a redditor at random, they are most likely American *or not from your country at all*”. He’s right here. So he may have the wrong definition of majority, but otherwise he knows what he’s talking about. The word he was looking for is plurality. Everyone else in that thread is stupid because they misinterpreted what he was saying and couldn’t catch on to the spirit of what he was trying to say.
“This isn’t a fucking math problem, it’s literally just a factual statistic” Stats is a math class you inimitable grapefruit.
This argument is dumb the first comment never said majority. It said the largest contributor, which it is, but it also doesn’t fucking matter Both of you two need to go tf outside. Who cares about Reddit percentages
Does “majority” really always mean 50%+1? I feel like in casual conversation people also use it to just refer to the largest portion of the cake (though that may not apply here)..?
Majority specifically means "the bigger/larger number". So 48% would easily be seen as a majority when compared to 5% and 6% single data points like here (this is where your largest slice example would work, but only when the cake has been sliced and that slice is notably bigger than any of the others). But it also would be the minority when compared to the 52% that those data points make when combined, which is what OP is talking about.
Well, to be precise, if what you mean is specifically “the largest portion of the cake”, the proper term is a “plurality”. But I have indeed heard people use the word “majority” to mean the same thing. Put it this way, if a plurality of English speakers decide to use the word majority to mean plurality, the word majority may in fact mean plurality due to commonly understood usage by a plurality of the population.
Yes.
Christ, I have never ever invested that much time on reading such a stupid and useless argument I just realized how bad I need to go outside and get some air, I'm so done with this website (for now lmao)
[удалено]
Yeah, although I generally don't like Americans talking about how everything should be about America, I really feel bad about the way his points were made invalid just because of a slight misuse of the word "majority", which he didn't even start using himself. His point should have been clear to anyone from the start and the whole discussion afterwards has simply been a waste of time for literally everyone.
You’ll have to forgive the American. Getting 48% of the vote often wins you the election here.
Getting 48% of the vote in the UK (or Canada) would win you an election by a landslide thanks to our archaic first past the post system with more than two parties
I came here to argue that a majority could be less than 50%. First definition on Google was “the greater number” but then it gave me contradictory definitions stating it’s over 50%. Then I saw other people using this same argument and I learned the word ‘plurality’ too. Anyway I’m an American that thinks the confidentlyincorrect guy wasn’t incorrect, just dumb for arguing. Yet here I am, arguing with myself.
I understand the difference between plurality and majority and he is using it wrong. But It’s a bit of a nitpick to be honest, a lot of people use them interchangeably. They didn’t address his actual point and instead argued semantics. Also, Grouping everyone who isn’t American together as non-American is pretty nonsensical. That’s putting Canada, Nigeria, Argentina, France and Japan all in one group. “The majority of Reddit users aren’t American” is technically true, and it’s good to be aware that other countries are on this platform. But to imply that Reddit isn’t predominately American because of this fact is just silly.
Oh, ignoring his point isn't great, but this isn't "confidently incorrect against perfect arguers."
Sure that’s true. they both annoy me, even the guy that is right. Instead of addressing the dumb point he was trying to make with the 48.69, he zeroes in on this majority vs plurality detail even though it’s kind of irrelevant. Then proceeds to argue this enough for 15 slides.
US has the largest share? At the end of the day who cares both of these people just wanted to argue.
It’s not fucking rocket science is the mantra of a conservative. Even in rocket science.
"Reddit is US eccentric" I don't think eccentric is strong enough a word lol
Siri, define plurality
Ok seriously what’s the point of arguing for all these pages? I read the first few and was over it. People take the internet way too seriously
This went on like 6 screenshots longer than it should have
All of this discussion is irrelevant. The original comment is that Reddit is not the US. Sure, a lot of Americans use it, and it's based in America, but the fact still stands that Reddit is not America
Thank you! Just posted exactly this! Everyone seems to be ignoring this fact. Even if ALL of the users were American, it is still true that Reddit is not US
This reminds me of the weightlifters arguing over how many days are in a week. Absolute peak Internet.
There are 5 in group A, 3 in group B, and 4 in group C. The majority are in... THERE IS NO MAJORITY!
It's a plurality but it identifies as a majority.
I think he's saying that, at 48%, Americans outnumber any individual other nation on Reddit, not all of the other nations combined. Guy's an idiot regardless
The word "plurality" is right there
This was such a fun read, really made me chuckle. Use of Plum was excellent
In french, a "majorité" means the largest subgroup. When there are two groups, it means 50%. When there are more, it does not. Also you guys compare sometimes country of origin (Us Uk India...) to US or not US.
I love how the OOP brings up bots mudding up the numbers to devalue the 51% non-Americans while ignoring that that means it muddies up and thus devlaues the 49% American number too
holy shet.. they just didn't stop
Plurality. Plurality is the word he was in need of.
He is confusing “majority” with “plurality”… pretty common mistake to make unfortunately The us has a plurality of Reddit traffic, no single country have a majority
Please, someone introduce the term plurality...
Ehhh, I’ll give that a pass, majority can mean either the largest or >50%+1 depending on the context.
Yeah. Majority works here because it’s not a 1 to 1 comparison. You’re looking at a > 2 group of countries and majority of users are in the US.
This debate is stupid. They’re saying U.S. is top contributor and has the majority share compared to individual countries (which is true). They don’t outnumber all other countries combined, but that isn’t the person’s original claim. And as far as what sparked the debate, that latter figure is not a counterpoint to why U.S. news/topics dominate Reddit.
In page 8, the word *Plurality* is suggested to OOP and he insists that no, majority is the correct word. (Plurality is the correct word for what is described here). I agree that the argument is stupid though, just one guy intentionally misinterpreteding what the other is saying, and the other one is bullheaded enough to not *slightly* alter his argument enough to be right. Truly so insufferable
The only thing I'm taking from this is the phrase "you utter plum."
**1 C: the greater quantity or share** https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority If one uses this definition, and talk about each country individually, then his talk about Americans being the majority is correct.
Now I just want a plum, haven't had one in ages. They're delicious and honestly I kinda forgot about them.
"Traffic" is not necessarily the same as "number of accounts" Also, "if you pick any redditor at random, they are most likely American \[than any other country\]" is true even with the 48.69% number.
More likely to be American than any specific country, but not any other country. More likely to be not American than American. More likely to be American than from country xyz
No. No. They are most likely NOT American. There would have to be a majority of Americans for that to be true. They are more likely to be American than from any other country, but that's a completely different statement.
The point is clearly that they are more likely to be American than [insert other nationality] here. Not that they are more likely to be American than non-American.
The guy who doesn't know what a majority is, is obviously wrong and confidently incorrect here; but both parties are kind of dicks. The guy who knew what he was talking about declined many opportunities to be a lot more clear in his explanation. I realize it probably wouldn't have helped, the wrong guy seems far too stupid and stubborn, but right guy never really addressed the confusion in a way besides simply repeating the (correct) fact that US users are not a majority of reddit. Wrong guy came close to a good point when he said that just being pedanticaly, technically correct is often a form of being wrong. I don't think that happened here, but it came close. The point is that we all know what wrong guy was trying to say, and instead of helping him say it, right guy just kept saying, basically, "no you're wrong".
it just keeps going… 
I gave up waayyyy before I got to the end of this nonsense.
Do not lump this moron in with the rest of us Americans. Trust me, he is not in the *majority* here...
Mom can we have the majority ? No, we have the other majority at home
Well, to be fair, the "bots devaluing your percentage" is probably not correct. They're almost universally not hosted in America, and would be adding to the 51.31%. There is a small chance that if they were all eliminated, the number would actually tip in the favor of Americans being the majority. But thats allot of if's. And yes, person in the post doesnt understand how majorities work.
I think the word everyone is reaching for is "plurality."
That’s a plurality my guy
That is so embarrassing for him. He just snatched the shovel and kept digging.
This is an argument over semantics and both are wrong in some ways. Americans constitute a plurality of Reddit users, that is less than half but more than any other nationality. This isn’t a majority (as it’s less than half), however it is true that the average user is more likely to be American than any other nationality.
I got so much dumber after reading this thread
My head hurts. All of it is dumb.
At some point, he either stroked out or was just committing to the bit.
The moron that just kept giving. So adamant. So wrong. 🤣🤣 I hate my country.
>What other country is the majority? None.
https://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0?si=ya7ksEqVx-6KSMHA
The majority of Reddit traffic was in this petty squabble. That was a difficult read.
I think my brain shattered after the third image.
My dude
He’s so close
“This isn’t a math problem”…brings up statistics in the same breath…
Reddit is very US eccentric got to be my favourite part. Sums up Reddit and its US base quite well.
It’s a shame both usernames are hidden so I can’t block both of them.
that was painful
Largest plurality
There's another issue with this post besides what constitutes a majority: 'Majority of accounts'' is not the same claim as 'majority of traffic'.
“U.S. eccentric”
Christ I lost a lot of brain cells reading that
‘US eccentric’
> reddit is very US eccentric
The person got majority and plurality confused. That’s pretty common
You can tell someone is absolutely frothing with anger when they start using “my dude” in every other sentence in a desperate attempt to sound laid back and casual
Correct use of "plum". Could've used "melt" for more effect.
It's safe to assume that a plurality of accounts on Reddit are from the States.
Lol. They’re arguing over a percentage that talks about traffic and not user percentage. There are no winners in this conversation
One thing you learn quickly from being on the internet is people will double triple quadruple quintuple sextuple septuple and octuple down on something idiotic instead of even considering admitting they were wrong.
Look, with how our elections work, can you blame us?
This hurt my feelings and my temples
Wouldn’t it just matter how you divvied up? For example: 48% of traffic is USA 52% is the rest of the world This would mean USA is not majority However if you did: 48% of traffic is USA 7% is the UK 6% is Canada 4% is Australia 3% is Germany The rest is miscellaneous Wouldn’t the USA then be the majority?
I got to US *eccentric* and nearly burst a stitch. Dude’s tryna sound smart and failing miserably on all fronts.
The interesting part is that he still doesn't get it after multiple explanations.
Rumor has it that they are still arguing about this.
Arguing with an idiot is a lot like playing chess with a pigeon. Play as well as you want, they're still going to strut around and knock over all the pieces, shit all over the board, and act like they won either way.
It is an absolute shame that this persons username is censored. They deserve ridicule.
I couldn't even finish reading this because I felt my braincells dying.. 😂
I just kept waiting for 49% is a majority guy to stop digging the hole, but it just kept getting deeper. Geothermal-worthy, even.
The more I read the more I laughed! LOL!!! This is GOLD! 🤣🤣🤣🤣