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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Law of large numbers

Law of large numbers

by DougJ|  September 16, 20096:12 pm| 28 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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“Dow 36000”, 2 million tea baggers, “The 5000 Year Leap”…what is it with wingers and big numbers?

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Previous Post: « Wired for Republican control
Next Post: Let’s Party Like It’s 1997 »

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    asiangrrlMN

    September 16, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    Overcompensation.

  2. 2.

    Noonan

    September 16, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    Sounds like they’re overcompensating for something. Hmm.

  3. 3.

    Joshua Norton

    September 16, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    If you’re going to lie, lie big.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    September 16, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    It’s to balance out certain other, smaller, numbers.

    -dms

  5. 5.

    scarshapedstar

    September 16, 2009 at 6:17 pm

    Large numbers boggle their minds. That’s why whenever a bill costs a billion dollars, some Republican senator helpfully explains that if you piled up a billion Ford Excursions they’d make a pile bigger than mount Everest, or whatever.

  6. 6.

    John Cole

    September 16, 2009 at 6:20 pm

    My favorite is still the Jesus math.

  7. 7.

    Das Internetkommissariat

    September 16, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    53 inches

  8. 8.

    Zifnab

    September 16, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    @John Cole: Lulz. That was good times.

  9. 9.

    Zam

    September 16, 2009 at 6:37 pm

    @John Cole: So walmart is god?

  10. 10.

    arguingwithsignposts

    September 16, 2009 at 6:39 pm

    @John Cole:

    I had not seen that before. Where could I get in on some of that Jesus money action. I’d really appreciate it more than the trickle-down Reagan/Bush/Bush money I’m making now.

  11. 11.

    Uncle Glenny

    September 16, 2009 at 6:42 pm

    The age of the earth comes to mind. Also.

  12. 12.

    Dreggas

    September 16, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    @Uncle Glenny:

    nah when it comes to the age of the earth they use small numbers.

  13. 13.

    Throwin Stones

    September 16, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    Only one (or no) perspective?

  14. 14.

    Mike G

    September 16, 2009 at 7:20 pm

    Jesus Math:
    To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, “if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.”

    To give the Pentagon budget some perspective, if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you’d cover the Pentagon’s spending for about 12 months.

    But in Jesus-Rightard World, the Pentagon isn’t ‘big government’ because their dollars are shit by patriotic eagles soaring high over Ronald Reagan Valhalla.

  15. 15.

    CalD

    September 16, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    All the numbers are in dog years.

  16. 16.

    Wile E. Quixote

    September 16, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    @DougJ

    …what is it with wingers and big numbers?

    Thousand Year Reich?

    Then there’s Larry Craig’s favorite, “eight inches of throbbing pink Jesus”. OK, maybe eight inches isn’t a *big* number, but it was big enough for Larry.

  17. 17.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    September 16, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    Well, you know, when numbers get really really large, people have a hard time conceiving them properly. So, authoritarian leaders throw out really big numbers like the one you cited because they know that they’ll be outside the scope of their follower’s easy conception and therefore will both confuse them and sound really impressive.

    …’cause you know, 5 000, 36 000, and 2 000 000 are numbers that are completely outside the brain scale for teabaggers.

  18. 18.

    Uncle Glenny

    September 16, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    @Dreggas: That’s what I meant; they can’t deal with the big numbers.

  19. 19.

    eyelessgame

    September 16, 2009 at 8:10 pm

    Don’t forget SIX THOUSAND YEAR OLD EARTH, bitches!

    It’s all about the edjumacation. Cons can’t count.

  20. 20.

    gwangung

    September 16, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    @Uncle Glenny:

    Yup. One. Few. Many.

    That’s it.

  21. 21.

    Paulie Chestnuts

    September 16, 2009 at 9:00 pm

    The stupid-ass Electoral College makes them think that their take on things is bigger than real life.

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    September 16, 2009 at 9:43 pm

    @Paulie Chestnuts:

    The stupid-ass Electoral College makes them think that their take on things is bigger than real life.

    For the win! That’s why Larry Craig thinks his ‘wide stance’ is so impressive — he’s using the Idaho EC standard!

  23. 23.

    Nutella

    September 16, 2009 at 9:50 pm

    One of my college roommates, a straight A student, had trouble with the idea of quantity. She insisted, for example, that if one vitamin was good for you then three vitamins must be three times as good. When she graduated she went to work for AEI.

  24. 24.

    Debbie(aussie)

    September 16, 2009 at 11:50 pm

    My poor keyboard just got covered in iced coffee. Thanks for a great laugh.

  25. 25.

    Gunner

    September 17, 2009 at 9:17 am

    Someone needs to tell the Republicans that they’re using the cm side of the ruler. They need to flip it around for inches.

  26. 26.

    Analytical Liberal

    September 17, 2009 at 10:15 am

    All Rethugs suffer from the “I’ve Got a Bigger Dick Than You” Syndrome. They have to show how manly they are by grabbing their crotches, puffing out their chests, and bragging about their reality-defying greatness. Or, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, maybe they’re just being dicks.

  27. 27.

    Numberwang

    September 17, 2009 at 10:19 am

    It’s not just big numbers. Numbers seem above reproach, something you can no more argue with than you could count 5 apples as 4. Some genius in the GOP realized that attaching a number to any argument helps fix it in someone’s mind, and gives them a “fact” to throw at people with whom the disagree. When that number is thrown out there, it sticks in the other person’s mind and, hopefully, becomes one more person spreading your argument.

    Remember the army of Republicans marching through TV studios in 2004 who kept repeating that John Kerry had voted against “the troops” X times? Or that he had voted to increase taxes Y times? In both cases, they were artifacts of Senate procedure, caused by one or two particular issues that required a ridiculous number of votes, but they stuck.

    Expect to start hearing about how Obama “voted to fund ACORN 152 times” any day now.

  28. 28.

    slippy

    September 17, 2009 at 10:48 am

    @Nutella: That’s hilarious. I remember being lectured sternly as a young teenager, during the Just Say No era, that people took drugs because if you took some drugs, like aspirin, they made you feel better, so the logic was if you too lots of drugs when you weren’t sick you’d feel great. I was then told that this logic was baaaaaad.

    Another case of conservatives having things both ways or whatever way is convenient for them depending on which way the wind is blowing or just whatever the hell they want because conservatives are all a bunch of stupid god-damned liars anyway.

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