That’s the single stupidest statement I’ve ever heard on this board.
It’s sort of a corollary of Poe’s Law. There is no parody of internet cranks so blatantly over the top that it’s not overtaken by actual internet cranks.
I’m halfway through reading the linked thread and I’m still not sure which case this is an example of.
Stupidity isn’t a race, deart heart.
I don’t think he’s a troll, I think he’s a child. And if you’re an ill educated child, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that you think “racism” means, specifically and exclusively, prejudice against black people. (There’s also a school of thought that defines racism in practical terms: if you have no power, your racism is ineffective, so it’s irrelevant. Therefore only whites can truly be racist.) In other words, depressing as it seems, I think the kid is sincere. Let’s hope he gets some education somewhere along the way. For one thing, I think his coming here to ask about something that’s bothering shows that there’s some hope, so I hope we don’t chase him away with presumptions and attacks.
No you haven’t.
Your sock Dynastic doesn’t count. J’accuse.
Yeah. Sounds like a 4 Chan kid who dislikes Obama.
Well done.
Actually the mean is the average in statistical terms and is one measure of “central tendancies”. The median and mode are other measures of central tendancies, the median being the line where 50% of the population is on one side, 50% on the other and the mode is the most frequently occurring value, but they are not the average value.
He didn’t strike me as a troll, just a young kid, in his teens I’d wager. But troll or kid, his posts made it clear that he wasn’t worth arguing with.
Go read the comments on a Facebook poll and then tell me you don’t think anybody really believes her shit. The breadth and depth of human stupdity is beyond your ken, Dio.
No, but it does breed.
Respect my diversitah !!
Is it different someplace else? It’s hard to get people to ignore something on a message board - it’s not like they lose anything by responding.
Let’s not pat ourselves on the back too hard. I’ve seen plenty of terrible ideas and posts on this board; just because they had better spelling and grammar than Dynastic’s effort did not make them better in any other way.
By the way, I note that Dynastic hasn’t come back since his last post. Full day of classes today? 
Mean is (by far) the most common form of “average”, but mode and median have valid claims on the term as well.
Heck, even within “mean” there are variations. Arithmetic (add up all the terms, divide by the number of terms) is again the most common, but Geometric and Harmonic means are useful, too.
If there is a single statistic being presented to you, and it is called the “average” the chances are extraordinarily high that it will be the Arithmetic Mean. You’re right that the other statistics exist and are used, but they’re not nearly as likely to be called the “average”.
Meh. I’ve come to define a troll as anyone who primarily posts to stir things up. I don’t care if they believe what they say or no. It’s a nice way to get around Poe’s Law. And it’s a lot easier to figure out a person’s intent than to determine if they are faking unintelligence.
(And if you wonder why I don’t consider Curtis a troll is because he has AS. [He admitted it unprovoked in a non-trollish thread]. Aspies are the one class of people that don’t understand the concept of stirring things up.)
Dynastic did reenforce a long-held belief of mine. If you have to use more than one exclamation point to make a point, you may not have a point.
I agree!!!
This!!!
(Only kidding 
)