I wonder if that’s extrapolated from the number of cars on the road per adult, or if only literal “households” were counted-- you know, places where someone is eligible to file as “head of household.” If people who live alone, and families in apartments aren’t counted, that sounds right.
In Indiana, a heck of a lot of families have three vehicles. If they have more than two children, they have to have a minivan, but if someone commutes to work, they have a small car as well, and if they have a teen driver, they may have another car, or may be hanging on to one in anticipation of having one. If they have three or more young children, they may have two minivans, and still have the commuter car.
And then, it’s an average. There are very, very few one-car couples, and because it’s fairly cheap to maintain a car in a state without inspections or emissions controls. Even low income couples have two cars. Two crappy cars, but two cars.
He’s responding to the common thing where someone will post something like “Well, most people will have cell phones to handle that…” and one or two people will invariably post “I never owned a cell phone and never will so don’t say most people…” as though the fact that they belong to a small minority of non-phone owners proves the first person’s ideas are unworkable. Rather than just accepting that the idea works for 95% of people and if you’re not one of them then that’s just because you’re an edge case.
His point being that your own personal data point isn’t representative of the set.
Well, I didn’t want to mention it, you defective person, but your inability to grasp the finer points of centipede trombone playing clearly marks you as an outlier. FIE!
Then, you believe that most people who are participating in forums like this are NOT usually in association with mainstream people, and primarily DO HAVE contact with the socioeconomic outliers, such as the under- or unemployed, the homeless, the marginal downtrodden bottom-feeders, the people who are dispossessed of the trappings of “maintream” lifestyle, ill-served by the prosperous paradigm? The exact opposite of what I said?
It’s pretty easy. Just look at the 5th word in the OP - “discussion”. The first three letters are clearly a shortened form of “diss”, which means to “speak disrespectfully or criticize”; the next 4 are “cuss” - a noun meaning “annoying or stubborn person”. Both are clearly insults and degrading remarks. I won’t endeavor to parse the rest of the OP for you, my task was merely to set your focus so that you could see the rest on your own.
[sub]OK, I really have no clue what he was on about…[/sub]
95% of Americans own a cell phone of some kind. Yep.
77% of Americans own a smartphone. Yep.
87% of the driving age population in the US have a drivers license. Yep.
95% of American households own a car. Yep.
The average American household owns 2.3 cars. We have two, so… yep?
81% of Americans have some form of social media profile. Yep.
60% of eligible voters voted in the 2016 election. Not eligible, but would have.
Average age for first marriage for women in US is 27 and 29 for men. RNATWife and I were both 27 when we married. Close enough.
What on earth are you talking about? The OP is very neutrally phrased. If it’s “insulting” to anyone, it’s to people who don’t think they are outliers.
It’s strange to me to think of being proud of something like this. I don’t own a phone but I’m rather embarrassed about it. It’s even worse for my kid though. They treat you like some kind of strange and pathetic creature at her school if you don’t have a phone.
Right. I’d go so far as to say that not being an outlier at anything is being an outlier.
Yeah there may be covariance of outlier characteristics but still.
If the point is to rant on those who hold their personal anecdotal experience as disproof of actual data, who read “most” as “all” and think that then sharing that they are not disproves the contention, well sure. People who do that can be gently mocked. I’d guess those who do that are outliers though …
Nothing wrong with being an outlier - it’s expecting others to care what a special snowflake you are for NOT doing something pretty much everyone else does that bugs me.
Speaking on behalf of my fellow snowflakes — society is a better place for everyone when you ARE aware of how things are for non-mainstream people. Don’t design your electronic “sign here” credit card contraption with the “pen” anchored at the far right corner, it makes it damn near impossible to hold the pen and sign with one’s left hand. Don’t issue your event tickets only as QR Codes for smartphones, make them available as PDFs for folks who don’t have smartphones, and mail them as paper tickets or allow them to be picked up at the venue for folks who don’t have computers and printers at home. Or at least be aware, and choose accordingly. Maybe you can’t afford the extra overhead for accommodating non-smartphone users in the latter case, but you can anchor the screen-pen in the middle or attach a longer plastic cord with very little additional effort to accommodate your left-handed customers.
What I believe is that there isn’t an “appearance” in the mainstream that nearly everyone is in the mainstream. Nearly everyone is in the mainstream, that’s part of the definition. It is not a “closed societal loop” it is open to nearly everyone as evidenced by nearly everyone being in it.
A lot of people want to be outliers, they seek it out and advertise it as much as possible. They do it because it gives them identity. There’s a kid, right outside my door, walking the halls with no shoes on in the middle of winter. He walks everywhere with no shoes on. The SDMB has a lot of folks like that. Heck I’m probably guilty of it on some level. The reality is that that kid will probably grow up to be a man with the same worries and fears, the same things will bring him happiness. He’ll be special when he believes he’s special, when he surrounds himself with people that think he’s special. Walking around without shoes on isn’t going to do that.
