Controlling the World Is Easy
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhun...s-easy-n2591676
Derek Hunter
Posted: Jun 29, 2021 12:01 AM



As the old saying goes, “There are three kinds of lies: lie, damned lies, and statistics.” It is of the statistics I wish to address today.

I’ve always said, and will continue to say, that if you can control the unit of measure, you can control everything. It’s a pretty simple concept – if you get to determine what constitutes funny, you can make yourself the funniest. Same goes for fastest, smartest, best looking, whatever you can think of – if you get to decide what makes something what it is, you have absolute power.

While most people wouldn’t reconstitute a measurement of time to make a slow person the fastest (though they could), the concept of manipulating reality through framing with numbers is as old as time. During the pandemic, this was used for wildly nefarious purposes.

[...]

If, however, things are getting better but you’re concerned you’ll lose a large percentage of your audience without the fear of death around every corner, and you have other numbers to present, how you present them can make all the difference in the world.

Going from 10,000 deaths per day to 20,000 deaths per day is a 100 percent increase in the number of deaths. So is going from 1 death per day to 2 deaths per day. If you want to scare the hell out of people in the hope that they continue watching your news program, you headline the story with, “There has been a stunning, 100 percent increase in the number of COVID deaths in just 24 hours.” You’re not lying, it’s an accurate statement. It’s just presented in an absolutely fraudulent way to manipulate the audience.-- excerpt, rest at link above --