Stats that are surprising

[Ontobetterthings]

I came across a stat online earlier that said 80% of the world's population hasn't been on a plane. Aibu to find this so surprising?

What other stats have you come across which suprised you?

People were willing to feed other people’s babies then. But like you said, it literally was about survival. I think people from the past would be horrified by a lot of things that happen nowadays!

That must have been very hard. Did your milk supply ever come back or was that it?

I don't find it especially surprising that over 50% of households take more out of the system than they put in. The government doesn't spend our taxes on filling Scrooge McDuck-style swimming pools with gold coins, so everything that goes into "the system" comes out. Most spending - pensions and other benefits, education, healthcare etc - can be seen as benefitting some individual, and so is "taken out" by their household. On the other hand, a great deal of tax comes from sources other than households - corporation tax etc - and will probably be missed in a simplistic analysis that tries to assess how much "households" "put in".

Babies spend about 13 months of their first two years sleeping (one of mine missed that memo).

There is an average of 1,000 new cases of long covid in children per week (England, not globally obviously). Risks are cumulative, increasing with each infection.

McDonalds is the worlds biggest toy distributor - 1.5bn toys annually.

If all the gold ever mined by humans was melted down, it would form a 22 metre cube.

There are 20 quadrillion ants on earth.

Nope it never came back, it was like a switch flipped. Very upsetting at the time

You're right in a way that more children die from pools but I wouldn't say this makes them objectively more dangerous. Lots of children enjoy swimming without drowning, whereas not many children shoot themselves and don't die/become seriously injured.

This doesn't surprise me at all. I grew up in a poor country and flights were far too expensive for most people living there.

Unlike some other things flights don't vary so much in price from country to country so the cost is relatively high compared to income.

From the link:

In financial year ending (FYE) 2024:
[...]

• The richest fifth of people's mean equivalised household income before taxes and benefits (£116,600) was 12.2 times larger than the poorest fifth (£9,600); however, this gap reduced to 3.3 times larger (£85,100 and £25,700, respectively) after all taxes and benefits.
• Original income inequality (before taxes and benefits) was 47.6% as measured by the Gini coefficient, and reduced by 20.8 percentage points to 26.8% for final income inequality (after taxes and benefits), highlighting the redistributive effect of taxes and benefits.

[...]

• The proportion of people living in households receiving more in benefits (cash benefits and benefits in kind), than they paid in taxes (direct and indirect) is 53.3%; this has remained relatively stable over the last three years.

So it sounds like the system is working exactly as it should in redistributing income, which is good news.
Of course, the 53.3% figure is not exactly 50%, because the income is so extraordinarily skewed at the very top end.

I'm a bit confused. Do the children die in the pool? The quote doesn't say that, it says for every 11,000 pools one child under 10 died, it doesn't specify how they die. I guess it's what it means but I wish things were more accurate.

A chance to share one of my fave websites. It’s so good to challenge your assumptions about how many things do something

www.gapminder.org

I wish flights were still a rare treat. The planet would be healthier that way. It shouldn’t be like getting on a bus.

i don’t know the exact stats but I think 75% of flights are made by 25% of the UK population…or summat like that.

Persevere? My question is why is 'persevere' a word we associate with breastfeeding? And then wonder why people aren't doing it?

Different people have different priorities. I don't own a car or a dog so that is great for the environment but then I fly a lot which is terrible for the environment.

I was using the word preserve for the past because if mothers hadn’t preserved, even when they were struggling, their baby probably wouldn’t have survived.

Nowadays, you’re right, the word preserve doesn’t help women to want to breastfeed.

Someone must have tripped a switch on their time machine and found themselves back in the 1640's.

Because it hurts like a bastard (to start with) and you don't get much sleep. And cluster feeding. Jesus christ. You have to resign yourself to being tired, in pain and constantly a bit damp, and not everyone wants to do that. Once you get past that bit, it's a piece of piss.

Riots are not civil wars ffs.

I haven't been on a plane, I am in my fifties and from the UK, it's not so surprising.
I do use trains though and have seen a lot of beautiful places in the UK that many people don't see as they stick to.towns, where I enjoy hiking.

That's just common sense. The u k is within two hours journey of many european countries.

Unless you live near the canadian or mexican border.You're looking at several hours and considerable expense or a long haul flight to leave the country. A lot of people just can't afford that.And also, the united states has a mixture of desert, mountain tropics in florida, ocean, cities. There's enough diversity in the landscape that if people can't afford to travel on planes they can at least drive somewhere in their own country.

It’s not like that for everyone.
Sure, it’s a steep leaning curve for mother and baby and the stakes are high, and everyone’s emotional. But many, many women have an easy time of it.

You’d need the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight

as that would be 368 sq miles and you need 300 square miles for 800 bn people

The population of Earth has dramatically increased!! 🤣

It has hasn’t it 🤦‍♀️ I meant 8 bn

Given you are supposed to start weaning at 6 months that would figure? I did 5.5 months then started very slowly introducing solids.
I was exclusively breastfed for 2.5 months then they started introducing bone broth - excellent physical & mental health here!

Civil war?
Poverty?

What are you talking about?