MONDAY MAP

UNATTRACTIVE FIGURES

Hello guys, it is with great joy and ease that I drop today’s Monday Map.

Warning: It is an essay, a long essay. You might need to take your time to read and then ponder what I wrote here. Your thoughts are appreciated as always. See you later. Enjoy the read.

UNATTRACTIVE FIGURES

We easily dismiss people’s issues because they are not statistically attractive.

 It is commonplace now to represent issues of the human condition with data and statistical figures. This allows for the analysis of problems affecting human beings in order to get solutions and formulate policies. This is effective as it points us to urgent matters that require swift and often innovative solutions, and it has largely replaced philosophical speculations in the mainstream.

I applaud the application of mathematics and statistics in mapping out and figuring the human condition. Some of the improvements are visible in areas like IQ testing, public education, public health, the transport system, housing, and generally, the economy. Summarily, the benefit of statistical measurement and data representation is the way data brings to life, out of the abstract, the problems of the human condition. What philosophy “guesses" about,  data makes certain. It makes objective and factual, what mere speculation classifies as subjective.

COVIDIAN DATA

I have experienced two scary viral outbreaks in my lifetime; the Ebola virus and coronavirus. The Ebola virus was curbed quickly, slowing the spread and halting it quickly. But we were not as lucky with the Coronavirus. Before we could say Harry Potter, Mr. 19 was a global star, doing tours and wreaking havoc. But in the midst of it all, very few things stood out to me about these two viruses.

No doubt that the news of both viruses caused fear in large populations. And I was not left out of feeling fear. However, both diseases did not cause fear in me for the same reason.

I remember the symptoms of the Ebola virus were high temperature, diarrhea, pains, sore throat, and hemorrhaging (late stages). The hemorrhaging particularly scared me. I was then cautious of making body contact with others. I was also scared of the Coronavirus. But the fear was not similar to my fear of the Ebola virus.

The counter on television screens was my primary reason for being terrified of covid-19. I learned the symptoms of Covid-19 but they were not enough to make me afraid. However, every time I saw the Covid counter on TV or Twitter put out by different channels, my heart skipped beats. And as the mortality numbers came and the mortality updates came, I always hugged my nose mask closer to my face. The numbers were real, and they were not just numbers. Those were people. I know that people were dying but the numbers made it vivid. Nevertheless, as I focused less on the numbers, my fear reduced and eventually died. What does this tell me?

NUMBERS DON'T LIE BUT THEY DON'T TELL THE WHOLE STORY

"Numbers don't lie" is a common and familiar claim. But I want to show in the rest of this essay that numbers don't tell the whole story.

As data and statistical evidence becomes more and more mainstream, it becomes the more popular, more acceptable way of presenting evidence. And I hardly have any problem with it in most cases except that we love the data and refuse to accept that it is inadequate in terms of describing the human condition.

Let's use football as an example. Football statistics records that in a match, Player X a central midfielder, plays 25 accurate passes. We also have Player Y a central midfielder who made 14 passes of which only 6 were successful.

On paper, Player X is the better passer while Player Y is shitty. However, if you saw the match for its full duration, you may notice that Player X made only side passes and back passes, with no advancing passes. But Player Y made 14 advancing passes, with 6 successful, and 1 of the six successful passes being crucial to their winning goal. Now, who is the better player? Without seeing out the full length of the match, you will be fooled into believing that X is a better player than Y. Numbers don't tell the full story. Quoting Sir Dickson, "stats are like mini skirts; they don't show everything."

There are happenings within the human race that can never be captured with numbers. The realm of man is highly subjective, mostly obscure from visible perception to be represented in data. This is because data is quantitative and there is more to man than quantity. Man is best experienced in his qualitative state.

QUANTITY TO QUALITY

While we are celebrating mathematicians, computer scientists, and physicists, we should not fail to consider the novelists, philosophers, and clergies of various religions. They stand in different realms, with the same purpose; the betterment of man.

We celebrate the novelists for describing the qualitative nature of man; the emotional, fearful, loving, proud, paranoid being. They are the ones who paint the complexity that exists in human nature, the three dimensional creature that longs for more than numbers can bear.

DANGERS OF EXAGGERATED QUANTITY

Here lies my mainstay, my pain, my purpose of writing; that a lot about individual men (and women) has been lost and dismissed because they are not attractive in figures.

Example 1: 

Data: 90% of murderers are men.

Inference: Men makeup most of the murderers. So you saying "not all men" counts for nothing.

First of all, I hate the phrase "not all men''. To me I think it is an attempt for self-righteous people to signal their 'goodness' to strangers who don't care about their innocence. But then, this is a trickery I have seen again and again. The malicious attempt to use data to incriminate people who have no bearing to a case. And because "the numbers don't lie," you are expected to cower in silence, do what is demanded of you, and atone for your sins. BS!

I know by all right that I am not a murderer. But in the face of the supremacy of quantitative arguments, my anecdotal claims are weak. My claim that I have never murdered a person does not count because the data says men are murderers. And the best part, they will ask you for data or better still "source?" Do I really need a source to tell you that I am not a murderer?

As quantitative arguments gain grounds, qualitative ones gain on the inverse (i.e they lose grounds).

Example 2: 

Data: 3% of people who received the vaccines reported adverse effects.

Inference: well, well, well, just 3%? Isn't that largely safe? Enforce the vaccines.

Welcome to your utilitarian world.

Is it really fair to dismiss the urgent claims of 3% of people because they pale in comparison with the 97%? If we go in this way (as we have often done), we have made a mistake. A dear mistake, that goes downhill from that point. That mistake is that we see human beings as specimens, faceless numbers, forgotten collateral damage good for the glorification of data and invention.

Every man is an individual- a living, deserving entity. This is the basis of all human rights; the inalienableness of each man deserving of dignity. But when we lump all men into numbered categories, as oxen of the greater good, robbed of their complexity, subjective perceptions and reality, then we head speedily to the end. A bad end. An end to humanity.

Example 3:

Data: There are more cases of true rape than cases of false rape accusations.

Inference: Stop whining about false rape accusations against men. They don't matter that much when more women don't get their voices heard.

What an abomination! We dismiss real issues affecting real people because their problems are not as severe as others.  It is inhumane by all measures to dismiss one's problems because someone else has it worse. This is not the world we want to build. We don't want a top-down world where each man disappears into the vacuum of generic machinery. You don't want it. Do better.

Conclusion

Bring back good qualitative arguments. Bring man back to life again. Withdraw him from the realm of numbers. Let us do this again man to man.