Yeah, yeah, it's all in good fun. Until it isn't.
30% of kids are bullied.
160,000 kids a day stay home from school because they are being bullied.
Suicide is the cause of death of 4,500 young people a year.
Bullied kids are at up to a 10 times greater risk of suicide.
Your solution is for the kids to man up.
Mine is to educate people not to bully.
300,000,000 people peed today in America.
1 posted some unsubstantiated statistics to the internet and pretended to be part of a "cause" and may even start another 5K run for "awareness".
1 read it and knows math. He noticed that a very questionable 160,000 number is a tiny fraction of kids compared to the previously stated 30% number which is huge, showing that the vast majority of kids seem to handle themselves just fine. He also noticed the phrase "10 times more likely" which is always cause for the ******** light to illuminate on his Annunciator Panel until real numbers are checked, to see if it's 10 times zero, or 10 times a tiny fraction, or 10 times the size of the national debt.
There's a new 5K fun run this weekend for Decimal Point Lives Matter!, I hear. There will be a nice little off to the side "Free Speech Zone" for the protestors who like their drama and bad math, down the street and around the corner near the dumpsters.
4,500 is of course, tragic and bad. But it's also statistically way into the noise if your claim is 30% are bullied. Mathematically confirms the lack of correlation and causation without anyone having to work too hard on the numbers when you hand them the evidence to debunk the link.
Humans are pretty tough creatures overall and tend to adapt well to whatever environment they're in, is pretty much what your numbers just proved. And there's a few who don't.
By the way, I suspect your 30% number is insanely low. Met any adults who don't have at least one "bully" story? I'd say it's a lot closer to 100% than 30%.
Many "causes" in society these days tackle the small problems and ignore the big. If you don't believe me, talk to an actuary and see what teenage driving insurance costs vs teenage life insurance. I personally know of 6 dead kids in the last month from two bad teen drivers close enough to the family to know their parent's names.
No problem at all if the small problems are your "thing", just analyze your argument and make it a lot stronger than that statistical mess above. You argued the math that proved it isn't as big a problem as you want it to be. And that's fine too. Crusaders often start from an emotional position, not a rational one. Work on it.
The numbers presented tend toward saying bullying is not the leading cause of teen suicide. You can find a better way to show the correlation if you dig. But you won't be convincing anyone who's had enough stats education and knows how to apply it, with those stats.
As one who was physically slammed into immovable objects in high school regularly by a bully, and who had folks who "tackled" this problem a whole lot differently by explaining that life would smack the idiot upside the head (karma if you will) eventually, while I'd do fine learning to persevere like pretty much every person who ever did anything amazing, I tend to share the same with the discouraged kids.
Hey kids. Guess who's got a decent career, paid off everything he owns in his 40s, flies airplanes for fun, and isn't hopping from marriage to marriage and construction job to construction job because he can't control his temper? Oh yeah. This guy vs his high school bully. (Dude's life is a serious mess. Ran into him years ago and he apologized for his behavior but you could see he'd never really learned anything better.)
"Adapt and persevere, kids. It's what humans do best." Much more intelligent message than, "I'll stop all the bullies for you." Overwhelming force can almost always be beaten with good strategy.
pic.twitter.com/E0GQonDe2Y 
