explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2947: Pascal's Wager Triangle

2024-06-19T22:23:17Z

162.158.49.18: /* Explanation */ More aesthetic, perhaps more visually explanatory?

{{comic
| number = 2947
| date = June 17, 2024
| title = Pascal's Wager Triangle
| image = pascals_wager_triangle_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x802px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = In contrast to Pascal's Wager Triangle, Pascal's Triangle Wager argues that maybe God wants you to draw a triangle of numbers where each one is the sum of the two numbers above it, so you probably should, just in case.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT WHO BELIEVED THE N BOTS ABOVE HIM - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
The comic is a conflation of {{w|Pascal's Wager}} and {{w|Pascal's Triangle}}. It's structured as a layout that emulates Pascal's triangle, an infinite triangle of numbers where the top number is 1 and each value below is the sum of the adjacent number(s) above it. The second row has two 1s (each the sum of the single 1 above), and the third row has a 1 (the sum of a single 1 in the second row), a 2 (the sum of both 1s above it), and another 1, and so on. It plays important roles in binomial expansion, probability theory, and other areas of math. While {{w|Blaise Pascal}} did not invent the triangle, it is named after him (an example of {{w|Stigler's law of eponymy}}).

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|-
|colspan=5|
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''seed'' '''1'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|colspan=5|
|-
|colspan=4|
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''… + 1'' '''1'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''1 + …'' '''1'''
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|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''1 + …'' '''1'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|colspan=3|
|-
|colspan=2|
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''… + 1'' '''1'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''1 + 2'' '''3'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''2 + 1'' '''3'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''1 + …'' '''1'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|colspan=2|
|-
|
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''… + 1'' '''1'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''1 + 3'' '''4'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''3 + 3'' '''6'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''3 + 1'' '''4'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|''1 + …'' '''1'''
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40px;"|…
|
|-
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|⋮
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|⋮
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|⋮
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|⋮
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|⋮
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|⋮
|colspan=2 style="width: 60px; height: 40x;"|
|}
</center>

Pascal's Wager is a philosophical argument proposed by the same Pascal. Essentially it says that if God exists, both the rewards for believing in God and the punishment for nonbelief are infinite; if not, the cost of belief and benefit for nonbelief are negligible. Therefore, if there is a finite possibility that God exists, however small, one should believe in God.

The comic merges the two: each Cueball is wagering his proof of a god or gods to the Cueballs below him, thereby creating Cueballs that believe in the sum of the number of gods of the Cueballs above them. In the second row, the two Cueballs each believe in one god, as intended by the original Cueball. However, in the third row, the Cueball in the middle interprets the two proofs offered to him as proving the existence of two gods. Theoretically, this expansion would continue for all integers as the triangle grows, giving rise to a belief in escalating numbers of gods going down and towards the middle of the triangle. This is clearly not the intent of the first Cueball, who simply wagered the proof of his one god, but he has no control over the situation below him.

It is unclear why the Cueballs behave in this fashion, instead of treating all the proofs as proving the existence of the same god. Perhaps each one rewords their arguments for god(s) sufficiently to make them sound different than other gods. This is not without precedent; for instance, scholars of comparative mythology believe{{acn}} that the religion of Proto-Indo-European peoples splintered into many disparate religions of Europe and West Asia.

This comic may be referencing a common counterargument to Pascal's Wager — that it works equally well for ''any'' hypothetical god which offers paradise for one action and damnation otherwise. This can even include hypothetical gods with contradictory criteria for entrance into paradise. In this case, the Cueballs apparently chose to believe in ''n'' deities to cover their bases.

The title text suggests that everyone should draw a proper Pascal's Triangle, since there is a possibility that God wants you to do so, and if they do then the benefits of pleasing God or the costs of displeasing God could be high, whereas if they have no such desire then there is minimal cost to drawing one anyway. The failing of this logic is that God may have a positive preference for you ''not'' to draw a Pascal's Triangle (though at least according to the Catholic Church this is unlikely, as Pascal himself is on the way to {{w|beatification}}.)

Pascal's Wager was previously mentioned in the title text of [[525: I Know You're Listening]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueballs, each holding some document, are shown in a triangular arrangement, with arrows pointing from upper to lower Cueballs:]
C1
C2 C3
C4 C5 C6
C7 C8 C9 C10
C11 C12 C13 C14 C15
:[The pattern may continue downwards, off-comic, as the lowest rank are only half in-frame. Some of the following speech bubbles that are edge-adjacent are not entirely in view as they extend sidways off-pane, but are still given here in full.]
:C1: Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my god!
:C2 & C3: I'm convinced! Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my god!
:C4 & C6: I'm convinced! Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my god!
:C5: Ok, I believe you both! Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my '''two''' gods!
:C7: I'm convinced! Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my god!
:C8 & C9: Ok, I believe you both! Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my '''three''' gods!
:C12 & C14: Ok, I believe you both! Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my '''four''' gods!
:C13: Ok, I believe you both! Hey, you two below me! Here's a proof that you should believe in my '''six''' gods!
:[The speech bubbles of C10, C11 and C15 are not seen at all, but would all be a "my (singular) god" quote.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Pascal's Wager Triangle

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Religion]]

Talk:166: Misusing Slang

2024-06-18T12:36:30Z

162.158.49.18:

This comment is so 1337! [[User:Unpopular Opinions|Goodbye, world!]] ([[User talk:Unpopular Opinions|talk]]) 16:45, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Thy end is now. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 22:50, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
:alright gabriel ultrakill --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.18|162.158.49.18]] 12:36, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

2946: 1.2 Kilofives

2024-06-16T17:56:56Z

162.158.49.18: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2946
| date = June 14, 2024
| title = 1.2 Kilofives
| image = 1 2 kilofives 2x.png
| imagesize = 256x342px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Oh yeah? Give me 50 milliscore reasons why I should stop.'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by 83.333... millidozen BOTS, Y2K reference added by ZC - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Abraham Lincoln's {{w|Gettysburg Address}} features the phrase "four {{wiktionary|score#Noun|score}} and seven"‍ to refer to 87: a "score" is a group of 20, which literally translates as "four-twenties [and] seven". This is because English used to count by twenties - for a while, {{w|Long hundred| a hundred actually referred to 120}} - however, this practice has died off and most English speakers nowadays would not use "score" in such a manner. Inspired by this, [[Cueball]] (possibly representing [[Randall]]) decides to use unusual prefixes to state the population of a town.

{{w|Metric prefix}}es can be added to a unit to scale up or down its magnitude. For example, "{{w|kilo-}}" means "multiply by 1000", so a {{w|kilometer}} is as long as 1,000 {{w|meter}}s. These prefixes are added to {{w|List of metric units|various metric units}} but, due to their usefulness have been adopted and added to other, non-metric units such as "kilocubic feet per second" (for the flow rate of a liquid, much to Randall's chagrin when researching for his book "XKCD What-If"), "megadeath" (how many millions killed in an estimated nuclear blast), and the most argumentative "kilo/mega/terabyte" despite objects from both the IEEE and the BIPM. However, they're not ordinarily added before number words to change their magnitude.

Taking "kilofive" to be a unit meaning 5,000, the population of East Hills, 6,000, can therefore be expressed as 1.2 kilofives. But phrasing a number this way requires the listener to make excess calculations to understand it, so [[White Hat]] would probably get confused or annoyed.

It is somewhat common for metric prefixes to go ''after'' numbers in abbreviations. Well-known examples are "{{w|Y2K}}" for "year 2000", and "{{w|4K resolution}}" for "4,000 [pixels]". The number 5,000 may be abbreviated as "{{w|5K}}" in "{{w|5K resolution}}". However, the 'postfix' may be implied to modify the implied but unstated unit, where there is an obvious one, or stand for the unit itself in such cases as the word "kilometer" (often abbreviated to /ˈkeɪ/(s), in common use, in phrases such as "{{w|5K run}}") or "{{wiktionary|kilopixel|kilo''pixel''}}" (in this case referencing the horizontal resolution, as in 5120 × 2880 pixels, rather than prior usages such as the 1080 ''horizontal lines'' in the standard known as {{w|1080p}}, or the total ''area'' pixel count in 'megapixel'/'gigapixel' image sensors), thus making it directly stand for a prefixed unit itself, as an adjunct to the the standard common shortening of "kilos" for, usually, "kilograms". Saying "1.2 5K" could be even more awkward, liable to be misunderstood as "1.25k" (1,250) instead of the value of 6000.

In the title text, Cueball has apparently annoyed White Hat with his confusing expressions of numbers, but he doubles down, now directly including the word "score". 50 milliscore, or 50 × 1&frasl;1000 × 20, would be equal to 1.

The comic might refer to the village of {{w|East Hills, New York}}. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 7,284, or 1.214 kilosixes.

==Trivia==
In Roman numerals, {{w|Roman_numerals#Large_numbers|symbols can be added to numerals}} to denote orders of magnitude. In this system, 1,000 might be written as "CIↃ". This rough pattern of marks, as typically chisled or impressed into wax by a stylus, would later be refined and expressed in the not dissimilar shape of the "M" as most often seen these days to represent the thousands value in dates/etc. Alternately "I" (nominally '1') could be given a bar above it, as would any other such numerals involve in that expression, to indicate the value being denoted being of the higher order.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Cueball, with his palm raised, is talking to White Hat. There is a sign on the ground in the background.]
:Cueball: It's a pretty small town—the population is just 1.2 kilofives.
:[The sign reads:]
:Welcome to
:East Hills
:Pop. 6,000

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I don't know why Abraham Lincoln should be the only one who gets to come up with weird ways to say normal numbers.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Language]]

Talk:2945: Broken Model

2024-06-16T13:48:49Z

162.158.49.18:

If only Randall had included a cabbage somewhere... [[Special:Contributions/172.68.64.241|172.68.64.241]] 05:03, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:He included grass... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:50, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:The cabbage would consume nothing & nothing would consume the cabbage; it's a null value, so the mathematician left it out.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:55, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:The cabbages are too busy eating the goats in the universe next door. [[User:Mathmannix|Mathmannix]] ([[User talk:Mathmannix|talk]]) 07:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

This "terrifying alternate universe" thing goes all the way back to the 5th century before the Common Era:

The lion shall lie down with the lamb, and they shall eat grass.
Alas for the lion! He cannot eat grass, he shall be no more, unless he become a lamb.
Alas for the grass! There are too many lambs, it cannot grow, it shall be no more, unless it become thorns.
Alas for the lambs! They cannot eat thorns, they shall be no more, unless they eat each other -
yea, unless some become lions, and they eat enough lambs so that the grass may grow again.

Ergo, Heaven is Hell. QED. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.22.177|172.68.22.177]] 06:09, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:Yep predators are important, but only if they are the 20 and the prey are the 400. Else it is extermination for the prey. And if the predators only eat those kinds of animals also the end for them. Luckily the rabbits could eat grass. But what should the grass eat now there are no more foxes? ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 06:50, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if the term ''hell'' is a reference to the paper [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24310043_A_slow_life_in_hell_or_a_fast_life_in_heaven_Demographic_analyses_of_contrasting_roe_deer_populations A slow life in hell or a fast life in heaven: Demographic analyses of contrasting roe deer populations] (2009). I couldn't find any earlier mention in this context. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.130.199|172.71.130.199]] 07:51, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:It's probably a reference to the realm mentioned in most religions where eternal punishment is dished out to uncool individuals based on their bad deeds. "Hell" is the reference here, not an article on deer populations, lol. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 17:58, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Anyone else with a sudden urge of writing a Zootopia fanfic ("No, Judy, NOOOOO!")? (Oh yes, the relevant pic exists. This is teh Internet.) [[Special:Contributions/198.41.242.174|198.41.242.174]] 08:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

That last paragraph is completely incomprehensible at time of writing. --[[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 11:37, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Apparently, AI doesn't have a problem with redundant content - for example, the double mention of "Fox Hell" in the Title Text with two separate paragraphs. The AI generator also seems intent on commenting excessively on typical xkcd humor patterns. I feel like some of this extra AI content needs to be trimmed down just a bit, as it doesn't add value and just makes it look like a school essay instead of a human-readable explanation. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 16:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:Agreed.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:58, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

It's rather obvious LLM was used here, especially the part where it only mentions the teacher saying "If this were an ecology class, I would have to fix that." [[Special:Contributions/162.158.146.32|162.158.146.32]]

Are AI-generated additions to the explanations allowed here? I immediately came here after reading the "explanation" and noticing how redundant and inaccurate it was and was hoping it would be removed. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.217|162.158.62.217]] 22:07, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

:I don't believe anyone has ever come out and said "don't use AI-generated text in explanations" at this point, but I'm finding it annoying that at least one person feels the need to do it. I find it disruptive to some degree, as it probably takes almost as much work to clean up the extra garbage included as it would to write the explanations from scratch. I fear it may discourage editors from contributing to explanations when they end up just cleaning up someone's AI additions. Just my 2 cents worth. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 22:48, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

::I think it's a net positive because cleaning up an AI explanation takes less time than writing one from scratch. I do think we should have a rule that AI explanations need to be marked as such in the edit summary, which was done in this case. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.22|162.158.41.22]] 19:09, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

== Carnivorous grass? ==

I feel like this grass exists, even though I've never seen it named. Looks like grass, but puts out thorns tough enough to penetrate bike tires, & can sometimes be found as a patch growing extra thick around a snared animal carcass?
: A quick search suggests that "carnivorous grass" with features like this is a trope in world-building games. However, you may be thinking of this {{w|Puya chilensis|real-world South American bromeliad}}. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.150.128|172.71.150.128]] 17:45, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
::Naw, this literally just looks like grass, until it seeds, & then the seeds are these horrific burrs. I don't think the plant is specifically carnivorous, though. I just know the burrs can injure, smallish critters can get snagged in stands of it, & I've taken to calling it "hell grass" because I imagine hell would have huge tracts of suburban lawns full of the impassable stuff. Re: carnivorous, almost any plant seems to like some carcass mixed into its soil now & then? So, I go more by how deadly they seem to be... & I mentioned this stuff mostly because I don't know what to call it & so have been calling it Hell Grass. WTF is this impostor-grass?
::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:43, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
::: Got it. Sounds like one of the 107 species in the genus {{w|Cenchrus|Cenchrus}}, which is a bona fide member of the grass family (Poaceae). [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.53|172.71.146.53]] 23:58, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
::::That's it! The hell-grass cenchrus longispinus, grows all over southern NewMexico, & [http://jimbotany.com/Monastery_Plants/Cenchrus%20longispinus--aka%20Cenchrus%20pauciflorus%20%202011-08-08.jpg it's primary thorns get a ''lot'' longer & stouter than shown in most photos]. Awful stuff; snares small beasts, makes dogs cry & cats angry, & it creeps in flat to the ground right through friendlier grasses. Even a few strands deploying seeds one year, can turn a lovely lawn into a lie.
::::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 18:11, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Couldn't fungi be classified as carnivorous "grass"? [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 18:00, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
: I would say it would be stretch considering fungi is neither grass nor carnivorous. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 21:34, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
::I mean, it can "chew" (decompose) stuff by growing on it. Aren't fungi plants? What does their gene tree look like? [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 21:38, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Fungi were originally in the plant kingdom, but they're actually more closely related to animals than plants. In 2007 the Fungi kingdom was created for them. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 22:23, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:::: Actually, Fungi were first recognized as a lineage at the "kingdom" level by {{w|Robert_Whittaker_(ecologist)|Robert Whittaker}} in 1969. Recognition that Fungi and Animalia are sister lineages came later. Remember that old line about how your boss must think you're a mushroom, 'cause dey keeps you in the dark and feeds you bullmanure? Your boss may have had more of a clue than you thought. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.146.53|172.71.146.53]] 23:58, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::Today I learned. [[User:Psychoticpotato|Psychoticpotato]] ([[User talk:Psychoticpotato|talk]]) 12:47, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::: True: no fungus is a grass. False: {{w|Carnivorous_fungus|No fungus is a carnivore}}. Oh, you were lying in a field of mushrooms contemplating picking some and having them for dinner, were you? You better watch out ... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.41.120|162.158.41.120]] 01:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Uhhhh the explanation is wrong saying that the 400 rabbits will drive the foxes extinct. This is one of the unphysical parts of the lotka volterra equations actually, no matter what the start values are, if they are non zero they will remain nonzero forever. (This is called the atto fox problem)[[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.83|172.70.211.83]] 17:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
:That's correct if there's any migration, but more generally less than half a fox is zero foxes. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.34.16|172.69.34.16]] 00:46, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
::In fact, less than two foxes (excepting "one 'widowed' fox that's already pregnant") is effectively zero foxes, in a closed-system.
::But depends upon how quantized or probability-based you deal with each amalgamation of the differential/integral calculus figues... Or interpreting them correctly as the implied one. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.18|162.158.49.18]] 13:48, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2399: 2020 Election Map

2020-12-17T12:27:06Z

162.158.49.18:

r/PeopleLiveInCities[[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.18|162.158.49.18]] 12:27, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I see a political comic... sure hope this doesn't spiral out of control. [[User:ChessCake|ChessCake]] ([[User talk:ChessCake|talk]]) 22:21, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
: How dare you accuse me of spiraling things out of control, you so-and-so! This kind of baseless backwards logic is exactly the problem with people who share your particular political opinions! --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 22:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
:: You're being sarcastic, right? Just want to be clear so we don't fuel the [potential] flames to come. [[User:ChessCake|ChessCake]] ([[User talk:ChessCake|talk]]) 22:51, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
::: I took "so-and-so" as proof that neatnit was joking. Angry people on the internet use harsher words. SDT [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.38|162.158.75.38]] 22:57, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
::: Definitely. The "so-and-so" instead of an insult, and the deliberately vague grouping of "people who share your particular political opinions" were a clear giveaway. :) --[[User:V2Blast|V2Blast]] ([[User talk:V2Blast|talk]]) 22:59, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
It seems to me that one of the main messages in this comic is that voters for both Trump and Biden are pretty well distributed around the country. Looking at the typical choropleth maps with states colored red or blue, it can seem that the political division in the country is also a geographical division. This map, and the title text, emphasize that, at the scale of the whole country, that really isn't the case. The urban/suburban/rural breakdown isn't all that evident at this scale. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 07:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
: ''The urban/suburban/rural breakdown isn't all that evident at this scale'': au contraire, it's quite clear that the denser the area, the more Biden voters there are, even in red states. See Texas for instance, where around big cities you have more blue dots than red.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.160|141.101.107.160]] 10:51, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Talk:2399: 2020 Election Map

2020-12-17T12:26:46Z

162.158.49.18:

r/PeopleLiveInCities[[Special:Contributions/162.158.49.18|162.158.49.18]] 12:26, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I see a political comic... sure hope this doesn't spiral out of control. [[User:ChessCake|ChessCake]] ([[User talk:ChessCake|talk]]) 22:21, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
: How dare you accuse me of spiraling things out of control, you so-and-so! This kind of baseless backwards logic is exactly the problem with people who share your particular political opinions! --[[User:NeatNit|NeatNit]] ([[User talk:NeatNit|talk]]) 22:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
:: You're being sarcastic, right? Just want to be clear so we don't fuel the [potential] flames to come. [[User:ChessCake|ChessCake]] ([[User talk:ChessCake|talk]]) 22:51, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
::: I took "so-and-so" as proof that neatnit was joking. Angry people on the internet use harsher words. SDT [[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.38|162.158.75.38]] 22:57, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
::: Definitely. The "so-and-so" instead of an insult, and the deliberately vague grouping of "people who share your particular political opinions" were a clear giveaway. :) --[[User:V2Blast|V2Blast]] ([[User talk:V2Blast|talk]]) 22:59, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
It seems to me that one of the main messages in this comic is that voters for both Trump and Biden are pretty well distributed around the country. Looking at the typical choropleth maps with states colored red or blue, it can seem that the political division in the country is also a geographical division. This map, and the title text, emphasize that, at the scale of the whole country, that really isn't the case. The urban/suburban/rural breakdown isn't all that evident at this scale. [[User:Orion205|Orion205]] ([[User talk:Orion205|talk]]) 07:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
: ''The urban/suburban/rural breakdown isn't all that evident at this scale'': au contraire, it's quite clear that the denser the area, the more Biden voters there are, even in red states. See Texas for instance, where around big cities you have more blue dots than red.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.160|141.101.107.160]] 10:51, 17 December 2020 (UTC)