May 9, 2022
From time to time, I am unable to come up with the necessarily fascinating and trenchant material that my loyal readers have come to expect of this blog. It is then that I turn to Harper’s Index to help me out.
Herewith a few choice tidbits from the most recent Index:
Percentage by which Americans are more likely to view the opposing political party as stupid rather than evil: 23
By which more Democrats aged 25 to 54 watch Tucker Carlson Tonight than The Rachel Maddow Show: 15
Percentage by which more Russians than average read BBC News in the week Ukraine was invaded: 245
Date on which Russia restricted access to BBC News: 3/4/2022
Percentage of U.S. adults who think Russia is a Communist or Socialist country: 55
Portion of people who are not confident using numbers in their everyday lives: 2/5
Minimum number of U.S. states that require or plan to require high school courses in financial literacy: 10
Percentage of U.S. educators who plan to retire earlier than they had expected: 55
Estimated percentage of Americans who believed the key tenets of QAnon last year: 16
Percentage of Americans in 1970 who thought the moon landing was worth the use of national resources: 39
Who did not: 56
Percentage of Americans who support sending astronauts to Mars: 53
Who do not: 19
Number of U.S. cities beneath which Elon Musk’s Boring Company has proposed constructing subterranean tunnels: 6
Portion of monkeys implanted with Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chips between 2017 and 2020 that have died: 7/10
Portion of likely U.S. voters who think microchip implants would improve human lives: 1/10
Who think they would lead to unprecedented totalitarian control: 3/4
Portion of Americans who say it is sometimes permissible to use violence against the government: 1/4
Who say it is justified “right now”: 1/10
Percentage of U.S. workers who received raises in the past year that kept pace with inflation: 17
Average value this year, to the tooth fairy, of a lost tooth in the United States: $5.36
Percentage by which this value has increased since the start of the pandemic: 33
Estimated miles of toilet paper used in the United States each year: 2,650,000,000
Estimated number of trees this represents: 31,000,000
Portion of Americans who say they are unable to use the bathroom without their cell phone: 1/4
Who have texted a nude photo of themselves while in the bathroom: 1/10
Percentage by which AI-generated faces are regarded as more trustworthy than real ones: 8
Percentage of Hinge users who say they are more likely to go on a second date with someone who is in therapy: 86
Percentage by which men with a dog in their dating-app profiles are more likely to want a long-term relationship: 90
Portion of single Americans who are interested in casual dating: 1/10
Increase, in years, of the average age of marriage for U.S. adults since 1970: 7
Percentage change between 2010 and 2020 in the number of marriages in China: –38
In the number of divorces: +38
Portion of U.S. men who are stalked at some point in their lives: 1/6
Of U.S. women: 1/3
Estimated amount lost by Americans to romance scammers last year: $1,000,000,000
Factor by which this has increased since 2015: 5
Average factor by which elderly victims lose more to romance scams than young adult victims: 12
Portion of Americans aged 55 to 64 who have no children: 1/5
Percentage of non-parents aged 18 to 49 who say they’re unlikely to ever have children: 44