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[–] 1 point 2 days ago (5 children)

It's a $32 trillion economy, so I wouldn't consider it a stretch to say that BLM caused the slightest amount of property damage in a meme. The $2 billion figure doesn't seem significant or as relevant.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (4 children)

    You're comparing a $2 billion insurance loss to the entire American GDP?

    Jesus. Way to lose all context.

    Yes, of course. What's $2 billion compared to $32 TRILLION-ILLION-ILLION? Are you kidding me?!

    What exactly were you expecting from the protests? For people to scoop up the entire country and toss it in the fucking bin?

    I even made a point of comparing that $2 billion to Elon Musk's net worth. Compared to that, it's a tiny loss.

    But comparing a $2 billion loss from the BLM protests to the entire American economy is a completely useless comparison. It's like saying the distance to the Sun is tiny compared to the distance to the next galaxy. Technically true, but utterly meaningless without context.

    The American economy generates trillions of dollars in economic activity every year. Of course $2 billion is going to look insignificant when you compare it to a number that massive. That doesn't tell us anything meaningful about the actual scale of the losses.

    Christ. Calling a $2 billion loss negligible because it's a tiny fraction of America's GDP doesn't prove your point. It just demonstrates that you know how to divide two numbers without understanding what the comparison actually tells you.

    Context matters. Scale matters. And a loss doesn't stop being significant just because you can find a bigger number to compare it to.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (3 children)

    The context being: insured property damage is probably not a good way to measure the influence of BLM protests when emotionally reacting to a meme.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (2 children)

    It is actually and you don't understand the context. It's the largest loss in insurance history. How do you find that to be a meaningless metric.

    And again. The point of my response was to illustrate the misinformation. As much as you want to downplay it 2 billion is a noteworthy and significant loss.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (1 child)

    Insured property damage just wasn't the purpose or intent of BLM. Illustrating it as such works just as much towards misinformation as the offending meme, if not more.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    It most certainly does. It demonstrates just how gargantuan these protests were. They resulted in the most costly protest-related property damage in American history.

    And no, it is not misinformation. It is an objectively verifiable fact.

    If people cannot comprehend the significance of $2 billion, there is not much I can do about that. That is a failure of our educational system, which is an entirely different issue in and of itself.

    But downplaying the damage is disingenuous at best and outright pandering at worst.

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