Thinking by Number

… All Facts are not Created Equal

Words are soft, comforting and engaging. They are easily molded to fit our emotions, convey our thoughts and heal the wounds we have, even if they were first used to cause them. We love words; need them and feel at a loss, when they are absent. We use them in our prayers, our songs and in our desires to be loved. They are our friends.

But numbers … they are not like words. They are hard and harsh and pragmatic and don’t care if you like them, need them or want to go to sleep with them on your mind. They are indifferent to pain, feel no emotion or remorse and are void of any need to go quietly. They trumpet out the news, as loudly as is needed to inform, educate, frighten or force to obey and yet they mean no harm. They are tools. Picks to pierce the earth, steel beams to build our world and no matter how high they get, how numerous they become, they are without value or purpose … until we give it to them.

You see, all numbers are not created equal. In fact, all numbers have no inherent value. They are simply a means of accounting for a quantity of something, anything, without having to have that something in the room with us.

Would you know if 7 was more important than 13 by just looking at them?

Or if it was better to have 13,752 rather than 9,871?

Without a value being placed on any of the above numbers, they are meaningless to you and to me.

And yet, we are fascinated by numbers. We are drawn to them, listen to them, and even become depressed when they fail to come our way.

Numbers are our way of simplifying life. Of looking at a world filled with millions of different objects, animals and people, and reducing it all down to a column of them so that we can move on with more important things in our lives. In this way, they try to become our friends.

And yet, as reliant as we are on their use, they are capable of misleading and misinforming us at every turn. We are schooled in the calculation of numbers, trained to divine their meaning from pages of them but often lack the inclination or desire to see that they are without point or purpose until we give it to them.

Have you ever tried comparing something to itself in order to judge its inherent value? Or listen to a song over and over, trying to determine how good it really is?

We are trained by life, instinct or our desire for something better, to compare one thing or object against another to determine if we like it, want it or believe in it.

Pepsi vs. Coke.

Big Mac vs. The Whopper.

We compare the Beatles to The Stones, Whitney to Aretha, and how we are doing in life today, compared to how we were after graduating from college, and through these comparisons come to some conclusion that makes sense to us.

But in the world around us today, in the Land of Statistics that we immerse ourselves in through social media, the News and constant communication through electronic devices, we tend to accept numbers at face value. As simply instruments of communication and the conveyance of facts, and as long as they come to us with some label, some form of identification, we tend to believe them and move on.

Numbers that Alarm

Today, we are far more a captive audience than we ever were. We are social creatures without the society of others. We cannot touch, hold, interact or congregate in numbers right now, so are reliant on outside information to fill our days and nights.

And there has been plenty of it.

About 3 weeks ago, as the numbers surrounding Covid-19 began to grow, so did my level of anxiety. And as the reports grew in size and scope; as social distancing and stay-at-home orders came into being, and as the death toll from this disease grew from four digits to five, worldwide, I found myself reeling from the numbers.

I began to hate numbers, fear numbers and would walk out of rooms, if my wife was listening to any report that mentioned them. All numbers became harbingers of bad news.

Sudoku was out of the question. Balancing a checkbook — forget about it. All I wanted were words. Friendly comforting words and lots of them.

But in a recent moment of reflection, while watching it rain, yet another day in LA, I realized that numbers weren’t at fault. They meant no harm. They are neutral in our world and were being used simply to get our attention — albeit for important and life-saving reasons, but still, in an alarming and at times misleading way.

Numbers without a point of reference, are just that … numbers. Like the “color” white. Without other pigments to define it, it’s neutral, without any significant value either way. It tells us only what we put into it.

Here’s an example of this: What do these numbers mean to you?

A. 202,026

B. 16,029,705

C. 351,400

Are they bad numbers, good numbers, or ones that are simply telling us something that is either important, unimportant or completely neutral to us, depending on how we look at them?

Well, here’s what they are.

A. The number of births today, worldwide as of 12:45 p.m. California time

B. The number of people who have died this year, worldwide, from all causes

C. The number of television sets sold today, worldwide. *

* https://www.worldometers.info/

By themselves, the above three numbers tell us only one side of things. There is no context. But if we bring any one of them into comparison with another number — say the total number of deaths through the Covid-19 virus, a different picture may emerge for you.

Covid-19 — — 94,720 deaths (since mid-Jan 2020)

All causes — — 16,029,705 (in the last 100 days)

What does this comparison tell you? Does it make Covid-19 any less dangerous? For me, it doesn’t, but it does put it into perspective.

The numbers (stats) reported over the past 3 months about Covid-19 have been accurate, inaccurate, alarming, soothing, understated, overblown, remarkably clear, incredibly opaque and above all — just numbers. We assign relative importance and priority to them. We associate them with stay-at-home orders, long lines, no toilet paper, fear and apprehension, concern for our loved ones and those risking their lives in hospitals, on the roads, and elsewhere, throughout the world.

Thinking by numbers is as often wrong and it is right. It is fallible at the best of times, anxiety-inducing and nerve-wracking at the worst of times.

Comparative analysis is a process that entails the active use of information of comparable magnitude (importance) to evaluate the data in front of us at any given moment.

100 arrests last month in our city, may sound alarming because it is associated with the words — arrest and our city — which comes with their own intrinsic meaning. But when we also state, that it is down from 345 the month before, that same number suddenly becomes good news.

We have just spent the last three years being assaulted with claims of Fake News, No News, Bad News, False News in the entire political arena, that the last thing we need right now, is to go further afield in our general dislike for information. Information — correctly graded and compared is invaluable.

We have a way to go before we are safely through the current situation. Then as soon as it fades along, we have another equally important situation before us — the 2020 election. I feel it is imperative that we are in as much control as we can be with the information we accept and act upon.

The simple act of comparing information, giving it real time context and relative importance, can go a long way in soothing nerves, reducing reactions and arguments and perhaps most important, keeping us sane.