We had ours during the pandemic. While my friends and coworkers griped about toilet paper shortages, it was like having a hidden superpower.

The religious aren’t renowned for their critical thinking skills.

Comparing median house price to median income is an instant “doesn’t know how housing economy works” flag.

I included median income because it’s interesting and at no point make or even vaguely suggested it has any significance. It’s funny how you just make shit up to counter points that aren’t being made.

I made this post to definitively test a theory: that you’re shockingly, blatantly intellectually dishonest, someone who doesn’t care about an honest conversation but who simply wants to be right at all costs, up to and including just lying. Like you did here, repeatedly.

My point was median valued homes aren’t McMansions, homes that are defined by their size, ostentation, and luxury, which are none of these homes. But you don’t care, you just want to be right, so you lie and use your own personal definition of a McMansion, which is apparently “big and/or nice house maybe with boat”, like watercraft ownership has any bearing on the type of home. I live in a 1300 square foot home and own a $95k 5th wheel. I guess I live in a McMansion too! You even move my goalposts for me by pretending my comment was about something it was not, that I was somehow claiming a median valued home was a “starter home”. It’s easy to refute evidence when you pretend the thesis is something that it’s not, but it makes you a liar.

So now we have, for all to see, clear evidence that talking with you is an absolute waste of time. Thank you for that. Easiest block I’ve made all year. Feel free to have the last word.

Oh yeah, I suspect they just want their biases confirmed. Anyone who shows evidence that the premises upon which their biases are based are flawed gets ignored. It seems those that scream “it’s just facts and math, you can’t argue with math” the loudest tend to have arguments largely based in neither.

A median is a value at the midpoint of a frequency distribution, such that the probability of a value being above or below it is equal. A median value is going to be highly dependent on the area - cities with a boom in the building of luxury homes will have a higher median value that may not be indicative of the existence of more affordable housing but, in a larger market with an even vaguely normal distribution of home prices, it should be an indicator of a fairly average (in the non-statistical sense) home. But why take my word when we can test your hypothesis!

For example, the median home value in Portland, OR is $515K with a median household income of $78K, yielding a median home price to household income ratio of 6.60. So lets hop on realtor.com and look at the first three homes listed at that price, +/- 2%. Look at these McMansions!

$510K for 2500 square feet on 7000 sq.ft. lot built in 1910

$515K for 2,234 sqft on 6,098 sqft lot built in 1992

$525K for a 1542 sqft condo with admittedly nice views of the river

Such luxury! Oh wait, they’re just average homes. The largest home in that price range is 2,624 sqft. The smallest is this guy which, while nice, isn’t a McMansion. It’s a very nice but not luxurious 1200 sqft apartment.

Maybe Portland is a shitty example? How about Gillette, WY? Gillette has a median home value of $390K and a median household income of $72k, yielding a median home value to household income ratio of 5.42. Let’s see what’s in store!

$390K 2,880sqft 7,200sqft lot built in 2010

$410k 3,002sqft 6,199sqft lot built in 2011

$410k 3,944sqft 6,522sqft lot built in 1975.

The largest in that range is actually my third result, with the smallest coming in at 2706 square feet on 0.31 acres. Check that one out, it looks like they built two houses on top of each other. It’s weird looking!

Note: only the first house was close to the median. I had to bump the upper price limit to 5% above median to get more than two results.

You’ll get a lot more space for your dollar in Gillette, but a McMansion? They’re still lacking the ostentatiousness and cut rate luxury characteristic of the McMansion, so not really. Certainly not the best a man can get.

Today in Lemmy News: poor writer with ambiguous thesis is adamant it’s everyone else’s fault their point isn’t getting across. Writer suggests their difficulties in communicating with others somehow translate to others having difficulties in everyday life. The smugness coupled with a complete lack of self awareness is palpable, folks!

Now back to Chuck in the Weather Wagon!

They really shouldn’t be. The US is seriously fucked up.

This, friends, is a great demonstration of why math and science courses are so important. Science teaches critical thinking skills. A lack of critical thinking skills often leads people to make things up to explain phenomena instead of questioning their assumptions and seeking factual information.

Mathematics, especially statistics, provides a framework by which people can critically evaluate the validity and significance of numerical values as well as generate realistic, informed estimates. A lack of basic math skills causes many people to be unable to evaluate relative proportions and effect sizes of event drivers.

Especially the kind that doesn’t actually contain any ginger.

I thought you had to turn off the lights in the bathroom of a Better Business Bureau, hold a copy of The Wall Street Journal between your legs, and say his name backwards three times fast whilst flapping your arms like a chicken.

Or is that how you summon the ghost of Alan Greenspan? It all blends together after awhile.

My boss constantly rode my ass about my coming into the office. I’m a consultant and work on site for various clients. I do a lot of driving that is not reimbursed in any way by my company so, whenever I have a break, I prefer to work from home. But no, my boss has set the expectation that any time I have no on site client work, I needed to be at the company office, a 45-90 minute commute each way (depending on traffic).

If I need to drive into an office every day, I’m going to get paid the most I can for it. She took away one of the main perks of my job, so I had no reason to stick around. So I found a new job that pays 50% more and I’ll be letting the company know in my exit interview that’s the primary driver for finding new employment. Oh, and the best part? I work from home at least one day a week. My previous employer can get fucked.