The Blog of Many Hats

OK, so maybe I exaggerated a little.

My point is, I'm tired of people trying to persuade me by means of exaggeration.

Sure, I know that exaggeration is here to stay. It's been a sacred part of the internet since before most people ever heard of it. But I, personally, am tired of it.

I'm a reasonable man. What I want more than anything else is to be reasoned with. You do not have to exaggerate to make your point. Present me with data. Present me with facts. Show me how, by reason, you have come to the conclusions you hold. If I find your reasoning to be sound, I'll come along for the ride.

But please, stop exaggerating.

Here's a great example of what I'm talking about: an article in The Scotsman that talks about declining penguin populations.

This article asserts that "millions of penguins [are] vanish[ing]". Hell, that claim is in the headline. The article goes on to quote one Dr. Geoff Hilton (who is, presumably, an expert on such things) who says that "it's quite sinister, we have got millions of penguins just disappearing."

I have two problems with this article.

First, the use of the word "sinister", which means, according to Webster, "singularly evil or productive of evil." Dr. Geoff is trying to imply, without explicitly stating it, that the activity of evil human beings is responsible for this penguin apocalypse.

Second, if the article's numbers are to be believed, Dr. Geoff is, at best, guilty of extreme exaggeration and, at worst, a liar. The numbers quoted in the article cite a six-year decline from "600,000 to 420,000". The article also establishes the penguin population at "1.5 million" in 1932. Neither a drop from 600,000 to 420,000 nor from 1.5 million to 420,000 translates to a drop of "millions".

The real tragedy of this article is that I am sympathetic to penguins. I dig penguins. I certainly don't want to see a world without penguins. I am Dr. Geoff's target audience. I especially love baby penguins.

Look at that cute little fucker. How could you not want to preserve that? But now, I'm pissed off. And because of that, it's likely "millions" of penguins will suffer because Dr. Geoff put me off the cause of penguin preservation. I hope you're proud of yourself, Dr. Geoff.