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Some silliness I encountered today (a bit of a street debate)

*SD*

Administrator
Staff member
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
I thought this was worth sharing, just to serve as a demonstration of how sloppy peoples thinking can be at times.

This morning, I took my mother shopping, I needed a few bits and pieces so we went together. I always get done before she does so I go wait by the car. I usually park opposite the disabled bays (no particular reason, just habit). I overheard two people looking at the cars in the disabled bays complaining, and generally being disgusted by the fact that most of them were either brand new, or nearly new, and many of them "flash" and expensive, a few BMW's, an Audi A6, you get the picture.

Couldn't really help my self, I approached them and pointed out that just because a person has a disability, this does not preclude them from earning money, and nor should it. What I actually said was "So you think disabled people have to be poor and drive around in shit boxes?"

That was the end of the debate, as quick as that. Why can't people just take a moment to think about their views before settling on a position?!
 
arg-fallbackName="BrachioPEP"/>
Why are black people so ugly? * (See later).

In the attached clip from the classic British comedy, ‘The Young Ones’, Neil is asking about what to write to his bank manager to see if HE will help him. Ric asks Neil, ‘what makes you think that the bank manager is a man?! Neil replies, ‘his beard’. This is an example of political correctness. Ric could have assumed that he knew or at least asked if he knew, so as to ensure the letter is more appropriate. Not that the letter ended up being of much use, had it been sent or not.

I think this raises some interesting points, SD. Especially regarding stereotyping and pre-conceptions, which we all have.

To your very example, it frustrates me a lot too, but for different reasons. I too see a proportionally large amount of upmarket cars parked in disabled parking places. Whilst the thought had crossed my mind about the disproportionate number of disabled people in society, my mind wanders a little deeper, because my conception/experience/knowledge of disabled people and the ones I know do not seem to be richer in general. So my next (if not first) thought is that the disabled parking bays are being used by many people who do not or should not be able to use them. And I have spent a lot of time noting who these people are, building a demographic as they exit or enter their vehicles when I see them.

And my experience is that between 1% and 10% of drivers, ‘seem’ disabled. Maybe they have a more discreet or hidden disability or perhaps it is the passenger. So, should we be so generous? After all, we can’t hide our real feelings from ourselves. I strongly suspect that 90% of disabled parking bays are misused, abused or otherwise taken advantage of in some way. And I have noted a certain demographic of such people, which is not relevant here.

It is not unlike the very recent call in England for all people entering a shop to wear facemasks. There are exceptions for several groups of people. These very rare exceptions make it difficult for shopkeepers or members of the public to challenge those who do not abide, in case they really are the rare exception or are accusede of bias, profiling, prejudice or embarrasing a vulnerable person who only wants to be discreet. But if 50% of people are not wearing a mask, there are clearly (statistically) a lot of abusers, but which ones? A similar thing happened with hoodies. The politically correct media would call bans on hoodies (e.g. at school and in shopping centres) as an attack on freedom and innocence. The criminals were having a hay day. Hiding in plain sight.

In fact this is often a distinguishing feature between left and right. Are most people on benefits cheating the system and sucking it dry and needing harsher vregulations and monitoring or are they only the very rare exceptions, who would be further disadvantaged by such interventioins?

We have our own views on things we cannot know on the outside. If a facially tattoed man in a denim jacket with a Rotweiller, chains and aggressive walk approaches you, you might well feel for intimidated (or have pre-conceptions about his intentions) than a smart young female doctor with a smile. But life isn’t so black and white and we are entitled to make judgements on our experience. It’s part of evolution and survival. The trusting elderly are deliberately targeted because of their honesty and trustworthiness of others.

With the current BLM put aside, police use profiling based on their experience and hard statistics. If most criminals fit a stereotype, then it is not a stereotype and there probably aren’t bucket loads of untapped hell’s grannies invading our streets.

Back to disabled bays. There are too damn many! They occupy over 40% of my local Tesco, which is totally unrepresentative of society and in my view, encourages abuse. Better to have a proportionate number and clear signs, asking anyone to report/photograph any vehicle not displaying THIS (picture included) badge.

It is my (subjective, personal) view/experience, having travelled the world a lot, that black people tend to be more attractive/beautiful than whites. At this point, ask yourself if this statement seems prejudiced if so/not, how does it compare to the title? And what is the difference? My view may be due to a range of reasons. Personal preference (like hair colour, accents etc.), having known different groups or people and taking a biased view based on a small sample of people you liked (which might have been different if you had met different people). Maybe the dark skin colour makes them look more alike as the features/shadows are more hidden from scrutiny. Maybe there is less genetic feature variance. Or maybe there is some other scientific evidence to explain it, or maybe it is entirely imaginary and just by bias or preference.

Based on experience, (my justification) I am very often biased towards those who use disabled parking bays. They come with baggage which tells me more than a guess or bias would. There are pieces which can be joined up. And we have to join pieces, otherwise we would be up for a Darwin award. Search, 'Darwin awards'!

In this clip, watch the 8 seconds from 1:27 to 1:35 (or enjoy the whole short clip):

 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
And my experience is that between 1% and 10% of drivers, ‘seem’ disabled. Maybe they have a more discreet or hidden disability or perhaps it is the passenger. So, should we be so generous? After all, we can’t hide our real feelings from ourselves. I strongly suspect that 90% of disabled parking bays are misused, abused or otherwise taken advantage of in some way. And I have noted a certain demographic of such people, which is not relevant here.

This is a perfect example of the toupee fallacy.
 
arg-fallbackName="BrachioPEP"/>
"It is not unlike the very recent call in England for all people entering a shop to wear facemasks. There are exceptions for several groups of people. These very rare exceptions make it difficult for shopkeepers or members of the public to challenge those who do not abide, in case they really are the rare exception or are accusede of bias, profiling, prejudice or embarrasing a vulnerable person who only wants to be discreet. But if 50% of people are not wearing a mask, there are clearly (statistically) a lot of abusers, but which ones?"

I would add that a supermarket with 40% disabled parking bays always full, but less than a 1% population of such people is a strong and real indicator of abuse. I think it is the fact that it is not being acknowledge or addressed that annoys some, when it clearly could be dealt with quickly, easily and for free. But is it in supermakets' interests?

If you were told that 99% of all people in your shop were known thieves, would you ignore that statistic and give everyone the benefit of the doubt for the sake of one good person and risk a half empty shop when they all leave? There is a co9nflict between practical, theory and political correctness and reality of how we havev been raised and perceive things.

Toupee fallacy:

Claim: Most cars parked in disabled parking bays are likely (or statistically) abusing the privilege.

Observation: I have rarely seen a disabled person parked in one, (based on certain suppositions about disability which could be missing information) yet they are full of cars.

Anomaly: If we assume that most or all of those cars were hidden disabilities and/or lost/missing disabled badges not displayed, then the legitimacy of statistics seems to be challenged. Why are the bays all so full if there are so few actual disabled drivers or occupants? We can feel free to just accept this or ignore it, but life is real and complex and has experiences like old or ill people having to park a long way away from a store because they are honest and this upsets some people that care.

I am sure if you were told that women hardly ever use a shopping centre, but you went in every day at different times are rarely saw a woman in a full shopping centre, you would question something.

This does cover/override the fallacy you elude to.

It is more a case of knowing that there is a serious and demonstrable anomaly, but not having a way to identify it. If all fat people say they have a medical issue (in order to evade health or diet) which makes them fat, and yet medical stats say that only 0.7% of people are susceptible to that category, (and we don't see fat people in countries with starvation) then 99.3% of people are lying and hiding in plain sight, behind an excuse and the fact that no-one will challenge them is a dream to evade responsibility. Governments have been criticised for being too trusting in lots of things, making it irresponsible with public money, but we don't want to be an Orwelian state or make life even harder for the vulnerable and honest folk.

Perhaps my suggestion above (to make the public clear about what badge is acceptable in order to park and encourage people to report or photograph cars) deals with that particular issue.

I do not promote public humiliation, and encourage mutually agreeable ways of dealing with issues and asdding laws if needed.

I wonder if readers also feel that disabled parking slots are abused by people or if it is just me and maybe nobody else questions it.
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
If you were told that 99% of all people in your shop were known thieves, would you ignore that statistic and give everyone the benefit of the doubt for the sake of one good person and risk a half empty shop when they all leave? There is a co9nflict between practical, theory and political correctness and reality of how we havev been raised and perceive things.

Toupee fallacy:

Claim: Most cars parked in disabled parking bays are likely (or statistically) abusing the privilege.

Observation: I have rarely seen a disabled person parked in one, (based on certain suppositions about disability which could be missing information) yet they are full of cars.

[Emphesis added]

That is not the toupee fallacy. The fallacy is you thinking that you can identify people with disabilities based on your criteria, yet never actually running a test to verify that this is true. Thus, we do not know how many people with disabilities or lack of disabilities are using those spaces, but you still have a strong opinion about it anyways.

The thing is, you could be right. However, to pretend that you know this without verifying your opinion is where the fallacy lies.

The funny thing about this is your shoplifting example. You realize that to have accurate statistics, one has to base the numbers off real numbers. Thus, your example has no relation to what you are trying to demonstrate. This has nothing to do with "practical, theory and political correctness and reality" and everything to do with your poor reasoning.
 
arg-fallbackName="BrachioPEP"/>
I apologise in advance for my failures in succinctness and respect azny patience you care to offer me.

As I understand the argument that you are presenting and then going on to criticise my logic with.

I’m really trying to buy into your logic here and I so want to find my or any other errors in reasoning. I am so open to being wrong, being put right and learning new stuff. But this is the best I could think of. I have tried to steel man you and feel free to correct me. If I represent you correctly, you are not reading what I wrote (but there is a lot to go through I admit). If I misrepresent you, please correct me.

With the original toupee fallacy, it is the failure (e.g. of a man) to recognise a good toupee and how many there might be, that is the flaw. He is selecting from just what the ones he thinks he knows (which are all rubbish), so he is only including the dodgy ones he spots and assumes they are all the toupees there are, when in fact there may be many more which he simply does not know about or recognise and so account for.

In my case, (disabled parking) I have a pre-conception that there are a lot less disabled people in cars that I notice being parked in disabled parking bays as everyone seems to walk out healthily, that I conclude that many of the cars are in fact not belonging or being driven or, ‘passengered’ by disabled people and are parked illegitimately.

Your criticism based on the toupee fallacy is that I do not know who anyone in any of the cars actually are, so can make no judgement or criticism of them or their ability, because I simply do not know this or them, and am therefore being prejudiced and ignorant and presenting a bad argument.

That is how I understand how you see it, and if I see it like that, you are right and I am wrong. But Im don’t see it or present it like that at all.



If I were to use the toupee man in my example, it would look something like this. Please note where my information/logic comes from and how it therefore rejects any toupee fallacy as relevant:

According to statistics, a man discovers that 80% of middle to older aged men wear toupee’s. He notices that only about 10% of hair in this age group of people actually look like toupees (i.e. look rubbish/obvious fakes). He then draws the conclusion (from the stats, not prejudice or pre-conceptions or mere observations) that most middle or older aged men wear good/unnoticeable hair pieces.

He (and the statistics) could be wrong and every man could have their real hair. And who is he to judge these men? Well he is not judging anyone. He is simply aligning statistics with reality of observation. If the stats are right, his conclusion is right, even though he cannot pick out a single man who definitely has hair, a good or a bad toupee.

Back to the car park, and repeating what I have already stated. My conclusions were stated and based entirely upon statistics compared to observation. I openly recognised that I could not identify with any certainty, any single person as being able bodied or disabled or owning a parking badge, and to judge any individual would be wrong, no matter how obvious any individual may appear to be taking advantage. The only point I was making was this statistical one. Statistically where I live, a lot less than 1% of cars or people are disabled car badge holders. A specific car park which has 40% slots for disabled parking is constantly full at all times. Any further observations are irrelevant, it is logical to assume and claim (with no further information) that the car park is being abused. There is no individual judgements, just a general one.

There could potentially be an exceptionally large number of disabled outsiders visiting this particular store for some reason, nothing is impossible (and I never made a blanket claim that I know anything), but this is a claim based on what is known, not from anything that is not known or mere observation.

I do not see how the toupee fallacy fits in this case. You would need a very strong shoehorn and a soft shoe to make it fit, unless I have missed something. It fits much better (but not well) with the OPs example of prejudice I’d say.
 
arg-fallbackName="he_who_is_nobody"/>
I apologise in advance for my failures in succinctness and respect azny patience you care to offer me.

As I understand the argument that you are presenting and then going on to criticise my logic with.

I’m really trying to buy into your logic here and I so want to find my or any other errors in reasoning. I am so open to being wrong, being put right and learning new stuff. But this is the best I could think of. I have tried to steel man you and feel free to correct me. If I represent you correctly, you are not reading what I wrote (but there is a lot to go through I admit). If I misrepresent you, please correct me.

Sounds good

With the original toupee fallacy, it is the failure (e.g. of a man) to recognise a good toupee and how many there might be, that is the flaw. He is selecting from just what the ones he thinks he knows (which are all rubbish), so he is only including the dodgy ones he spots and assumes they are all the toupees there are, when in fact there may be many more which he simply does not know about or recognise and so account for.

In my case, (disabled parking) I have a pre-conception that there are a lot less disabled people in cars that I notice being parked in disabled parking bays as everyone seems to walk out healthily, that I conclude that many of the cars are in fact not belonging or being driven or, ‘passengered’ by disabled people and are parked illegitimately.

Your criticism based on the toupee fallacy is that I do not know who anyone in any of the cars actually are, so can make no judgement or criticism of them or their ability, because I simply do not know this or them, and am therefore being prejudiced and ignorant and presenting a bad argument.

That is how I understand how you see it, and if I see it like that, you are right and I am wrong.

You still are not getting the toupee fallacy. The fallacy is one believing they are correct based on their criterion without verifying this to be the case. That is, one knowing who is and is not wearing a wig based on how they think toupees look or one knowing that accessible parking spaces are abused because they know two stats. In either case, the person making a claim has not verified the claim, yet still believes it is a fact.

But Im don’t see it or present it like that at all.

Yes, you do.

If I were to use the toupee man in my example, it would look something like this. Please note where my information/logic comes from and how it therefore rejects any toupee fallacy as relevant:

According to statistics, a man discovers that 80% of middle to older aged men wear toupee’s. He notices that only about 10% of hair in this age group of people actually look like toupees (i.e. look rubbish/obvious fakes). He then draws the conclusion (from the stats, not prejudice or pre-conceptions or mere observations) that most middle or older aged men wear good/unnoticeable hair pieces.

He (and the statistics) could be wrong and every man could have their real hair. And who is he to judge these men? Well he is not judging anyone. He is simply aligning statistics with reality of observation. If the stats are right, his conclusion is right, even though he cannot pick out a single man who definitely has hair, a good or a bad toupee.

You still are not understanding it, and I think this comes with your poor understanding of how statistics work. Beyond that, the point of me pointing out the toupee fallacy in your reasoning has nothing to do with statistics, but everything to do with you believing that you based on nothing more than your intuition knows the correct answer to this and do not have to investigate it any further. That is the fallacy, in a nutshell, believing you are right without further investigation.

Back to the car park, and repeating what I have already stated. My conclusions were stated and based entirely upon statistics compared to observation. I openly recognised that I could not identify with any certainty, any single person as being able bodied or disabled or owning a parking badge, and to judge any individual would be wrong, no matter how obvious any individual may appear to be taking advantage. The only point I was making was this statistical one. Statistically where I live, a lot less than 1% of cars or people are disabled car badge holders. A specific car park which has 40% slots for disabled parking is constantly full at all times.

First off, you need to provide citations for your statistics. Second, you are making huge leaps of logic.

Just taking you at your word, the place you are frequenting has 40% of its spaces reserved for handicap parking. That suggests to me that for whatever reason, they get more traffic for whatever reason from people that are disabled. It could also be the case that because people are disabled, they take longer, so they need more spaces because even though there are fewer of them, they occupy those spaces for more time. It could also be the case that abled bodied people more often than not walk or ride a bike to that place. These are factors that could be affecting the numbers of people needing spaces that I thought of in just a few minutes. To be able to use statistics properly, one needs to be able to account for all factors. Otherwise, it is just garbage in; garbage out.

Above is what I was talking about earlier with your poor understanding of statistics. Assuming that your stats are correct, one still cannot use them to make a blanket statement about everything in an area because many other factors go into calculating useful statistics for any given location.

Any further observations are irrelevant, it is logical to assume and claim (with no further information) that the car park is being abused. There is no individual judgements, just a general one.

There could potentially be an exceptionally large number of disabled outsiders visiting this particular store for some reason, nothing is impossible (and I never made a blanket claim that I know anything), but this is a claim based on what is known, not from anything that is not known or mere observation.

And there is your problem, believing that with just two numbers you can delineate what should be happing in any given parking lot. That is just wrong. More observation would be needed for any statistics to be relevant to this example. Above, I pointed out just a few considerations that would skew the numbers, and that was with me just thinking about it for a few minutes.

I do not see how the toupee fallacy fits in this case. You would need a very strong shoehorn and a soft shoe to make it fit, unless I have missed something. It fits much better (but not well) with the OPs example of prejudice I’d say.

You are using two numbers to derive an answer that fits your preconceived notion without verifying its correctness, and you do not see how the toupee fallacy fits?
 
arg-fallbackName="BrachioPEP"/>
Hi, He who is nobody. You can skip down to, 'Other' if you like to save time. You can refer to anything else if needed. If there is further need to communicate on this, perhaps we can just focus on key points for time sake. I must surely be speaking to myself as much as anyone on this! I don't want to evade anything but do want to move on, too, as I imagine you do too.

Several problems to address or overcome.

I think there are several problems here, from talking past each other, ignoring the elephant in the room, omitting issues, not reading the prior response, not understanding logical fallacies and misunderstanding or misrepresenting the other.



I will try to deal more specifically and formally/regimented with these.

If/where I repeat or quote, it is because I feel it has been missed, accidentally or otherwise.

Elephant in the room/Political correctness.

The Ops observation and point.

The OP made a reflective observation about the use of disabled car parking spaces. His point was that (from his observations), some people jumped to the conclusion that certain users of the slots were likely not disabled because there were so many expensive cars. This assumed that drivers or occupants were likely not disabled BECAUSE they guessed that disabled people were not societally largely owners of more expensive cars than the rest of us. That person may well be right, but it is not based on anything except a preconception unsupported by evidence to reflect/concur the observation. So, a candidate for an argument from ignorance (e.g. toupee fallacy). To clarify so as not to have to deal with this for a third time, it can come under this fallacy only because it is based on ignorance and assumptions.

Argument from ignorance (subset, toupee fallacy) cannot be relevant if based on evidence rather than ignorance.

If one bases ones conclusion on evidence (which the ignorance argument does not), then it is not valid. The conclusion of the observation I made was as a result of statistics, which you say I do not understand very well and were incomplete. Of course the statistics were incomplete. Virtually every possible set of stats are imperfect because they cannot account for every single variation or factor. When Yougov does a poll to anticipate election results, it is usually largely correct. It is not perfect because it cannot account for all scenarios. But if 4.3% of the population have badges (2.7% where I live) and a carpark has 40% slots for them and they so often seem so full,

Everything ever polled or given is short on some stats, but this is not an excuse to ignore them if credible or likely. Otherwise what do we base life nad decisions on?

I used numerous extreme examples to drive this point home. This is where practise/reality crosses over with theory/true Scotsman. If 99% of all murders were statistically by over 90 year olds, then I am arguing that the average person would be justified in crossing the road when they see a very old person. Of course, that person could be innocent and statistically (if there are only 5 murders per year and 100,000 very old people) it is very unlikely that that old person is likely a murderer. But if there were 100,000 murders per year and only 5 very old people, this is reasonable to be wary.

We are human, stats are imperfect, but largely right and reasonable to make judgements on.

Political correctness and anti-profiling comes into it, and an old person would argue in a court that the reputation puts them in bad light, but we are human. We have to deal with reasonable prejudice or we become Darwin award candidates (like trusting old people I mentioned previously). To survive and live reasonably and safely, we need to make decisions based on what we think is statistically accurate. It is not perfect, but:

your position seems to be that

unless all facts or stats are known, we cannot or should not judge or make decisions. Well in an ideal world, this may be right, how do we attain perfection of stat results to cater for every scenario?

Observation is a powerful force in us.

We trust our eyes/senses. If we hear a loud bang behind us, it may be a gunman, a dropped box, superman landing or a firework or whatever. With no further information, we instinctively jump and assume the worst, because it is evolutionarily safer. It might not pass or fit well with an argument/reaction from ignorance, but (again, being realistic which was a strong post point), theory diverges from imperfect reality.

And in the car park, providing you base your conclusions on sound evidence (like statistics and not ignorance, assumptions or prejudice), that is fair enough and the results down to how well read or studied you may be on the wider issue.

Of course, you may argue that it is the issue that many people do not know what they don’t know and however right they think they are, they are/may be wrong and be ignorant and be vulnerable to the ignorance (or toupee) fallacy. And you would be right.

Our contention may seem to boil down to statistics on this. I argue that my stats are sound and very likely to be trustworthy and any divergence or other scenarios will not effect the results much, so my conclusion is valid, even if it is possibly wrong by some unexpected factor.

I draw your attention to the human factor and where we draw the line between quick prejudicial judgements with little thought and considered statistical or other evidence based considerations. Because there are countless scenarios or situations that you and I have been in whereby we made judgements, rightly or wrongly. And this aspect was inextricably linked to any fallacy.

Even if you remove all human feelings and use robotic definitions of fallacies (if that is your purpose), I equally reject it for the reasons given. That an evidence based judgement was made and not an emotive or ignorant one, EVEN if I had not fully accounted for all stats. If we go down that road, then (statistically) Elvis might land on the head of the loch ness monster on Christmas day.



Omitting issues.

“Maybe they have a more discreet or hidden disability or perhaps it is the passenger”.

Talking past one another.

You have argued that I have a poor understanding of statistics, i.e. that many other factors could affect the situation (like coming from other locations or spending longer inside). Well ANYTHING is possible of course, but it is fallacious in itself to argue that we cannot make reasonable assumptions unless all the likely data is considered. If this is the case in your view, then ALL arguments are toupeed. In which case, you win and I technically concede.

Not reading prior responses or understanding or addressing explanations or examples given.

Cherry picked scenarios and ignoring my own or acknowledgement of them.

You felt you needed to give some examples of extenuating circumstances that might account for a larger than average number of disabled people coming to the supermarket and you went to some length to stress that you have thought of just some in a short while. You cherry picked only examples that increased the number (implying unjustified bias for the disabled position) without explanation, e.g. not offering alternative explanations to show less would counter this. Also, you failed to explain why you did so at all, given that I had already shown this and included numerous exceptions already. Perhaps you just wanted to weight the case more strongly, but in order to be fair on this, you’d need to counter balance opposite examples for which there are many.

Not understanding logical fallacies or how they apply.

This goes back to the fact that a conclusion based on strong evidence negates an argument from ignorance or any such motive for bias or prejudice.

Misunderstanding or misrepresenting the other.

See, ‘other’.

Other.

I have just noticed on re-reading my first two posts, that I haven’t actually included the stats that I am basing my argument on and talked about later. That is the very low percentage of badge holders in my area (2.7% of people but much lower given other commercial factors) with the number of disabled places (40% in the main car park). I cannot understand how or why it is not included. I use it to argue my point (that strong stats/evidence negate an argument from ignorance) and I think I imply or state that you missed it, but I have not included it. For that I must apologise and until I mentioned it, I concede that your case is valid and it appeared little more acceptable than the Ops example.

But after I mentioned stats, you still seem to think I have missed the point, but I may be wrong. But most of what I want to say is covered in this post.

Perhaps the question could be, ‘to what extent should one give leeway or when should one intervene/challenge/question, based on evidence.’ And I think the answer is that such evidence needs to be more widely (and not subjectively) accepted as reasonable. This will help exclude the likelihood of the toupee fallacy and make it reasonable, if not conclusive a judgement or conclusion. At least until or unless further information comes to light.

In a coconut shell.

I felt that you were taking it too seriously and missing the human element. Stereotyping and political correctness in the post are issues to be addressed. And also being literal or unwaiving in making claims, means no stats or evidence can ever really be secure, if/as such huge unlikely-hoods are to be considered, e.g. yes, maybe there is a secret close-by city full of disabled badge holders who use it (in which case, you could gracefully concede, but no typical person would be expected to consider such things when making decisions or asking questions. If that is the range of a toupee fallacy, you can keep that). A supposed thief, running out of a store may be an actor in a film, but if we were to always be so willing to consider the very best in people in the extreme, thieves would surely love it. But my point on this is that you are not considering the human factor. That we weigh things up quickly in making decisions and tend to exclude the highly unlikely, we can actually function. And I think if you polled people about if they think the bays are abused, you would get a large majority thinking they are, but THIS could well be a toupee BECAUSE it is based on nothing of real relevance, even if you agreed with me about the likely consensus. I refer you to numerous other examples I used, like the 99% stat claim of women in a shopping centre not being a reflection of your experience to which you would make a judgement comparing observation with stats and challenging your senses or the stats. You don’t need to go and proclaim a lie, you could merely raise the matter and seek possible explanations.

I didn’t supply any supporting stats due to the general nature of the discussion.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
In my case, (disabled parking) I have a pre-conception that there are a lot less disabled people in cars that I notice being parked in disabled parking bays as everyone seems to walk out healthily, that I conclude that many of the cars are in fact not belonging or being driven or, ‘passengered’ by disabled people and are parked illegitimately.

I grew up in the UK on an estate specifically for disabled people, thereby living around disabled people all my young life. I think you're missing a key point. Yes: disabled parking spots are (ab)used by people who aren't disabled - in much the same way people routinely break other laws - but the rather more important point is that all disabled people use those disabled parking spots which provide a vital life-line to engage in society more equitably with able-bodied people.

As an aside, I've never in my life seen a car park that has 40% of its spots devoted to disabled usage.
 
arg-fallbackName="BrachioPEP"/>
“Yes: disabled parking spots are (ab)used by people who aren't disabled - in much the same way people routinely break other laws”

Good. We agree, and we could go on to discuss the many other abuses in society.

Your (emotional) point about the need for disabled parking moved the goalposts to another country. IF there's 40% disabled parking slots in a location with less than 5% disabled badges, I am arguing that it looks like political correctness gone mad (but it is up to the owner/supermarket) and whilst there may be numerous exceptional circumstances which push figures up (or down), the addition of such regular experience certainly supports my contention beyond doubt for me. It has expanded to electric slot parking (has anyone noticed?). Parking specifically for electric cars taken by non-electric cars. There may be exceptional circumstances to each one, but the logical implication seems to be more obvious, and if that is wrong, I plead guilty of what I think is a natural observation based on information without access to all of the facts, but not likely or reasonable facts that mostb people would consider). Maybe this is a fallacy of ignorance.

In the car park I am talking about, it could be argued that more than 40% of slots are for disabled parking, depending on how one counts it. I also agree that most car parks have a lower percentage, but still disproportionate, which to me (see below) affects disabled users more than anyone.

The use of disabled parking (or disabled access to community) was never mentioned or challenged as a problem (not sure why you wanted to promote their rights), but that they are over represented, which people (as a result of knowing this) take advantage of and thus prevent many disabled people from parking closer and this in turn infuriates other drivers who are more law abiding. I also offered a solution reegarding the clear display of badges.

https://assets.publishing.service.g.../681760/blue-badge-scheme-statistics-2017.pdf
 

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