Who did the scaling on that?
It needs to go from -100 to +100.
-80 to +40 is the opposite of beautiful data...
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Its fine to cut the edges of a figure to the range of your data.
You're really saying that you like the crap here on the left?
There is lying with data and then there is lying with data. This ain't lying with data.
The axis are labeled and uniformly scaled. It's fine.
They're just as labeled and ‘uniformly scaled’ as in my example.
Musk's line looks like he's supported by the majority of Republicans.
Net favorability is approval-disapproval. It doesn't necessarily say anything about a majority of everything. It depends on the study design.
You probably arent' going to be convinced this isn't *"lying with data"*™, but in your example, if you were a car guy, which figure would you prefer, the left or the right? The right would be basically useless if you were someone who was in the space and had the context to interpret the figure.
I would prefer a table if I needed the figures that I could use. A bar chart is for a quick comparison by its very nature, and the left one suggests that the Toyota is using four times less fuel than the Honda.
Toyota is using four times less fuel than the Honda.
Only if you didn't read the figure. Which is the point. A car person would never make that mistake.
And I promise, in figure making, we are almost always adjust axis to represent the range of the data. It would be ridiculous not to. It would be a waste of real-estate for any journal or paper. If you are writing a Science paper, you get 5 figures, total. You have to do as much with them as you can. There are plenty of times when we might only adjust in 1/2 of a dimension, but usual its the whole
Thanks for admitting that you make useless charts on which the reader has to read the figures anyway. Hopefully there comes a time when you realize you should've just used tables instead.
admitting that you make useless charts
I mean, if the referees with literally decades of experience doing science communication have a problem with them, I'll change them. I have never had to because I have a basic understanding of what makes a good figure.
If Musk's popularity with the right and, to a lesser extent, Soros' minor approval among ~~center right~~ what passes for a left are anything to go by, it's that United States politics is mostly defined by being contrarian.
Would be interesting to see the numbers for Gabe Newell, he always seems to somehow get away with being a billionaire without getting hated the way most publicly famous billionaires are.
Gabe's crimes :
- Billionaire
- Charges 30% for steam sales
- Cosmetics sold in valve games are the same level of gambling as pokemon cards, due to existence of secondary market.
Zuck's Crimes :
- Violating privacy of every person for all time
- Makes shitty deals with phone manufacturers to shoehorn his shit in there
- Forces people to use whatsapp through network effects.
- biased every election forever, caused resurgence of fascism and brexit.
- Instagram resposible for influencers and self esteem issues in kids.
This might be why.
Don't forget Zuck's genocide in Myanmar. Everyone else did... https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-how-facebook-contributed-to-genocide-in-myanmar-and-why-it-will-not-be-held-accountable/
Gabe also funds some kind of marine research, while Zuck funds his purchases of islands from Hawaii.
But Elon's really popular! He has millions of bots that tell him so on Twitter!
Seams like we are all in agreement except for Elon Musk, let's just split him down the middle and unify the country.