I think that if you get added to a big conversation on msn or something, you should always stick around, because 1. Chances are you'll get added again anyway, and 2. You meet some interesting people, even if they're totally different to you, they're worth at least one conversation.

For instance I just picked up a 14 year old kid in a massive mostly townie conversation who likes crap music but knows about politics (I always assumed that no townies actually knew anything about that stuff)

But there's something I don't understand: Why do most people actually fit into the stereotypes that they're given? For instance, most people who like rap music are retards, and lots of people who like rock music and suchlike do seem to be "deeper"(Or more interesting, and better conversationalists anyway) and people who like classical music tend to be smart, and people who are into punk rock type stuff tend to be "rebellious" (God I hate that word). And there are so many other correlations, for instance people who like heavier music are more likely to be depressed and/or self injuring (This could be because they're more intelligent and more likely to realise that the world isn't as happy and simple as townies would have it be)

But then again, I don't seem to come across many beethoven fans who self harm. I think it's just the culture that this music is involved in, not the brain power, the brain power is just a part of the culture itself.

Is what I'm saying making any sense?

Well anyway, people are interesting, I like to meet all different types of people, because then you can make cool observations about them.

You know in maths last year, we had to do a piece of coursework on statistics, and we had to use one schools data, and they had about 1000 pupils from different age ranges, and their IQ scores, and their SAT scores and their GCSE scores and suchlike, and their height and weight and taste in music and favourite colours and all sorts. And we were told to make a piece of statistical coursework out of that data, and I decided to do it comparing IQ scores and musical taste.

I started on it and made some interesting predictions, I was really curious to find out what the results would be, and then my stupid stupid maths teacher suddenly decided that we all had to do it on the same thing. I ended up having to do a piece of coursework on the correlation between the height and weight of students.

And it was the most boring piece of work that I have ever done, and I got a crap grade, but I know that if I'd been able to do it on something that interested me, I would have gotten a much better one. I'm still really curious as to what the results of it would have been.

I guess that would have depended on wherabouts the school was. For example if it was in inner city London, I'd expect the people who liked rap music to be the thickest ones, and have crap standardised test scores, and the people who liked pop music would have crap IQ scores but high standardised test ones, and the people who liked rock to have higher IQ and lowish standardised tests, etc. But if it were taken somewhere more suburban, I'd expect the people who liked rock music to be thicker etc.

That's why you can't trust statistics, because you get completely different results based on where you take them. You can make them say whatever you want them to say. For example, if I want to prove the people of America were for the war in Iraq, I can take the survey in Texas, but if I want to show that they were all totally against it, I can take the survey in.. I don't know.. California?

Same as if I want to prove that Heroin is a completely safe drug, this is going to very much depend on whether I take the survey in a place with impure or pure Heroin, good or bad treatment centres, good or poor access to hospitals, clever or very thick addicts. I mean you will always get variation based on where you take these things, and you can just make statistics say whatever you want them to say, so why even pay any attention to them at all?

Oh statistics are just the work of propaganda lovers.>