Pareto’s Principle

The first time I heard of the 80/20 rule was when my worldly father said, “20% of the people do 80% of the work while the other 80% of the people do the remaining 20% of the work.” He said it jokingly in response to my complaints about my job, and just incase you were wondering he was lumping me into the later half of that statement. I pressed the issue claiming he was making shit up, but a third party chimed in claiming the Law of 80/20 applies to everything. Everything? It seemed to be a bit of an exaggeration, but the guy assured me “everything” and turned back to his companions. Weird.

So I did a little research. Turns out this old Italian dude, Vilfredo Pareto, noticed that that “80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Later, he discovered that the Pareto Principle was valid in other parts of his life, such as gardening: 80% of his garden peas were produced by 20% of the peapods.” (here) Apparently there’s quite a fanatic following among certain economists’ circles. So I won’t bore you with any of those dry flaky details, but this link is a quick history if you’re interested. I did find the Law of 80/20 permeates too many aspects of existance to be ignored.

Holidays – …81 percent of moms and dads said trick-or-treating is a fun tradition for their kids.” (What about the remaining 19? They’re probably the ones handing out the “Halloween Is Satan’s Holiday” pamphlets.)… Eighty-three percent of kids 6 to 11 cite candy and gum as their favorite treats.

Cooking - We use an 80/20 ratio of deer to pork. We use only 80/20 pork trim, which is roughly 73% lean pork.

Star Trek - The doctor sets up an isolation field around Paris containing 80% nitrogen and 20% acidichloride.

Music - Made from 80% copper, 20% zinc wire wrapped around hex shaped tin plated steel core wire. The most popular acoustic provides a crisp, ringing sound with pleasing overtones.

Porn - …it’s only about twenty per cent of the End Users… who spend enough money on pornography to represent about eighty percent of the total retail income.

Fishing -…80 percent of the fish are in 20 percent of the water.

Coffee - Cafe Macchiato is a shot of espresso (served in a small espresso cup) topped off with steamed milk (of a velvety smooth texture) - the ratio of cafe/latte is approximately 80/20.

Exercise - The threshold between aerobic training and anaerobic training is set at 80% of your maximum heart rate.

Travel - Approximately 80% of reported motorcycle crashes result in injury or death. For automobiles, this is only 20%.

Sports - …21.4% of jockeys … won 80.2% of the races.

Statistics - 80% of all statistical divisions are of the 80/20 split.

So there you have it. Next time I’m rambling and blabbering about a subject I know nothing about I can comfortably toss out fabricated statistics using the numbers 80 and 20 to back me up and present them as uncontestable fact. Did you know that 80% of what I’m saying is true? Seriously, it’s a fact according to this article. Here’s the kicker: I can use everything I’ve just written to back me up in future debates and I will be wrong only 20% of the time. I smart.

Too bad that 80% of all statistics are misrepresented fallacies.
...and so it was written, shenry at 9/20/2002 10:16:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .