In the same vein, his It Can't Happen Here is also well worth reading, as is Jack London's The Iron Heel. The more things change the more they stay the same.
replyI'm shocked how much the average American knows about how things work. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. I'm not surprised how quickly Americans are giving up their liberty.
reply46% dont even know what America 250 is... Worse 61% of <30 year olds dont' know. Dont like them but here is poll source (while not crazy maga i dont fully trust it's not push-poll or biased question structures wo reading full xtabs): https://www.cato.org/blog/gen-z-fails-basic-civics-quiz-amer...
replya gross percent can't name the 3 branches or their Reps.
Did you mean to say “how little”?
replyHow much and how little are logically equivalent, although in vernacular usage it is of course common to use how little when implying the amount is less than one might expect, and how much to imply the amount is more than one might expect.
replyEnglish is a very context dependent language, so the phrases "surprised by how much" and "surprised by how little" actually have opposite denotations. Mechanically, sure, they're interchangeable, but using the "incorrect" form carries extra connotations. You've used the counterintuitive form, demanding the reader more carefully consider your meaning, which heavily implies you're making a point beyond what appears in the text.
replyIf the second half of that reader engagement doesn't pay off, the sentence reads as clunky or incorrect, likely a mistake from a second language speaker.
Natural languages are not code and words can't be swapped arbitrarily. Word choice and construction carries meaning in and of itself, totally divorced from the actual words used.
Practical communication is not an exercise in logical deduction. The meaning of those terms is not equivalent for exactly the reason you noted.
replyhuman beings are not always perfect communicators, regrettably.
replyLuckily, other humans can 'clear things up' :)