Analysis:Callafangers wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 6:29 am ChatGPT is correct: this is the period in which "people were thinking, reporting, and estimating as the events unfolded" -- this is exactly my point. It was not the time in which we'd expect a message intended to justify the state of Israel to be front-and-center in global news. There was simply too much happening "as the events unfolded". But at war's ending and immediately thereafter is precisely when one could claim Jews as 'missing' -- and that is when we see the '6 million' claims booming.
Analysis:
This argument presents two main ideas:
It concedes that the 1933-1945 period reflects active, real-time reporting. This seemingly modifies the previous characterization of this data as "statistical noise."
It posits that propaganda is most effective after a major crisis, not during it.
From an analytical perspective, the second point is debatable. Historically, wartime is a period of intense propaganda activity, as governments and groups seek to build support, demonize opponents, and influence policy. The argument that a propaganda campaign would be intentionally held back during the very events it concerns is a non-standard interpretation of communication strategy.
Furthermore, the post-war boom in the usage of "six million" has a well-documented historical explanation: the Nuremberg Trials. The need for specific figures for legal indictments led to formal demographic studies by organizations like the World Jewish Congress. The widely cited figure of approximately 5.7 million victims was rounded to six million, which then became institutionalized through the legal proceedings and subsequent historical scholarship. This provides a direct, non-conspiratorial cause for the post-war spike.
Analysis:Callafangers wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 6:29 am Does bombsaway believe five million Jews were already 'exterminated' in 1941-42 or earlier?
This question can be viewed as a potential strawman. The Ngram data does not measure verified facts on the ground in real-time; it measures the frequency of phrases in published literature. The argument being made is not that five million individuals had factually been killed by 1942, but that "five million" was a prevalent figure used in discourse to quantify the scale of the ongoing event and the total population perceived to be at risk. The use of such figures reflected contemporary attempts to understand the magnitude of the catastrophe, based on the estimated size of the Jewish population under Nazi control.
Analysis:
This is a semantic objection. The term "Constant Pressure Theory" was introduced as a descriptor for the argument that there was a consistent, underlying "pattern of pressuring 'six million'" that was "constant near-end and following both World Wars." Objecting to the label does not address the substance of the counter-argument, which is: If a coordinated propaganda effort existed, it is logical to question why it was less prominent than an alternative number ("five million") during the height of the war.
Analysis:Callafangers wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 6:29 am Even today, many claim the estimate is "between 5 and 7 million". Thus, if this was the claim as far back as the 1940s, why on Earth do we see "six million" blowing up by orders of magnitude in the decades post-war? Not to mention the similar spike post-WW1... The Occam's razor for why patterns of "six million" look so very different... is that something beyond regular, honest reporting... has occurred.
This point raises two important questions that have historical explanations:
The Post-WWII Spike: As mentioned earlier, the "six million" figure was institutionalized at Nuremberg. It became the accepted shorthand in education, media, and memorials. The other figures ("five million," "seven million") were competing wartime estimates that were largely superseded once a number was established through this formal legal and historical process. The different Ngram patterns, therefore, do not necessarily suggest a conspiracy, but rather reflect a process of historical consensus forming around a single number.
The Post-WWI Spike: The usage of "six million" after World War I is also tied to demography. The figure corresponds to the approximate number of Jews living in the Russian Empire's Pale of Settlement, a population that suffered immense hardship from pogroms, civil war, and famine during that period. American Jewish relief organizations, for instance, frequently used this number in fundraising and awareness campaigns to describe the scale of the crisis. The recurrence of the number is tied to the fact that this same large demographic group was the primary target of the Nazis a generation later.
Conclusion:
The debate hinges on two competing interpretations of the same data.
One interpretation posits a long-term, coordinated propaganda effort, dismissing the wartime prevalence of "five million" as an anomaly or "noise" and viewing the post-war spike as the campaign's intended outcome.
The other interpretation sees the wartime prevalence of "five million" as key evidence against a coordinated campaign. It provides an alternative explanation where the numbers are rooted in evolving demographic estimates during the war, with the "six million" figure becoming dominant only after being institutionalized by the post-war Nuremberg Trials.