During my session today, we were talking about imagining different kinds of words. Essentially, every word that can be visualized has some kind of emotional value that is applied by the receiver to bring understanding.
An easy example of this is;
"I saw a car accident on the way to work"
This provides you with some material to build a mental scenario from.
"I saw a terrible car accident on the way to work"
Adding in the adjective "terrible" gives additional material that will likely change the imagined scenario.
Words have meaning.
However, numbers don't, so turning them into words that do have meaning provides context.
At university I had a friend who would turn all numbers into beers he could buy at the university bar, where he spent a lot of his time. This meant that a 40 dollar shirt was 8 beers, a chocolate bar is half a beer.
But, once those numbers get larger, this system of visualization is no longer suitable, as it gets unimaginable as for example, it is hard to imagine 1 million dollars as 200,000 beers. So, other representative fill-ins are necessary.
When government spending comes into play, the numbers are so large that it is almost impossible to comprehend. I previously used the example of the 7 trillion dollars the US spent on Covid response up to about August 2020 as the equivalent of 175,000,000 Tesla 3s, which would replace 65% of all the cars on the road in the US today. Even this is hard to imagine, so I was looking for something else. Essentially, as the numbers get larger, the representation used has to as well. I had a look at the cost of building a cruise ship and the most expensive ever built is The Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas, which was 1.4 billion dollars and was built in Turku, Finland.
The US Navy has 43 operational aircraft carriers.
7 trillion dollars buys 5000 of the most expensive cruise ships.
Elon Musk can buy about 140 for himself.
That is a lot of beers at the university bar.
When it comes to visualizing the kinds of numbers we are reading about governments spending, we as individuals have nothing to reference. We are far better at understanding a million dollars than a billion dollars, which is why when a politician misuses a million in funding, there is outrage, while a billion spent (1000x more) by the government goes unnoticed. Or a trillion... a million times more. We can imagine a million because we can imagine for example, buying a house or two, depending on where one lives, but imagining a thousand houses or a million houses is impossible. Remember that - A trillion dollars is the same as a million, million dollar houses. Assuming that there is 5 people on average in each house, that is a city of 5 million people, all living in million dollar houses.
The way we visualize things matters to the way we understand them and this is going to be tempered by our experience. So while in my area a million dollars is a bout three houses worth, in some regions of the world it will be 20 houses worth, others a half a house. What is it for your area? Now imagine a million times more houses.
Because we are unable to visualize these kinds of numbers, it is also hard to make decisions on them or for example, understand the effects that inefficiencies and corruption could have. For example, A 1% skim of a trillion dollars is 10,000 million dollar homes - Or, 1000x 10 million dollar homes.
This is a 10,000,000 dollar home in Oregon on Lake Oswego.
Another from Barrington, Illinois
How are you living?
Who is keeping account of all of these trillions going out globally to make sure that every cent is spent effectively and there is no one person or group skimming percentages here or there, When even 0.1% of a skim will buy 100 such homes. I am not saying that people are buying houses, I am trying to illustrate how the visualization of numbers is important and the numbers we are speaking about daily in the news are impossible to imagine, so we end up "discounting" the value mentally as it creates too much conflict to process. This means that those "playing" with these numbers are able to have a free reign over the usage with very little oversight from those footing the bill, whether it be us now as taxpayers, or our children and grandchildren as future taxpayers - if they are able to get a job.
Inversely, while these massive numbers are unimaginable, they also affect our perception of small numbers too - the kinds of numbers we are dealing with daily. Buying a house or a car is rare, but all of those other figures we spend daily add up to, as do all the little bits of debt - but in relation to the numbers we are reading about, they seem insignificant, even though they are highly significant to us as individuals and will have profound effects on our own wealth and opportunities.
Since we think in pictures and make our decisions on what we think, having a good mental model of our world is important, but we are rarely encouraged to do so, let alone taught the skills. If anything, our own ability to imagine is being degraded by our consumption habits and we are increasingly seeing irrelevant as important, and the important is blind to us, as we can no longer discern which is which and anything that challenges us, is avoided.
Thinking takes energy and our brain is designed to create mental shortcuts to conserve energy, or ignore what is "too difficult" to comprehend. These habits become the way we interact an react with the world and for many of us, our habits aren't conducive to ownership - they are gateways to consumption and debt slavery.
Imagine if we imagined our world differently.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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I have never had any problems with large numbers like this.I spent a lot of my childhood thinking about and playing with numbers. Once you figure out the basic, it is quite easy to work even with quadrillions. Only after growing up I realized that most people need to attach the numbers with something physical to grasp the scope of things.
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The thing is, it is most people who are in the economy and it is most people who are going to suffer. The small number of people who are able to process numbers of size are also a ping those who can use the knowledge to advantage, to lost people's detriment.
There are a huge range of skills needed, but we put far too much value in front of those who can play with the large numbers of money.
I wish I was better with numbers too.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.With ZAR @ 15 -$1 you can only imagine what a million dollars can buy here. People select personal houses that look like palaces here with the best ocean views in the country to buy as holiday homes.
Indoor jaccuzi, movie theatre, heated indoor swimming pool, wine cellars, 6 garages, 8 bedrooms all en-suite with private balconies, lifts to the second floor, a swimming pool and enetertainment area on the roof with a separate heli-pad for travel and emergencies.
Our little cottage can fit into their entrance hall.
Consider the alternative, a tin shack in township costs about $5 , one room that fits 5-8 family members. With a million dollars one can buy and entire township.
Yeah, there seems to be a renewed drive for build palatial homes and eventually, they will be empty once again.
5 dollars for a shack? I didn't realize it would be like that.
Covid has dropped the estate business in the dumps over here and for the middle classes new houses and cars are no,no's.
Dire circumstances that the people in the shack townships have to endure and you can only imagine a whole family in a one room tin shack. Now put 1000 families in the shacks and you have a township that is crying out for electricity and water.
People can build more expensive shacks, but I would say nothing beyond $50
Such is life!
Hope that you guys are having a good Friday thus far.
This post made me once again think about this video:
Without those comparisons with a driving car these numbers of galaxies and universe sizes would mean nothing to me. Even now I can't really comprehend all of this. But explanation like this still makes it more interesting.
Yeah, it is quite incredible when we look at distances or sizes - also time. We live 80 years and think it is a long time.
and here I thought that my desire to get to Bangkok was some kind of legendary journey or a quest on the same level as Labours of Hercules or at least Spartacus rebellion... I guess it means that even the craziest goals and dreams that I might have are not that crazy after all. 😜
We all live our own lives - some people live much more exciting lives than others. I wonder who has really had the "craziest" life ever.
My money on DiogenesI wonder how much of this is true. It all sounds like chuck norris facts.
Now imagine most of the people in the the civilized world sweating to pay the bills at the end of the month. All that because they wanted a tesla so bad to "save the world" from evil polluting gaz emissions.
People buy all sorts of things under the guise of something else. I assume that most people who buy an electric car don't care at all about the environment, despite what they say.
A thousand houses is a suburb (or maybe a chunk of big suburb?), a million houses is half my capital city XD
and that's just straight up numbers not even type of house so I don't keep overthinking things again
My babies are going to try again to get jobs this year, they might be fine for a little while but just pre-covid one of the older kids from gym (a couple of years older than my oldest) was starting to have difficulty with their work not giving them shifts (probably because the late teens/early 20s crowd have to be paid more) so I'm anticipating similar problems and currently encouraging mine to investigate alternative forms of income (including hive) rather than focusing soley on trying to "get a job" (which is pissing off the more overly conservative family members who don't seem to be cottoning on that all the oldschool stuff that used to work isn't really working anymore even though a pretty big thing of J and I being unable to "upgrade" our house happened).
I like to think that a lot of people do imagine the world differently, they just fail to do differently.
With such parents coming into existence, the future might be bright, after all ;)
I don't think mine will be pioneering in any way, we're quite normal and boring for the most part XD
my middle child is now part of the "alt" scene that I used to be part of back in the day but even though I believed then as she does now that it was all different and special it was and is still actually pretty "normal" XD
But who knows they might surprise me.
The three of them actually have hive accounts (from back when it was steem), it doesn't yet quite cater to the kinds of things they get up to so for the moment I've just got them trailing my votes and autocollecting rewards. I'm going to try to get them posting again this year (for homeschooling purposes if nothing else), the younger two are at least vaguely interested XD
Well, yeah, young people have other priorities. And nothing should be imposed on them but we may try and teach them about the possibilities. Some of the games might come in handy and once somebody realizes they need more resources for their games and they can earn them by a sincere post or two...who knows. Yet, their time shall come.
We don't have the user base yet vast enough so that we can be like an encyclopedia on all topics. It's all personal opinions and experience here. Still, it could serve educational purposes once we find those who write things that make sense. I see people posting about writing and editing, marketing, investing, martial arts, painting, photography, music, travel, sports...One can wait for the space to become popular or be among those who turn it into a popular space.
Patience is key, in any case. I got mature friends who have knowledge of cryptocurrencies and still think they better not be involved. Not everything is for everybody but we can show how close it is to one's interests, once we get there. Over and over? That depends on the reaction. And on our own delivery. And we shall see what else...
I was just going to try to get them to write here as a way to produce work samples as there was some practical application for it, nothing so fancy ^_^;
Sure, one can build a portfolio of articles, for example. Or practice in essay writing in any sphere.
Great points. As "common" as a million dollars is these days, I still think people have trouble understanding just how big it is. It is still probably more money than will ever see in my life and then when you figure a billion dollars is one thousand millions it really starts to make it a bit more clear just how immense we are talking. I think taking out the multiplier symbols and actually putting it into words is more profound.
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Yes. Zeroes don't say much as "just another three" makes a very big difference.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Imagination is everything. Einstein said that it's more important than knowledge. I tend to agree. Usually people always get what they imagine for themselves, that's why it's good to pay attention to your thoughts
!ENGAGE 20
Without imagination, knowledge is pretty useless as nothing new can be done with it.
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.Hi @tarazkp
True, visualizing numbers can be difficult.
In Venezuela the prices are in millions, so many zeroes tend to be confusing.
What does a "million" buy there?
Inflation is very high, with that you can't buy almost anything.
I have a feeling of "not much".
@unschool
yes, that's right
Hi @tarazkp
Practically nothing.
A bus ticket
Three small loaves of bread
The ratio is
1.800.000 Bs per 1$.
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