Big Numbers
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How much is $100 million dollars?
What about $1 billion? $100 billion?
$ 1 trillion?
I've been musing lately how often big numbers are thrown around in the news — especially in terms of dollars — and thinking that the common person really can't comprehend the size or scale. I feel like I'm growing numb to the ever-escalating numbers and I don't think I'm the only one whose eyes glaze over.
There's a risk in the detachment and the lack of understanding.
I thought it might be a public service to work on a project that helps people connect giant numbers with things that are tangible and relatable in their life. This would be done both through visualization and perhaps comparisons, analogies, metaphors.. whatever tool helps accurately comprehension.
Would love to discuss.
There's math involved.
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Thats a great idea. Were you thinking a meeple icon that represents the average yearly family income? And then a pile of them for the big numbers?
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Something like that. I'd love to talk through it. I'm not a huge fan of "average income" because it seems too limiting. Most people don't think of themselves as average (and, given the heterogeneous nature of the population, no one is truly average.)
"Am I average?" If not, then this doesn't really resonate.
I think it would be more meaningful if a person could identify where they land on a continuum of income, savings, net worth, expenses, geography, etc. and then have the numbers put into perspective based on a set of parameters. I think that would be more meaningful.
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That said, I also think it would be worth taking the numbers and putting them in terms that are kind of universal..
Like when they say that Elon Musk is getting a $1 trillion payout from Tesla, it means he could fund the entire US Food Stamp program for a year (100.3 billion)... and still have $899.7 billion leftover.
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From there, I'd explore what you could do with $899.7 billion.
Maybe in terms of healthcare and medical research. Maybe compare to State/Nation GDP.
Elon's just one example. Another is the amount of money being invested in AI companies right now. Or crypto markets.. Etc. The numbers are truly astounding — I'm just not convinced that we can wrap our heads around the magnitude of the money that is moving around right now.
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And the shift from public to private wealth is world wide. https://www.finance-watch.org/understand-finance/dashboard/public-vs-private-wealth/
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@djaboss Interesting! Makes sense. I think visual representations are the way to go. Visual > exponential number > indeterminate noun