0 points

I think people can’t really comprehend this because a long time ago a million was a lot of money. Like, if you had a million in your bank account you were a rich person. Nowadays that means you are just an average person with a little extra money. Heck, in places like San Francisco having a million means you are just scraping by.

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10 points
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That’s… not accurate. The average American family has $62.5k in total across savings, checking, prepaid cards, money market accounts and call deposit accounts. That’s more than an order of magnitude under $1 million. Those households with $1 million dollars in assets (which also includes investments and homes/property) are in the 87th percentile. At $2 million in assets, they’re already in the 95th percentile. You’re not wrong that a million dollar net worth is not what it used to be, but it is still far far far above average.

The bay area/San Francisco does require an inordinate amount of money to be financially comfortable, but that is an outlier, not the norm. Even other major metropolitan areas like Houston don’t require even half as much money for the same financial comfort. In non-urban areas a million dollar net worth would make you among the wealthiest in the area. The context of the environment, house prices and local cost of living play a major factor in one’s relative wealth in a given area. The inequality of those factors in different parts of the country is as great as the wealth inequality in America in general.

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1 point

It’s 1000 times bigger, woah

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-5 points

I think that this is a pretty bad and deceptive way of demonstrating the size comparison. Mainly because only 60 sec go into 1 minute, not 100. Only 60 min go into 1 hour not 100. Only 24 to a day etc.

Still though I agree thet people have a hard time grasoingbthe difference between millions and billions

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8 points
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Why do the ratios of conversion matter at all? The point is that all three of 1 second, 11 days, and 31.5 years are human comprehensible quantities. You can look at those values and actually understand the difference without having to do mental conversions.

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Well, because you can see at the result of this meme, that the result is extremely misleading. It is correct but not representative of how much more one billion is compared to a million.

1bill is just 1000 times more than 1mil. The example here makes it look like a lot more.

Instead you could compare 1mil kilograms = 22 Titanic’s where 1bill kilograms = 22000 Titanics. But that is too straight forward and people would not react the same way as they do when you use time instead of a ratio that is representative of the numbers you are trying to compare

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0 points

What? It is exactly representative. The values are correct and comprehensible. The fact that the numeric orders of magnitude of the units involved don’t progress uniformly is irrelevant. The point is that they are all values that are relatable within normal human experience.

1 kilogram, 22 Titanics, and 22000 Titanics doesn’t help at all. There is no number of Titanics that is is a human relatable quantity.

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2 points

As a computer guy, just say, what’s bigger? A gigabyte or a terabyte? That’s the difference between a million and a billion.

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1 point

Gigabyte is a billion bytes, terabyte is a trillion bytes. But yes, relatively speaking, you’re correct.

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1 point

For clarity, the scale in difference is the same between a terabyte and a gigabyte as compared to a billion and a million (a factor of 1000). But a gigabyte is not a million bytes and a terabyte is not a billion bytes Kilo = thousand Mega = million Giga = billion Tera = trillion

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43 points
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People don’t have a strong intuitive sense of how much bigger one thousand is than one.

One second is one second.

One thousand seconds is like 15 minutes idk it’s not very intuitive.

Anyway, it’s about a thousand times bigger.

Hope this helps.

I should find some better hobbies.

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Work Reform

!workreform@lemmy.world

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

Our Philosophies:

  • All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
  • Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
  • Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
  • We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.

Our Goals

  • Higher wages for underpaid workers.
  • Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
  • Better and fewer working hours.
  • Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
  • Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.

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