this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Because numbers are becoming so large its almost pointless to think about. The national debt for example is 33 trillion dollars. That is an unimaginable sum. What even is 33 trillion dollars?
Ah, my good sir, I believe that 33 trillion dollars is the equivalent of one current US national debt.
Yes, but a regular individual cannot even fathom 33 trillion dollars. It is a number so large that it's not understandable.
it's nearly $100,000 per person (man, woman, child.... everyone).
Oh, I definitely see your point, and it is very much a psychological thing more than an actual fix.
Right, as I said, it is definitely more psychological than actually helpful, but it would definitely feel a lot better to see smaller numbers. Hell, the national debt is even hard to write. 33,000,000,000,000
True, but as the national debt grows, everything else grows with it, and inflation, and eventually rent would be $10,000 a month.
Primarily, just that the numbers are unnecessarily large and could be factored down to more manageable numbers.
How is 11 trillion any better?
If you want to actually bring that to a number people can grasp than small amounts would become impractically small. Like you would need to deal with 0.000001 and 0.0000001 dollars and stuff.