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Humans are very good at generating very large numbers, but we are perhaps surprisingly terrible at visualizing the large numbers we create. As soon as they get out of our relative imagination, where we can connect the number to something we know, we just don't have the intuition to see them anymore. 

https://images.hive.blog/0x0/https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/23xAgfQpo9NFa2AdVpWbqpbvEbt78zSgrkA3Njhx6KTZdWXnFaREdx7kTSpFwyz29xdrH.png

For example, we hear about someone winning $5 million in the lottery, and that is still in the scope of our understanding, because we can think that a nice house might be a million, so it is five houses worth. Or, 20 Ferraris, or more money than most of us would make in an entire lifetime of earning the average salary. 

But, watch the news and hear about a 5 billion being spent on a weapons system, and we see it in a similar way to the lottery win. Or, we hear about an increase in the national debt of 5 trillion over the space of a few years, and it seems acceptable, and manageable. This is because we just don't understand these numbers, we can no longer humanly comprehend what this types of figures mean, because we have no idea what is possible with it.

A friend of mine referenced a conversation we had had a few years ago where I was talking to him about our large number shortcomings. He sent me a Tweet that highlighted the difference between a million seconds, and a billion seconds. Below, I added the trillion seconds also - just to see how our intuition works.

>One million seconds would take up 11 days, 13 hours 46 minutes and 40 seconds
One billion seconds is 31 years and 8 months
One trillion seconds is slightly over 31,688 years

Now, while you can do the calculations, does your visual skills really build a solid understanding of what the differences between those time frames is? The first one, sure - 11 days - I can understand that. Even the second one with 31 years, which is two full thirds of my life - I can *kind of* grasp. A trillion? 

>Nope.

What about in monetary terms?

5 million dollars = 5 nice homes.
5 billion dollars = 5000 nice homes.
5 trillion dollars = 5,000,000 nice homes.

Remember, there is a housing crisis in many parts of the world, including the US, with house prices at an ATH, while salaries are not keeping up with inflation. Many people just can't afford to get into a house now.

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/Enz3zgSNTWesTV3ZM8kTpCE3kdCamSxZNeyyFuFFJhhiYwiTp7Xos4ttLaVWVM65QY3.png)

In the last three years, the US national debt has grown by around 5,000,000, million-dollar homes. 


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/EogLNr33vTGzfnE292HBDAvppRPbfMBsunnwqgjyBPhx4i23GxFmkovQmE5KrytfUvu.png)

Or, 

> # 15,000,000 average homes.

Here's another way to visualize some of this debt:

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<center>![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/23xek779fnp58XNFxe3HdkkiBi6aEKQXs1aTqLmW7hp3gjm5VZjZWEPdiEVJYq3YjxHkZ.jpg)
[](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-debt-31-4-trillion-owed-in-2023/)</center>

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Because we don't have the intuition for these very large numbers, the don't seem very large at all. So, while they get thrown around in the media, we end up fixating on what we can visualize, the smalltime amounts - the chickenfeed, while enormous volumes fly under the radar, unseen by the majority. It is like smuggling an elephant under a baby's blanket, *and no one noticing.* 

There is no way around our inability, other than by making ourselves aware that we aren't good at comprehending these large numbers. When we hear them, we should translate them immediately into something we can understand, some kind of heuristic that gives a decent representation, so we don't have the wool pulled over our eyes. There might not be much we can do about it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't know about it. 

I was talking to my daughter about this a bit tonight, but it is clear that she hasn't the concept of even the pretty large numbers yet, because she hasn't the experience with them. But, she did get the sense of scale with the visualization of time, where a million seconds was understandable, but she lost all sense at a billion, as it is 5x as long as she has lived so far. In time, she will get more of a grasp on it, and it isn't important now.

For adults though, we should know better than to trust our intuition, because it is based on our experience. When we have no real experience with something, our intuition is just guessing, and making us feel right, no matter if we are correct or not.

A million dollars is not what it used to be - but a billion is still a *hell of a lot.*

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


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Posted Using [InLeo Alpha](https://inleo.io/@tarazkp/many-many-dollars)