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What is scale-blindness and how big a social problem is it?

It is hard for humans to visualize in their heads the difference between 1 billion and 10 billion. Our brains weren't created to think of such massive amounts of objects. I don't think it is too big of a social problem though.

It's probably because cavemen had to carry 10 rocks at a time, 15 max. We didn't have to use such large numbers until recently in human history.

Additionally, on the other end of the spectrum, small quantities (3-4) of countable items don't need conscious calculations to be counted.

Beyond 4, we need to sum the items consciously.

Beyond 10 (or so), the error rate on quick quantity calculations is exploding. The brain is just falling back on approximation mode.

To build intuition on scaling, the 1997 "Powers of Ten" video is an excellent resource that is still shown in introductory university physics lectures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

I watched that with my kids a couple of weeks ago. Definitely one of the inspirations. Also been listening to the "What If?" audiobook and Randall Monroe is never afraid to think about things like 80,000 gorillas.

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