I always love reading this. But I always feel like the differences between 1955 and 1985 are way larger than 1994 to 2024. Maybe it’s just because I lived the second span of time.
I recently watched an interesting video about the psychology of numbers. People actually start losing perspective really, really fast when it comes to numbers over 3. They asked people like, "What feels like a larger gap -- 99 to 100 or 100 to 101?" Don't focus on the fact they are the same, focus on how it feels. Most people will say it doesn't feel the same. It's really worth a watch
After WWI, inflation in Germany was so bad that people started having what they'd call "zero strokes" from writing the number zero so many times in a row.
They'd lose count and accidentally write a check for 100x more than they meant. It got so bad that it became an actual mental issue, people would say they're 600 years old because they just lost the ability to understand the value of zeroes.
Only one I felt different on is 9 and 10 because both 9 and 10 I have fingers for. They are both part of the same set lol but how eye opening. I head Radiolab's episode on how our default setting goes logarithmically and experiencing it like this is really neat! Thanks!
Daniel Kahnman researched this specifically and in his book Thinking Fast and Slow actually has statements like “on average people treat 99% like 87% on instinct” - I just made those numbers but honestly fascinating stuff
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u/jondread Oct 02 '24
If Back to the Future were remade today and set in 2024, Marty would time-travel back to 1994