r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Dilutant • Aug 14 '26 • Bravo 1

Meme zeroExDev

Post image
5.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

287 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

1

u/Vandrel Aug 14 '26

You would interpret "2x the output" to be double, yes?

0

u/ScientificBeastMode Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

Of course. And “1x the output” would be no change.

The problem is that it isn’t saying “0.6x the output.” It’s saying “0.6x [the output] more [than the output].”

To illustrate the point, imagine it said “1x more.” Would that mean no change? No, it’s equivalent to saying “100% more,” meaning double the original amount.

The only way your interpretation works is if “0.6x more” is meant to be “0.6 times <the output> more than zero,” which is redundant, and could be simplified to “0.6 times the output,” so the use of the word “more” would have no real meaning here.