One common feature of various anti-science ideologies is that their adherents lack a sense of scale. #FlatEarthers don't understand distance, #creationists don't understand time, #climate change #denialists don't understand levels of emissions or rate of temperature change, #antivaxers don't understand population morbidity and mortality. Probably other types of looniness with which I'm less familiar have the same underlying problem.
In a way I sympathize with this, because the numbers are so far outside normal human experience. But learn the #math and suddenly everything makes a lot more sense. We're not talking about anything particularly advanced. Just grasp that intution breaks down when measuring something very large or very small.
@medigoth I once saw a graphic that broke down taxation into a set if congruent rectangles that were neatly all slotted together into one overall rectangle. I have a numerate background but even for me the graphic was a lightbulb moment about the scale of monies spent on difference public goods.
So I endorse what you are saying, completely.
#tax #TaxJustice #science #maths #campaigning #activism
@ringwoodunitarians Another excellent example, and probably why so many people default to economic ideologies instead of trying to find policies that more or less seem to work.
If I had a million dollars, I'd know immediately how to spend it. A billion dollars, I'm pretty sure I could figure it out. Trillions of dollars is just beyond any simple answers.
@medigoth @ringwoodunitarians At $trillions, you start to run out of ability to supply what is purchased, which finally gives the sense that the money itself was never part of the solution, just the heart of the problem