Some, like mathematician Roger Antonsen, believe that numbers are the key to understanding the world. (Antonsen even gave a brilliant TED talk to explain this statement, which I highly recommend.) And there's a Reddit thread that vividly illustrates the point.
It started when platform user JustinMGH made a post, asking others to share facts and stats that sound like obvious exaggerations but actually aren't.
Immediately, people started delivering fascinating, weird, and even disturbing titbits of information, changing each other's perspective about everything around them, even if ever so slightly.
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The difference between million and billion is huge (relatively):
1 Million seconds = 11 Days
1 Billion seconds = 31 years
The budget to send to the Curiosity Rover to the Mars is less than the worldwide military expenditure for thirteen hours
Every time I think about the US Military budget I don't get sad, I get angry. $13billion for a Gerald Ford aircraft carrier? Absolutely insane.
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What I'm hearing is, if we want the US to fund more space missions, we need to tell them that woke Antifa culture warriors have a base on Jupiter.
We could spend that money feeding, housing, and providing healthcare for people... but no, let's spend that money killing people and trying to show off our huge d***s! That world is so messed up.
Sadly, the problem is that other people don't see it that way.
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And they say we should stop wasting money exploring space
And the budget to send India's Mangalyan rover to Mars is less than the budget of the movie Gravity.
It's always prudent to spend more money blowing up people than educating them.
Nearly 40% of that expenditure is from just one country, can you guess which?
Our priorities are just sad. But not unique - I read somewhere that the likelihood of our making contact with other advanced life forms is unlikely, because very “successful” species tend to wipe themselves out. How are we so “advanced” and so very, very stupid at the same time?
I guess everyone is not familiar with China's global ambitions. Not only are they seizing foreign land with predatory loans, they are increasing their military for global mobilization. Three new aircraft carriers and, my new personal favorite, hiring ex Navy pilots to train Chinese pilots in western tactics and warfare. There will be war with China, it's just a matter of when. Ah yea forgot, China also claims Taiwan as their property.
The word "worldwide" seems to have confused you.
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Ok that's a sad statistic but what most of these "feed the homeless, military bad, ect" commenters seem to forget is that for the most part and especially before the Russians started this latest b******t the amount of military spend vs the amount of state sponsor military dead is so skewed it's actually quite heartening. It works globally that on an average it has cost 21 million dollars to kill 1 person. Average for a hit man is something like $5000. Governments are hella bad at killing people. Which is a good thing, as quite a lot of people have the notion that once the money is spent it has disappeared. Also as an aside that rover is only there because of military spend. You are only reading this because of military spend. Sad but silver lining and all that.
I don’t know. . . Studying the history of Europe those castles and ramparts you find in nearly every single town, village, country. . . Were there for protection against constant invasions, not for decoration. You need to objectively look at the entire picture. This is the most peaceful time we’ve ever had in history by a landslide. This is why.
"the Mars"...sorry! I had to. Look, it's sending a probe into freaking space. Of course it's going to cost a massive butt load.
They'd rather waste money exploring other planets than try to fix the only one we have.
They'd rather waste money on military than working on funding and bettering the much needed education, medical, poverty, human rights etc, issues
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Quick list of stuff given to you by space programmes. Non stick pans. CO2 scrubbers. WD-40. 3rd gen HEPA filters. Solar panels. Memory foam. GPS sat-nav. Hearing implants. Digital photography. Mylar blankets for emergency relief. Digital video processing. Vitamin enriching for food. Flash-freezing and freeze-drying for food preservation. Water purification systems. Hydrogen fuel cells.
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Cleopatra was alive closer to the Moon landing than she was to the construction of the great pyramids.
I’ve heard this one a hundred times and it blows my mind every single time… what a history
USA citizens privately own more firearms than all countries combined. Even more than most militaries.
Pocahontas and William Shakespeare died less than a year apart less than 150 miles away from each other.
Barbara Walters, Anne Frank, and Martin Luther King Jr were all born the same year.
The original height of Mount Everest was calculated to be exactly 29,000 ft high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 ft in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet was nothing more than a rounded estimate.
1 in 2 Australians will get skin cancer in their lifetime
Neutron stars are so dense that if you dropped a gummy bear from one meter away it would hit the surface in a microsecond with the force of 1,000 nuclear bombs.
The state of Maine has more Black Bears than black people.
This does actually appear to be more-or-less correct, depending on the estimation of the bear population and the accuracy of the first Maine demographic statistics which popped up in a quick web search. Also, with the same caveat, there seems to be approximately one black bear for every square mile of Maine.
Vatican city has a population of 2 popes per 1 square kilometer.
More silent films have been lost than saved
We live in an era where everything is saved, and it's hard to imagine such a massive loss of creative material. Plenty of films are lost, as late as the 1970s too.
Monsters Inc was released closer to the fall of the Berlin wall than to the present day.
All the ants in the world weigh about the same as all the people in the world.
Also, they work extremely hard and live only about 8 days, while turtles don't do shït and get to live 150 years. Let it sink in.
Nintendo existed at the same time as the Ottoman Empire.
You could walk from North Korea to Norway and only pass through one other country.
Also, your feet would be a little sore.
Radio astronomer here! You exert more energy when you unfold a single piece of paper than we have collected in *all* the radio waves we have *ever* collected from outer space.
In a room with 23 people there is a ~50% chance that 2 people share a birthday
According to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, every two days human beings create as much information as we did from the dawn of time until 2003.
The same facts that BP has posted 20 million times before. This s**t has been posted over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Annoying af
I try posting new articles and for whatever reason BP just won't publish them. Wonder how many people try and get the same results.
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9 US states have more cattle than people. Texas is not one of them due to being very populous but Texas has more cattle than there are people in 45 states and DC.
A light bulb, which is known as the Centennial Light, has been burning at a Livermore, CA firehouse since 1901. It is very rarely turned off, which accounts for its longevity, since turning bulbs off and on contributes to wear and tear. To put it in perspective, this bulb has been around longer than powered flight, and was shining all through the Chicago Cubs' notorious World Series drought.
The same facts that BP has posted 20 million times before. This s**t has been posted over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Annoying af
I try posting new articles and for whatever reason BP just won't publish them. Wonder how many people try and get the same results.
Load More Replies... 9 US states have more cattle than people. Texas is not one of them due to being very populous but Texas has more cattle than there are people in 45 states and DC.
A light bulb, which is known as the Centennial Light, has been burning at a Livermore, CA firehouse since 1901. It is very rarely turned off, which accounts for its longevity, since turning bulbs off and on contributes to wear and tear. To put it in perspective, this bulb has been around longer than powered flight, and was shining all through the Chicago Cubs' notorious World Series drought.
