[ExI] funniest 6 order of magnitude error evah

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] funniest 6 order of magnitude error evah

 

 

 

On Fri, Mar 6, 2020 at 11:55 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

 

> I am astonished this one got past the cameramen.  I don’t expect much of news anchors and politicians, but the camera guys shoulda spotted it in time:

 

https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1235913628873904129

 

…heeeeeeeeeheheheheheheeeeeeee…

In their defense, the word million and trillion rhyme.

 

>…Wow, when I started watching I assumed the news anchor and the guest were making fun of the tweet, but no, they thought it was making a good point! Anybody can have a bad brain fart…

 

The level of innumeracy displayed there is rather alarming.  These people influence so many voters.

 

I will say this for engineering education: it does tend to give one a feel for order of magnitude.  Back in the olden days when we still had slide rules, you had to know the order of magnitude.  They missed this by six orders and neither realized the number just didn’t seem right.  

 

If anyone thinks America has people who can spend a million dollars for each man, woman and child in the US, and still have money left over, I can see why they have a weird outlook on life.

 

>…Did they ever make a retraction?  John K Clark

 

I don’t know.  If they did, the retraction didn’t get as much publicity as the goof.

 

spike

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