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> Human beings do not intuitively understand exponential growth.

This layman has read that we intuitively think of numbers logarithmically, which makes him wonder if we human beings do, in fact, intuitively understand exponential growth.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-natural-log/

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...and see it as merely linear. That's the problem.

Exponential growth is like dynamite. It's absurdly fast, compared to anything people see in daily lives.

Dropping stuff and falling are good examples. If you're paying attention, anyway. I can still grab stuff that's fallen maybe 10-20 cm, but by 50-100 cm it's moving way too fast.

And that's only quadratic growth, not exponential.

That's a terrible example, why would pick an explicitly sub-exponential relationship?

Because exponential is even worse.

Right. Because it's not linear.

The only truly exponential example that comes to mind is milk souring. But that's too slow, unless you keep notes.

Population and GDP also grow exponentially, but we’ve been watching those numbers go up for decades. Most things that grow do so exponentially. Growth always comes to an end, but that often happens well before the rate of change becomes “absurdly fast.“

Interesting. I do think that few people understand what a billionaire actually is, i.e. what force you can mobilize if you are one.

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