In the language of the Pirahã tribe of Brazil there are only words for the numbers one and two. There are no words for any larger numbers. As a result, when they count, they have to say "one, two, many."
The rest of us are constantly bombarded with large numbers on a daily basis, but we all still reach a point at which we just think "many." Most people have little idea how much a billion is much less a trillion.
I get the feeling that every time a politician says 'we have a $8.4 trillion dollar debt' or 'we spent $100 billion', all most people really hear is, 'we have "a large" deficit' and 'we spent "a jillion" dollars.' Without the proper knowledge to put these large numbers into a context we can understand, the numbers are utterly meaningless and productive debate is impossible. Of course, republican politicians have learned how to use this to their advantage.
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