Um, I had this idea sometime around middle school, when we learned fractions, and probability was an example the teacher used. I still remember his response, wh

Um, I had this idea sometime around middle school, when we learned fractions, and probability was an example the teacher used. I still remember his response, which was rather satisfying - that in many systems, things break down at edge cases, and that's to be expected. It was a great class - a similar insight Mr. Hawks helped me have is that there's much less of a difference between how people reason about $6 billion and $7 billion than between $5 and $500, even though the former is a much larger gap. This stuff is common sense, and the con is probably older than modern civilization - the author tells you a neat tidbit of somewhat counter-intuitive reasoning, then pretends like he's endowed you with a secret which makes you smarter than most trained economists. You eat it up because you love the idea that you're smarter than economic experts. Bullshit.