• Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 days ago

      If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem; if you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.

      • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        The difference between 100 million and 11.5 billion is about 11 billion. If you own a bank 11 billion that’s not only that bank’s problem, it’s the economy’s problem.

            • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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              11 days ago

              Well, if you want to get exact, sure. But if we’re talking about half units, like 11 and a half billion, then 11.4 is so close to 11.5 there’s no difference and calling it just about 11 sorta implies that it’s a more significant difference IMO

              • MattBlackAlien@lemmy.world
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                11 days ago

                You need to be as precise as your resolution, otherwise the precision is meaningless. I guess you could argue that your resolution is units of half-billion (since some things are measured like that), but the initial value of 0.1B, and your use of 0.5 rather than ‘half’ suggests a resolution of 0.1B.

                This is different to the aphorism ‘The difference between a million and a billion is about a billion’, both because of the difference in scale, and the quoted resolution.

        • Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 days ago

          I was referring to the general concept behind the quote.

          I originally want to post the OG (apocryphal?) variant:

          Owe Your Banker £1,000 and You Are at His Mercy; Owe Him £1 Million and the Position Is Reversed

          But it sounds rather quaint these days.