xkcd made notice of the same issue with weddings!
this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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me_irl
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Working backwards: 7,500,000,000,000 pounds / 2^[(4 three-month periods per year)*(10 years)] = 6.8lb baby
That's just the reality of exponential, compound growth. But of course no society would ever think such growth could be sustained permanently...
basing one's economy off of infinite growth? ahahaha no one would ever do that
This, of course, is a ridiculous extrapolation. By focusing on the rate of change (doubling) every three months we of course get an absurd result.
Instead, if we simply extrapolate the absolute growth per unit time then assuming the baby went from 10 lbs at birth to 20 lbs at three months (doubling), and we have 40 such time units until age 10, then we get a much more reasonable expected growth to 400 lbs. Which of course is much more reasonable for a 10 year old. Totally reasonable.
How Ai thinks
I love statistics.