Do you follow the crowd of people, or you go solo in your own direction?

@kayoshin How many?

Somewhere over 7 000 000 000 give or take, exact number is irrelevant since making your own path includes avoiding the paths of all the dead people before us or you're just an imitator right¿

@kayoshin That's not 7 billion. 7,000,000,000,000 is 7 billion.

You are mistaken my good man that is 10 to the power of 12 what you wrote there I think that's a trillion maybe?
But a billion by current times definition is 10 to the power of 9
Your long version of the billion hasn't been used officially since 1974 (not this century btw) and was never used in the USA just UK. So my answer is not wrong since I gave it in 2018 and didn't use numerology outdated before my birthday :)

@kayoshin No, a trillion is a million to the power of three (tri = 3), which would be 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. A billion is a million to the power of two (bi = 2), which is 1,000,000,000,000. What you think is a billion (i.e. a million to the power of one and a half) is actually called a sesquillion, although that term is rarely used. I learned the correct definition of billion and trillion in school in 1973, and if it hadn't been correct I wouldn't have got 100% in my maths exam in 1974 (which I did). It seems like the USA made up the other version for some childish reason (possibly because Americans like to exaggerate?) but it does not fit the correct definition as defined by the science of mathematics, nor the science of linguistics for that matter. In any event it has no bearing on the education I received in school in the 1970s, and definitions by current times have even less bearing on it. My correct version is logical, that other version isn't.

I don't know where you get your info or if you are still on the large scale which was dropped in 1974 but Google is your friend or a math book printed in this century.

Logic has nothing to do with convention, once a convention is adopted is what it is logic or not. For example it is illogical to have the driving wheel on the right when all your neighbouring countries have it on the right, but if it's what you decide is the norm you run with it. Also the UK dropped that definition of billion as well. To me the new definition makes sense since in most Latin languages "mil" is part of the word "thousand" so one million is a thousand thousands, a billion is a thousand thousands thousands trillion has 3 times thousands of thousands... And so on. The logic is there it's just not what you were taught or expected, after all not all words in your language have English roots. All languages evolve and mix andd update with the times.

@kayoshin So you are telling me they work in powers of a thousands? In that case a billion is really a bousand and a trillion is really a trousand? I never said they had English roots. Those prefixes are from Latin as far as I know. But whatever, convention is supposed to be fixed, which is why they teach us the conventional ways in school.

Conventions are fixed but they also change just like most people adopted the metric because it makes more sense and is eadier to use mathematically, the same way convention of numbers can change to adapt to the rest of the world. Conventions change all the time and the world advances. The point is there is no use in fighting it, it's done and it's unlikely it will ever go back. So every time you'll hear about population you'll hear billion (I doubt. We could hit trillion during our lifetime especially sincerely we seem to be almost flat lining at global population growth.)

@kayoshin "Conventions are fixed but they also change"

That is the oxiest moron I have ever seen. You can't expect me to take that seriously. Oh, and by the way, I did learn a bit about the metric system in the junior school, but I didn't adopt it then and I still haven't. These sort of ridiculous changes do not make the world "advance" at all, they have exactly the opposite effect. The only way the world is going to advance is for us all to go back to the way it was 50 years ago.

Lol. That's all I can say to that. And it's not an oximoron uunless You made the assumption thati was talking about a moment in time while I was talking about an evolution in time of a language, a science a measurement system etc. If it makes more sense to you to adapt reality to a stupid convention for your comfort instead of adapting yourself to the reality surrounding you.. whatever floats your boat man, nobody is forcing you, but don't expect the world to slow down to your pace.

@kayoshin There was absolutely nothing stupid about the normal old convention, it was at least 100% logical. The newer convention you call reality is not even 1% logical according to both mathematics and linguistics, the two most basic sciences we were all taught in primary school. If the world doesn't "slow down to my pace" it's not my fault. How can you blame me for the world suddenly going illogical, contradictory and weird?

If a fool doesn't understand a simple concept it doesn't make the concept complicated or illogical it just makes the one who fails to get it a fool. It's that simple really. And denying the evolution of languages just shows you use "linguistics" without really understanding what it's about.

@kayoshin Why do you keep trying to blag my head with all this drivel? Why don't you just accept the status quo as it was when I was in school like I do? Jeez!

Lol the irony is that you are fighting the status quo. You just failed to see the status quo is not what you think it is. You called me wrong based on outdated information and now you're the one complaining. I said 7 billion and I was right deal with it or go back in time.

@kayoshin Don't tell me to "deal with it". You know perfectly well what I mean. When I say "the status quo" I mean the status quo as it was when I was a child. I DO NOT ACCEPT CHANGE. Now you deal with that.

I don't have to deal with that since I'm still right. Silly old man.

@kayoshin Well, don't tell me to "deal with it" then. I don't give a fig what you think is right, but I'll tell you this. You will succeed in picking up the Rock of Gibraltar and lobbing it all the way to Mars before you ever succeed in converting me.

Converting you to what? Your senility fails to understand that I communicated clearly but you diverged on a quest to redeem an abandoned system nobody cares about, the rest of it is a you problem that's why I said you deal with it, I don't have to since everyone but you understood what I meant when I said 7 billion. So I reiterate: deal with it

@kayoshin Wouldn't it have been simpler to have said "seven thousand million" in the first place? If you'd said that I wouldn't have commented on it at all. If you couldn't be bothered to type that then you are just lazy.

Nope, it would have been stupid. Why don't you say tens of tens when you mean hundreds? Why don't you say tens of hundreds when you mean thousands? Are you lazy? I see you fail at logic as you do at updating your linguistics. You are starting to bother me so I will stop replying to you old man. Have a good evening.

@kayoshin You are starting to bother me as well. Using silly words like "update" doesn't make you any easier to understand or communicate with. I think I'll block you.