Re:Why psychology isn’t science (2012)
by dTal on Sunday May 09, 2021 @06:59PM
(#27100656)
There's no global reference frame for distance or wealth. You can't point to a spot in space and say "the Earth was here 1000 years ago". All you can say is that A is x meters from B, right now. And likewise you can't compare wealth now with wealth 50 years ago - it's not a coherent concept, when you could buy a house on a blue collar wage, but not a smartphone at any price. What you can do is say that person A is twice as wealthy as person B.
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But as I describe in my other comment, the value of a dollar varies not only with time but also with location and context. There are places in America today where $200 a month from a blue collar job will keep a roof over your head. In other parts of the country, $200 is worth substantially less for the same purpose.
Say what you want about stellar kinematics, but measuring meters simply is not so fraught as this.