If I said "AB negative blood is common" or "Australians are common", most people wouldn't say I was being 'inflexible' if I said "only 1/3 of 1% isn't that common" and uneducated laypeople (and Australians) are usually just fine with that, too. But it's a hot button topic and the OP want's to derail the thread to it's pet peeve, and there's always someone who wants to pipe up with "I don't like your facts so I'll attack your intent".

A million dollars is a lot of money. A million hours is a long time.

This is, after all, the same hackernews that says "80 billion in fraud and waste is only N% of the budget for that" where N sounds smaller than 80 billion.

It is in our constitution, and some people are big enough assholes that I almost don't mind; but I know what a railroad is and it isn't hard to imagine a series of events where I am one of those million people.

Also it's 5 million people in prison, not 1 million. 5 million is more than 1/3rd of 1%. There's a bit of waffle, is it half a percent? Is it more? Do you not count people who have left prison as having been slaves?

I probably have never seen a million unique people in my life, including on TV and movies, nevermind 5 million.

But I guess it isn't common. Because I don't understand "large numbers". I have seen a pile of 1,000,000 soda pop can pull tabs on a 30' tarp, so I have a rough idea of how large 1,000,000 is.