Huh, that’s a good point. A better universal naming system would be something like “Base x+1”, with x being one integer lower than 10. So humans would use Base 9+1, and the alien would use Base 3+1.

*This has been on my mind all day and the more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes how fundamentally terrible the name “Base-10” is. How did this never occur to the people who coined the term? Even the system I suggested is flawed as it’s still trying to incorporate the same bad logic.

A better system would be something like Base 9, stopping shy of the respective 10 in each system, or if it needs to be clarified, Base 9+0, as 0 is the extra digit in the first place, not 10.

1. This is why I say “10” is not a number, it just means one big group and zero remainder.
2. I am a huuuuge proponent of dozenal (base-12)

10 is actually only 2. The number of people misunderstanding binary here is mind blowing xD.

I like the detail that there alien has 4(10) fingers as opposed to the 10(22) that the human has.

Can we all use base 12?

It will be a shower of shit for like 50 years but then it will be marginally better for pretty much everyone.

Based.