Here we are : the human race—an unfathomably ginormous population ( which, by the way, is still growing !).

How ginormous are we right now?

Let’s put this into a few perspectives.

 

I—The “Wall” of People

Image 01 :                       

A crowd of 1 Million people              

Let’s take this photo, for example.

For the sake of establishing any number of variables to forecast any number of scenarios, let’s pretend that we have three parameters to work with :

[1] The physical size of the photograph is three inches wide by two inches tall—a simple rectangle at 3″ x 2″; 

[2] the photograph represents a quantity of one million ( 1,000,000) people.; and

[3] the population of the entire planet is estimated to be approximately 7.5 billion people!

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If 1 billion equals “1,000 millions”, then, a population of 7.5 billion would equal 7,500 of these photographs!

Spread out evenly that roughly equates with 86 photographs ( columns) wide by 86 photographs ( rows ) tall.

That would “build a wall” that would be approximately 21 feet wide by 14 feet tall!

Image 02

The Wall of People

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21 feet by 14 feet might not exactly sound like a “mountain”, but when you consider that each 3″ INCH x 2″ INCH rectangle equates to one million people, and you stand back and look not only at how many people are squeezed into that tiny 3″ x 2″ space, but also multiplied by the 7,499 repeats of that same photo is just so mind-boggling as to how ginormous that is—7,500 millions on that wall!

That’s how many people that are on this planet right now, at this very minute.

…and….we’re still growing larger every day!

 

I—The “Roll Call” and “Chow Lines” of People

A “wall” of people sounds purely academic and statistical, and completely devoid of the humanity of the people in that group.

In contrast, would be the “line” of people waiting to be attended to, in some personally important way such as in the acquisition of [a] necessities ( e.g., food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education being among the most obvious examples) ; as opposed to [b] luxuries ( such as, yachts, gambling binges in Las Vegas, $200,000 sports cars; jewelry or breast enhancement for a man’s loved one, or even lavish vacations drowning in the most “depraved” of social debaucheries in the most private and expensive of hedonistic resorts catering exclusively to the upper echelons of society).

For instance, as far as necessities are concerned, we all need food to eat, so, let’s pretend that it’s “breakfast time” and everyone lined up in a single file line to get served in the cafeteria—much like the soup kitchen food lines of the Great Depression of 1930’s American life.

Unfortunately, there’s only one food worker available to serve the hungry population of seven billion people, so there can be only one line.

How long would that line be? How many miles would a line of 7.5 billion people stretch out to be?

You’re not going to believe your eyes until you see the math!

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1.3 million miles! Specifically, 1,325,757.58 Miles!

Seriously! Do the math.

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Let’s start with the amount of personal space each person occupies, while standing in that line.

Image 03 :        

The Space Each Person Occupies

 

The typical person—in profile—occupies approximately 12 to 18 inches of space regardless of their height.

For the purposes of the calculation I went with the more conservative (i.e. lower ) of the two “extremes” ( 12 Inches / 1 Foot ).

If I had used the 18″ figure, it would make my case even stronger because the line would be 50 percent longer!

 

 

 

Image 04

People Equal Feet

 

Second, is the principle that since each person occupies a nice round number such as “one foot”, that makes the math all that much easier.

Ergo, if “people equal feet” then 20 people equals 20 feet.

 

Image 05

5,280 feet in one mile = 5,280 People Per Mile

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To keep things in round numbers, we’ll even shave off the “.5” in 7.5 billion, and just call it an even seven billion.

Lastly, if people equal feet then seven billion people equals seven billion feet.

If we know that there are 5,280 feet per file, and we divide our seven billion feet ( or people ) by 5,280, we’ll produce the number of miles in seven billion feet.

The calculation and answer :

7,000,000,000 / 5,280 = 1,325,757.58 !

That’s 1.3 million miles!

Miles ! Not feet. And, millions, not thousands!

The population of China would generate a line of almost 190,000 miles all by itself!

So would India’s—since both have exceeded a billion people in their population levels.

Put them together and their portion of the line would be just under 400,000 miles at 380,000 miles—essentially one fourth of the world’s population by just two nations.

But, seven billion feet equals 1.3 million miles!

I just can’t wrap my mind around that number; that distance.

They don’t even manufacture consumer cars that would last the entire journey and go the distance.

If you bought a brand new car ( American : GM, Ford, Chrysler;   Asian : Kia, Hundai, Honda, Toyota ; or European : Nercedes Benz, BMW, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Fiat, Lambourghini, etc ) right now, that vehicle would break down ( to the point of having to junk it and buy another brand new car ) long before you were even a fraction of way done with the journey.

But if they did manufacture such durable, long-lasting and dependable equipment, and you drove from the start of the line to the very last person at the end of the line, the chart below shows how many people you would have seen at each given milestone.

Image 06 :   Milestones

1—The Milestones

a—Every Mile

For every mile ( 5,280 feet of distance ) of people in that line, you are seeing a quantity of 5,280 people; two miles, 10,560 people; three miles, 15,840 people, and so forth.

b—Every 10, 100 and 1,000 Miles

After ten miles, you would have seen 52,800 people.

100 miles?  528,000 people!

A thousand miles? You would have seen “only” 5.28 million people—a long way away from 7.5 billion!

Even after a thousand miles—a thousand miles!—of seeing face after face, you’re still not even one percent of the way to 7.5 billion!

Keep on going!

c—At 10,000 Miles

At 10,000 miles, ( almost half way around the planet—the earth’s circumference being around 25,000 miles at the equator ) you would have seen 52,800,000 people, which is still less than one percent of the world’s population—half way around the planet, and you haven’t even scratched the surface  in that there’s more than 99 percent of the population you still haven’t seen!

Not there yet. Nope. Keep on going!

-10K—————————————————-

d—At 100,000 Miles

At 100,000 miles ( that’s like the line going completely around the planet four complete times), you will have seen 528 million people—and that’s only seven percent of the world’s population.

At 100,000 miles of faces, you have still not seen 93 percent of the line!

Onward. Keep on going!

—100K————————————————–

c—At 1,000,000 Miles

Finally, at 1 million miles, you will have seen 5,280,000,000 people—approximately 75 percent of the world’s population.

But even at one million miles, you would not yet have reached the end of the line; you’d still have another 325,000 miles ( more than a quarter of a million miles ) to go.

Yep. Keep on going!

Finally, somewhere around mile #1,325,757.58,  you would see the last person standing in line.

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2—The Extremes of the Distance

There are two aspects of the line’s length : [1] how far it would stretch; and [2] how long it would take you to travel the length of the line.

Let’s further pretend that you’re a general in the army, and you looking over all your troops as they line up in single file for roll call before reporting to the mess tent for breakfast.

As far as the length is concerned…

As a general, you jump into your jeep and drive along the line and wave to your troops as you slowly drive by.

Some notable thoughts on just how long that line really would be, consider the following bullet points ;

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a—The line would circle the planet a little over 53 times

Image 07 :   53 Times !        

With the earth’s circumference being “only” 25,000 miles, that line would wrap around the planet more than 53 times!

As General, you would be riding in your jeep and waving to your troops for a very long time.

 

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b—The line would stretch 5 times farther than the distance to the moon 

Image 08 :   5 Times Farther Than The Moon!

With the mean distance of the moon being 250,000 miles, that line would be more than 5 times farther than the moon.

 

 

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as far as the time to travel the distance of the line is concerned…

 

c—Time to travel the distance in….a car

Calculation :      1,325,757.58 miles / 60 mph = 22,095.96 hours

Image 09 :  Car             

If you calmly, vacation-like, drove non-stop at 60 miles per hour, from the beginning of the line to the end, it would take you 22,095.96 hours to make the trip, which translates into 920.67 days which is about two and a half years.

Stopping for gas countless times would certainly stretch that out even longer.

By the time you drove to the end of the line and back, you would be at least five years older.

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d—Time to travel the distance in….an emergency vehicle

Calculation :      1,325,757.58 miles / 100 mph = 13,257.58 hours ( 552.40 Days ) 1.51 Years

Image 10 :  Ambulance          

If you drove a bit faster at, say, 100 miles per hour ( e.g., an emergency vehicle rushing to the scene of an accident ) you could shave that down to 13,257.58 hours, which is essentially 552.4 days, or 1.51 Years.

 

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e—Time to travel the distance in….a jet

Calculation :      1,325,757.58 miles / 500 mph = 2,651.52 hours ( 110.48 Days ) 0.30

Image 11 :  Jet Aircraft     

In a jet, at 500 miles per hour, It would still take you over 2,600 hours to make the journey, or 110 days!

So, even at 500 miles per hour it would take you a third of a year to reach the end of the line!

Mile after mile the blur of faces goes on seemingly endlessly.

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f—Time to travel the distance in….a rocket ship

Calculation :      1,325,757.58 miles / 25,000 mph = 53.03 hours ( 2.21 Days ) 1/100th of a year.

Image 12 :  Jet Aircraft     

Even at 25,000 miles per hour in a rocket ship, it would  still take you two solid days to reach the end of the line.

 

 

Anyone that far toward the end of the line would be screwed if they needed emergency assistance requiring attention within minutes—or an hour at the absolute latest—since even a rocket ship’s 2-day “expedited” trip couldn’t get there in time.

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Image 13 :  Spreadsheet : Vehicle-Time Comparisons

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That’s a long time—because that’s a long distance…because that’s a lot of people!

 

3—The Extremes of the Quantity

During Roll Call, even if no traveling was required, and each person stepped up to a fixed point in front of the General to shout out their rank and name and say “Here!”, and immediately walked away to allow the next soldier to do the exact same thing, at a rate of one soldier per second, how long would it take to take roll call of seven billion soldiers?

At one every second , that wold mean it would take seven billion seconds to roll call seven billion soldiers.

How long is seven billion seconds?

Again, you’re not going to believe your eyes….

….until you see the math.

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222 Years to do a roll call of seven billion soldiers at one every second!

Every second(!) …and it would still take more than two centuries!

That’s how many people are on this planet right now : 1.3 million miles long that would take two centuries plus two more decades and two more years to do a head count with.

And that’s just seven billion—not the 7.5 billion the population really is!

7.5 billion is actually far more accurate—and frightening!….and another 20-plus years of counting people

And 8 billion ?

Just around the corner, my friends. Plus, yet another 20 years of counting

So, the problem is actually worse than the “rosy” picture I’ve painted with the slightly lower population total of 7 billion I used, instead of the 7.5 billion figure I could—and perhaps, should—have used.

I was just trying to keep the math simple while still getting my point across about just how unfathomably huge a population of 7 or 7.5 billion people really is.

But at seven billion, we’re already in the “greater-than-two-centuries” range to do a one-at-a-time  census, head count,  or roll call with.

And THAT is just “roll call”! Period!

That does NOT include the line up for breakfast; then another lineup a few hours later for lunch; and yet, another in the late afternoon or early evening for dinner.

So far, we have four lineups at approximately 222 years each to satisfy the needs of the people lining up for whatever hand out they’re in line for.

222 times four equals 888 years.

And those four lines are just for meals and the roll call! That’s it!

That does NOT account for: [1] Housing needs [2] medical visits; [3] education attendance; or even [4] each person’s individual preferences are for leisurely activities—i.,e., we can’t all be forced to “enjoy” the exact same leisurely activities and be given, say, a deck of playing cards and told, “That’s your passion now. You will like the exact same thing everyone else enjoys…” or something to that effect.

Although many will crave watching or playing team sports such as baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer, some might prefer the more individualized sports of car racing or golfing, while yet others might not have the slightest interest at all in any sports whatsoever, and instead might prefer to indulge in binge-watching something on TV, or listening to music or the painting on canvases or learning the sculpting arts, or maybe watching a magician or buying from a florist, or maybe learning the martial arts or knitting or cooking or gambling or fishing or DJ’ing or interior decorating or gardening or…you-name-it.

Lining up for the roll call and three meals every day would be the first 888 years of processing program recipients ( with only one person serving them ) , another 888 years to satisfy the housing assignments, doctor visits, educational sessions, and the assignment of “toys”, for a total of over 1,700 years of serving people in a one-at-a-time-every-second kind of way.

You can easily see why we need more than one person pitching in at any given time on any given project.

There’s a lot of people ( more than 99 percent of the seven billion people on the planet ! ) needing a lot of assistance!

For the most part—with plenty of exceptions, I’m sure—I feel that any endeavor involving only one (or very few people) proactively working toward a goal, is likely going to take decades, centuries, or even a millennium to complete, when it’s quite possible—and likely—that with an entire team of people working on it, might take only hours, days, weeks, a few months, or even a year, or two, to solve the problem!.

That’s my hypothesis, anyway. The fewer the people working, the longer the time to complete the task of solving problems.

And speaking of problems : there are plenty to solve. We have war, poverty, hunger, disease, crime, corruption, ignorance, apathy, estrangement, natural disasters, and, yes, even unfortunate accidents that aren’t anyone’s fault. 

Multiply any problem by seven billion, then, multiply that figure by the number of possible problems, and I promise you, you won’t run out of customers.

WE ARE UNFATHOMABLY LARGE IN SIZE, AND WE ARE DYSFUNCTIONAL AND NEEDY ( and many are greedy ) AND WE ARE HERE AND NOW AND WE’RE NOT LEAVING ANYTIME SOON!

We have problems. Yes we do. We all do.

Do you have solutions? Now’s the time to step up and prove you’re right!

If you’re not proactively part of the solution, you might as well be an active participant in the creation of ( and/or the continuation of ) the problem—in other words : if you’re not going to be a “fireman”, you might as well be an “arsonist”.

If you decide to be a fireman, we got seven billion fires happening.

Get to the nearest one with your skill set and put the fire out, and be the hero you were sent to be.

Go ahead and introduce yourself to your first client/customer and say, “Hello! Nice to meet you! How can I help you?”

When you’re done there, go onto your next client and solve his, her, or their problem, as well, and repeat the process of going onto the next client, and so on, for as long as you can, being a hero to as many people as possible.

We got a lot of people in trouble and in pain; and we need every helping hand we can recruit to help.