3 ms·
One of the more frightening things I ever learned was that if the population of China began walking in front of you at a rate of 1 person per second, it would t
by lurk2 2y ago
One of the more frightening things I ever learned was that if the population of China began walking in front of you at a rate of 1 person per second, it would take approximately 31 years for the entire population to pass you.
The math, roughly:
1 billion people (there are more now, but we’ll call it an even billion) / 60 seconds ≈ 16,666,666 minutes
16,666,666 / 60 minutes in an hour ≈ 277,777 hours
277,777 hours / 24 hours in a day ≈ 11,574 days
11,574 / 365 days in a year ≈ 31 years.
That’s just China. The global population would take around 220 years, with not so much time as to say hello. A bureaucracy can of course delegate census reporting such that the groups become manageable, but it puts a lot of things into perspective when you understand the sheer scale of the human population.
- VincentEvans 2y agoUsing your own contrived math - if you have just 30 helpers - you can count population of China in 1 year. Or with 219 helpers you can do the same for world population. In US, for the 2020 decennial census, the U.S. Census Bureau hired approximately 500,000 temporary workers across the country to assist with the count.
- epolanski 2y ago> In US, for the 2020 decennial census, the U.S. Census Bureau hired approximately 500,000 temporary workers across the country to assist with the count. Thus..it's difficult and expensive.
- triknomeister 2y agoUS spent 13.7B on census which is 1.37B/year since a census is done per 10 year. The ROI is definitely huge. It's not expensive at all.
- angelgonzales 2y agoIt seems expensive at around $4-5 per person per year! I think a satellite could gather useful population information based on a year of observing people entering and leaving their homes. I also wonder why the government needs to account for everyone in America? Can’t it just account for taxpayers who voluntarily work with the government system at the state and federal level?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago> It seems expensive at around $4-5 per person per year! On the contrary, that is a small percentage of the taxes I pay from a single paycheck.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThe census collects information on everyone because that's what the Constitution says it has to do. There's a bit over 200 years of case law arguing the specifics (e.g. how to handle the "Indians not taxed" exception), but in modern times it's interpreted to mean literally everyone.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sidewndr46 2y agoHow is this scary? It's like observing that I don't have enough time to write a comprehensive treatise on every German speaking philosopher of the 19th and 20th century. I obviously don't, I probably could barely complete even one at this point. My life is not any better or worse due to this.
- lurk2 2y agoAssuming you had an interest in writing a comprehensive treatise on German philosophy, not being able to complete it in one lifetime would strike many people as frightening. It’s one of those numbers that forces you to consider your own mortality, like those charts showing how many weeks there are left assuming you live to be 80 years old.
- nradov 2y agoFrightening how? I'll probably die in about 2000 weeks plus or minus. So what.
- solardev 2y agoI don't know about you, but I'd be pretty frightened at the thought of having to spend 2000 more weeks being stalked by an infinite horde of Chinese people trying to say hello. It's just not how I'd want to live my life.