A village of 100: Something going around the net

[Ivan Seeking]

A village of 100

If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.

There would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 would be Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would be would be from the United States
and would possesses 59% of the entire world's wealth.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 (yes, only 1) would own computerWhen one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If your parents are still alive and still married, you are very rare, even in the United States.
If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If you can read this message, you have just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

As you read this and are reminded how life is in the rest of the world, remember just how blessed we really are!

 

[FZ+]

Yep. This appeared too in the Eden Project in the UK, and some other places.

Truly humbling.

 

[LURCH]

This was in PF 2.0, also. Someone there pointed out,"6 would possesses 59% of the world's wealth, but only one would have a computer?", and I don't think the comment about both parents being married si "very rare, EVEN in the United States" makes much sense. Last I heard, we had the highest divorce rate in the world. Nice ti know we're still #1 at somehting, I suppose.

Bu that's probably all just from the stats being taken from different sources, or in slightly different ways. The main intent of the thing is still well-taken. There is a need not only for an "attitude of gratitude", but also for some of us who "have" to try and do something for the "have-nots".

 

[enigma]

That thing is somewhat out of date.

In the US in 2000, there were 15 million people attending college. That corresponds to ~.2% to .25% of the world's population. And that is the percentage just attending college in the US alone.

It is therefore extremely doubtful that only 1% of the world population has a college education as well as the stat that only 1% has a computer.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Originally posted by enigma
That thing is somewhat out of date.

In the US in 2000, there were 15 million people attending college. That corresponds to ~.2% to .25% of the world's population. And that is the percentage just attending college in the US alone.

It is therefore extremely doubtful that only 1% of the world population has a college education as well as the stat that only 1% has a computer.

But the US is a highly skewed sample. How many rural Chinese or Untouchables in India will attend college? Even in Europe there is no idea of college for everyone.

 

[enigma]

Yes, I know that.

Still, that .25 doesn't count the huge amount of people who already have attended college in the US. Quite a bit higher than those who are currently attending. My guess would be that the college grads in the US alone would be larger than 1% of the world's population. Maybe not by much, but then again, there is a decent percentage of any modern country which is college educated.

 

[Mattius_]

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/populate.htm

this webpage critiques the initial post... some miscalculations have surfaced...