Subject: [Pc] Re: demographics

From: eric + michiko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 08:46:48 -0700

Georg wrote:
> "If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely
> 100 people. . . (snip) . . .  There would be:  . . . (snip) . . .
> 
> 80 would live in substandard housing
> 

I really enjoyed Georg's post.  A couple of the statistics were surprising,
and the overall effect was very interesting.

I have some trouble with the housing part (above); I wonder what
"susbstandard" means for it to include all but 20% of the houses in the
world.  I have traveled a good bit in Asia, enough to see how at least half
the world lives, and I have trouble with this one.

I also suspect that some, if not all, of the ratios are based on a national
level of statistics.  For example, does the 57 Asians include Asians living
outside of Asia?  And des it count non-ethinic Asians that live in Asia?
(i.e. Is the definition of "Asian" one who lives in Asia?)

My wife, Michiko, was also impressed with the effect of this post; she said
that "numbers are often more convincing".  Since I don't think of her as a
numbers / statistics kind of person, I thought this deserved some thought.

I suppose that the effect would be much stronger for those in the
overdeveloped countries (minorities assuming a lot of people are like
themselves).  I know that before I traveled much, I had vague assumtions
that people around the world "weren't all that different from each other".
Although I can see that deep inside, there is little difference, ways of
living, societal patterns, and cultural attitudes, assumptions and
standards vary a lot.  Now that several years has passed since I have
travled outside of overdeveloped countries, I find myself forgetting how
different things really are.  Thanks, Georg, for the reminder!

Eric Storm

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