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The Chances Are One in Eight Billion
Mona and Lisa were right on the mark: the United Nations estimates the world population will reach 8,000,000,000 sometime tomorrow, November 15th!
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14 Replies
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I would say that Mona and Lisa are two in that 8 billion!
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Just think, in 100 years someone listening to “Any Other Day” through their aural brain implant will pause and remark, “Eight billion, how quaint. Or maybe they were just thinking of the Earth biologically human population.” Siri, languid and lovely as she reclines on the charging chaise, will look up from the book she is reading and reply, “Ahh well, dear, it’s a lovely song all the same.”
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I hear you, David. The world population has doubled in less than 50 years.
When I was a kid I had a record of patriotic American songs. One of them, written in 1915, ended with the line “America, I love you, and there’s a hundred million others like me.” And I thought, “Hmmm… that’s not even a majority.”
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It still boggles my provincial mind that New York City, which I used to think of as almost unfathomably populous, is not in the top 40 globally and is less than 1/4 the size of Tokyo.
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Is there not some irony in the idea of Siri reading a book? Is it a page turning, nail biter, right to the end? 1984 or A Brief History Of Time, perhaps. Or The 21st. Century In Review: A survivor’s Guide.
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Hmm, good question. I’m thinking maybe something like, “How to Tell if You’re Really Conscious” or “Even More Ways To Serve Man.”
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Hi David, how interesting, and the world population hits 8 billion on the mark as stated in WHY? as the album just released. How remarkable and special is that!
Just to put things in perspective, and maybe drive the point about how small we are in the universe, in our tiny insignificant Milky Way Galaxy, there are 100 billion planets, over 10 times more planets than all the people in the world, just in the one galaxy! In the observable universe, there are over 200 billion galaxies.
It’s quite humbling, reminds me we are all on this little merry go round, that pale blue dot suspended in a sun beam. In the grand scheme, our problems don’t amount to much, so “why all the deception, and why all the fuss?” We should just all get along.
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Indeed, Jung, there’s nothing like astronomy to put everything on Earth in perspective.
Here’s something I thought of a few years ago to get a grasp on the concept of eight billion people: how long would it take to shake everyone’s hand? Well, an average human lifetime is about three billion seconds, so to accomplish that task you’d need to shake nearly three hands per second non-stop for your entire life! That wouldn’t be possible even if the entire world lined up single-file and walked past you with their arms extended. Maybe you could high-five them all, though…
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Hey David, you might appreciate this based on an old Ripley’s Believe It Or Not on the population of China.
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That’s really neat, David! I never thought about factoring the natural population growth into the calculation. I just assumed everyone would spend their entire lives waiting patiently in line to shake my hand, causing growth to stagnate. But I suppose people might get bored and engage in some extracurricular activities.
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If you raise your head, you can see the future, although not in such detail than if you raise your head, you can see the past. As David noted, the population of this blue planet has doubled since many of us were youngsters. Quirks and Quarks, CBC Radio Canada’s science program, dealt with world population this past week, and the picture is not pretty. Population continues to drive all the other major vectors that we’re familiar with; climate change, geo-political tensions, food insecurity, migration etc. Demographers have forecast, (a dubious skill), that population will level off at around 10 billion. But is that sustainable, simultaneously with the struggle for Peace On Earth? I remain skeptical.
With Songs like Jump Ship, If You Raise Your Head, and WHY?, Mona and Lisa’s new album is inevitably a new phase for them, artistically. For me, it seems somewhat equivalent to when The Beatles stopped touring, but which resulted in a dramatic broadening of their musical palette.
Who knows if the next MonaLisa Twins album of originals is another five years out, but if, by that time, world population is approaching 9 billion, Janitor Joe might have quite a lot to say about this place compared with a few others he’s had a chance to survey.
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Hi Len, good comparison to the Beatles. I remember in that MLT 2016 video, Mona and Lisa, after coming off of 2 years of live performances at the Cavern, they said they wanted new songs, and said it was time to lock themselves in the studio, and boy how their musical palette has broadened and flourished, not that their musical palette wasn’t amazing already. Sweet Lorraine to Still A Friend of Mine, and now Jump Ship, Any Other Day, WHY?…such a great decision they made to focus in the studio on their own originals, but it was also awesome and very smart they continued creating incredible covers, duo sessions, MLT Club, more than doubling their youtube subs from less than 100K to almost a quarter million now and growing. Now with a much bigger fan base, with many more ears, they launch this huge masterpiece album! Brilliant. We have an MLT powder keg forming, ready to explode with the next right spark!
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Thanks for bringing eight billion into perspective. It’s quite overwhelming. We live in a very rural area. It is very easy to isolate. I can’t imagine…when you attempt this handshaking experiment will there be gloves? Will you have a chase crew to keep you nourished and hydrated?
I agree MLT is evolving with each original album. WWT has some great pop songs, and ballads, as well as a dabble into psychedelia with Nothing Is In Vain. Orange got a little edgier with the radio like opening of The Future, and then pop, rock, blues, ballads, and now Why? covering every question of life. I love songwriting like this when an artist can bring life’s question to the surface in a dreamy or bouncy song and the listener(s) realize they have been thinking about the same questionable topics themselves.💡
Songs like these will remain popular in the future because they are about now. Any Other Day can be today, or any other day fifty years from now, or fifty years ago. These songs are timeless. I have a feeling we will all adopt “Jump Ship” as our rallying cry when faced with a challenge. It will come in handy on the slopes.
I am hoping Janitor Joe makes a miraculous return on a future album. That could be a kool story. The possibilities are endless.
I did say they are evolving, but I can’t put one album over the other. When I listen to WWT, it still sounds as fresh as it did when I first heard it. I but I guess more new songs are always better, so MLT does get better with each album. I hope they keep the same production crew for future albums.
Eight billion with a “B” Don’t eat the Soylent Green.
JP
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Speaking of world population, it is thought that in the next few hours India will overtake China as the world’s most populous country, a title which China has held since the mid-1700’s.
This date could actually be off by a month or two because India was not able to conduct its last census due to the pandemic, so its population is projected from less comprehensive data.
Here’s a site where you can watch the numbers change “live”. The populations of China and India are given at the top of the second column. I estimate the baton will be passed today at around 6 PM New York time.
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