Business photo created by jcomp - www.freepik.com
This is a piece I wrote after going to a local protest last year. I originally posted this on my now-defunct Facebook page, but I've cleaned it up and extrapolated on some of my previous ideas.
Hope you enjoy the show!
~Chance
CW: Math, racial equality, social justice
You've heard of million-dollar questions, now presenting: billion-dollar problems! Billion-dollar problems are things that I personally cannot relate to or fathom on a basic level.
But, Chance, why are they called billion-dollar problems?
Glad you asked, Chance. It is extremely difficult for people to visualize what one billion of anything would look like. Seriously, our brains aren’t designed to conceptualize anything that large. Even if we think we understand, visualizing an accurate image can be rather tricky. Nothing is impossible, but expecting yourself to fully understand one billion of anything is implausible.
But let’s give it a try anyway.
Visualize a $1 bill. Not hard at all. Now, imagine ten $1 bills. Also, not hard.
Now, think of a stack of one hundred $1 bills. Not a huge stack, but sizable. Because I worked retail, I know what that stack would look like. It’s not that big.
Okay, now you have ten of those stacks. That's $1k. Not too hard to picture the concept of ten piles of one hundred $1 bills. Just like with imagining ten $1 bills, thinking about ten stacks is still fairly easy.
Now, gather one hundred of those stacks. That's $10k. Have you started having trouble picturing this yet? Unless you regularly interact with $10k, could you tell if I had left $50 out of the total at a glance?
No? Neither could I. We’ve reached difficult.
Great, get one thousand stacks of $1 bills. That's $100k neatly stacked in one hundred piles of $1 bills. I don't know about you, but my brain is starting to get a little warm. Numbers have never been my strong suit and this is stretching my capabilities thin.
Alright, alright, that's okay, we'll keep going. For science and all.
So, go get ten thousand stacks of one hundred $1 bills. That's $1 million dollars. How's that visual going? Has it gotten a little overwhelming to think about that many stacks of one hundred $1 bills?
Now, gather one hundred thousand stacks of one hundred $1 bills. Just reading that sentence is cumbersome. This is only $10 million. Remember our goal is one billion dollars. Have you kept hold of the visual? I know my brain gave out on trying on the last step. No shame in that.
Wonderful. Get one million stacks of one hundred $1 bills. Have you ever seen one million of anything in person? I know I haven't. I've seen thousands. Maybe even hundreds of thousands on TV, but I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between ten thousand people and fifty thousand people, much less one million. Conceptually, I understand that the second group would be 5x as large as the first, but if you showed me a picture of ten thousand people and told me it was fifty thousand people, I would most likely not know the difference if I didn’t have anything to compare it to.
Now, get ten million stacks of one hundred $1 bills. There are one hundred million $1 bills sitting in front of you in neat stacks of one hundred $1 bills. Think about that. Not only are there ten million stacks to keep track of, but you also have to be able to quantify the sheer number of $1 bills in those stacks.
Okay, gather together ten million stacks of one hundred $1 bills. Ten million stacks of one hundred $1 bills are a mere $100 million. So, not only do you have to imagine ten million stacks, but you have to visualize one hundred $1 bills in each of those stacks. Remember, we want to understand the concept of one billion, not just have a conceptual understanding.
Almost there. We're in the home stretch now.
Finally, get together one hundred million stacks of one hundred $1 bills. That’s it. We’ve reached one billion $1 bills. I don’t know what that looks like. I wouldn’t know the difference between one million and one hundred million unless I had a direct comparison. Even then, I wouldn’t understand what $1 billion really is. You could tell me there was $5 million in front of me and I would honestly have to take your word for that.
Now, count those one billion $1 bills. See how long it takes you. See how many times you lose count. Human brains aren't designed to grasp what one billion of anything looks like. It is unfathomable.
And that is how I feel about people who think it's okay to run down protesters with their vehicles, people who won't hold the authorities accountable, or people who somehow can look at another human being and decide they don't deserve the same rights (like the right to live without fear of being murdered) just because of the color of their skin
And then those people think they're the good guys. This is just as unthinkable to me as visualizing one billion dollars.
~Chance R. O’Malley