A deadening sense of proportion

[paddyfool]

OK, this is a slightly random post about something that I've been obsessing over a tad lately - the scale of the world. I mean, take yesterday. A pretty average day, right? Well, if so, on that day:

- 150,000-160,000 people would have died (15,000 from the effects of their tobacco consumption, 5000 from AIDS, 3000 from road injuries, 2000 from suicide, 2000 from homicide or wartime violence...)
- 370,000 people would have been born
- And an unknowable number of people would have fallen in love, broken their hearts, laughed, cried, sung, bitched, and so on and so forth.

So right now, in thinking about all that, I feel a bit like I'm under the influence of Douglas Adams' sense of proportion machine (or whatever it was called). This world, this small planet of ours alone... well, it's too big for me.

And maybe, the positive and wholesome message to take from all this is that perhaps we shouldn't stare at the world too long. We'll never take in all of what's really happening, and what's fed to us by the media will have been filtered for oddity and other entertainment value anyhow. Instead, we should obviously all get on with living our own lives. Yet, no matter that I tell myself this, I'm still stuck on the numbers.

References:
Figures are derived from the World Health Report (http://www.who.int/whr/2008/en/index.html) and the US Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/pcwe). The US Census Bureau would estimate it at 150,000 deaths per annum, the WHO at 160,000. All of these numbers are based on projections and models, aka more-or-less sophisticated guesswork, since a heck of a lot of births and deaths aren't registered anywhere.

[hamishspence]

the numbers may help to give a sense of proportion to various problems.

[Lord Herman]

Indeed. For example, from the figures you gave us, it follows that each day, 123,000-133,000 people die from unknown causes.

Imagine that; over a hundred thousand people die inexplicably each day. And the scary thing is, you never hear of it. Everyone I knew who died died of some known cause. For every one of those people, I should have known about three who just dropped dead for no apparent reason. I sense a conspiracy!

[RS14]

So right now, in thinking about all that, I feel a bit like I'm under the influence of Douglas Adams' sense of proportion machine (or whatever it was called). This world, this small planet of ours alone... well, it's too big for me.
The statistics that I find most alarming are casualty estimates from bombing campaigns, not because of their size, but because of their range. Take the firebombing of Tokyo. I've read estimates of between 30,000 and 200,000 dead. Whatever estimates you use, it suggests that a huge number of people--Probably about 53,000, using the most commonly accepted figure for total casualties-- were killed such that it's difficult or impossible to determine that they ever lived. What does that say about our lives?

[paddyfool]

Indeed. For example, from the figures you gave us, it follows that each day, 123,000-133,000 people die from unknown causes.

Heh. For anyone who doesn't realise you're being facetious, there are estimates for all the rest - I just didn't think they'd be ones that people would be so interested in. Also, I rather sneakily mixed in an underlying cause (tobacco) with a bunch of proximates. For anyone who wants more data on this, there's a list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death) of proximate causes on Wikipedia; data on the other big underlying causes (obesity, malnutrition, poverty, alcohol, etc. etc.) is also out there, but it's mired in controversy.

[Jack Squat]

Indeed. For example, from the figures you gave us, it follows that each day, 123,000-133,000 people die from unknown causes.

Imagine that; over a hundred thousand people die inexplicably each day. And the scary thing is, you never hear of it. Everyone I knew who died died of some known cause. For every one of those people, I should have known about three who just dropped dead for no apparent reason. I sense a conspiracy!

He didn't list every cause (shown nicely by that '...').

I'd say most people die from natural causes/heart failure.

[paddyfool]

the numbers may help to give a sense of proportion to various problems.

We can only hope so.


I'd say most people die from natural causes/heart failure.

Cardiovascular diseases are indeed the leading single cause, although not responsible for an overall majority of deaths - see the list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death) I ref'ed.

[three08]

you're thinking of the Total Perspective Vortex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex#Total_Perspective_Vortex) .

yes, that is the full extent of my contribution to the discourse.

[Jack Squat]

Cardiovascular diseases are indeed the leading single cause, although not responsible for an overall majority of deaths - see the list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death) I ref'ed.

I also mentioned natural causes...I put the slash because that's the most common. From that list natrual causes (not disease or inflicted, does include "conditions"), it's about 60%

[Moff Chumley]

My opinion is that everyone should be forced to think, for at least five minutes a day, in the grand scheme of things, everything they do is for gits and shiggles. Nothing, in the long run, makes any difference worth noticing. It's such a liberating thought.

No, I am not kidding.

[paddyfool]

you're thinking of the Total Perspective Vortex.

yes, that is the full extent of my contribution to the discourse.

Thank you - a most educational contribution!


I also mentioned natural causes...I put the slash because that's the most common. From that list natrual causes (not disease or inflicted, does include "conditions"), it's about 60%

I don't like the term much myself... a heck of a lot of "natural causes" deaths could have been prevented. For instance, many heart disease and cancer deaths have a preventable underlying cause, such as smoking. Therefore, they could at least have been postponed (along with their proximate debilitating conditions) if the underlying cause were eliminated. But yeah, the majority of all deaths are caused by non-communicable disease other than injury.


My opinion is that everyone should be forced to think, for at least five minutes a day, in the grand scheme of things, everything they do is for gits and shiggles. Nothing, in the long run, makes any difference worth noticing. It's such a liberating thought.

Yeah... but no. We see differences being made by people all around us. In 1900, the life expectancy at birth in today's rich countries was 30-40 years, whereas today it's in the range of 75-80 and rising. The world is changing, and we're changing it, both as a few exceptional individuals and, more importantly, as a mass of people. So how can we derive joy from this? IMHO, one philosophy that may point the way talks about the third happiness, meaning (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/seligman04/seligman_index.html). EDIT However, I can hardly deny that most of us need a good portion of gits and shiggles along the way.

[Jack Squat]

Just to be clear, I didn't calculate cancers in...that'd probably bring the total closer to 75 or 80%, but that's a moot point. I was responding more to Herman's post about how many people die of unknown causes than trying to do anything with your figures.

I figure we're here so short, we either have to make the most of ourselves and try to be one of the few remembered, or we should have fun, I'm a fan of the latter.

"Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive." Elbert Hubbard

[Telonius]

For more perspective, see here (http://www.xkcd.com/482/) and here (http://www.xkcd.com/485/).

[Jack Squat]

For more perspective, see here (http://www.xkcd.com/482/) and here (http://www.xkcd.com/485/).

Don't forget this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcTHBOjnUss)

[Telonius]

Also - there are between 1 and 3 million deaths due to malaria (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/layne/Epidemiology_220/diseases.pdf) per year. Compared to approximately 2.8 million killed during the entirety of the Korean War (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm). So if you're ever stuck on a battlefield, remember: it could be worse. You could be in a jungle.

[ghost_warlock]

I am often struck with Perspective like this when sitting at work around 4-5am, when I'm all alone in the hallway and it seems like everyone else on earth is fast asleep. :smallfrown:

Then, I remember that I'm a member of the GitP community and I think to myself that, yes, tragic, amoral, ane meaningless as the world can sometimes be, "this is the best of all possible worlds." :smallsmile:


Don't forget this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcTHBOjnUss)

Every time I see that, I love it more. :smallsmile: Eric Idle is my favorite former-Python. Despite all the criticisms of his work post-Monty, I just love everything he did, every role and song, while a part of the group. "Sixth nicest Python," indeed.

[paddyfool]

Also - there are between 1 and 3 million deaths due to malaria per year. Compared to approximately 2.8 million killed during the entirety of the Korean War. So if you're ever stuck on a battlefield, remember: it could be worse. You could be in a jungle.

More shocking still - the first world war killed more people than ever before it, with over 40 million direct casualties over four years (in later history, only WW2 has eclipsed it, with over 70 million casualties). Yet in the 1918-20 flu epidemic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu), roughly the same number of people were killed in two years by a simple airborne virus. Which is why people get so anxious about bird flu, despite the fact there have only been 387 recorded cases and 245 deaths (http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/country/cases_table_2008_09_10/en/index.html).

Good comic & Youtube links, btw, Jack & Telonius - thank you for those.

[SurlySeraph]

Perspective like this doesn't make me think things are meaningless. On the contrary, it's a challenge; it shows how hard you need to work to make a real impact. And you can damn well work that hard.


My opinion is that everyone should be forced to think, for at least five minutes a day, in the grand scheme of things, everything they do is for gits and shiggles. Nothing, in the long run, makes any difference worth noticing. It's such a liberating thought.

No, I am not kidding.

I disagree. I don't think people take their lives seriously enough. I think five minutes a day of being shouted at would be better. For example, calculate and tell them how much money they could have made by working overtime for an hour. Then tell them how much mosquito nets cost, and calculate how many malaria deaths they could have prevented by working an extra hour every day. It would be best to have written down the least useful things that they did for said hour per day. The same general idea can be applied to grain prices and number of people starving vs. amount and price of what they eat, time it takes to work out vs. how much time they spent watching TV, etc.

[Moff Chumley]

Yeah... but no. We see differences being made by people all around us. In 1900, the life expectancy at birth in today's rich countries was 30-40 years, whereas today it's in the range of 75-80 and rising. The world is changing, and we're changing it, both as a few exceptional individuals and, more importantly, as a mass of people. So how can we derive joy from this? IMHO, one philosophy that may point the way talks about the third happiness, meaning (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/seligman04/seligman_index.html). EDIT However, I can hardly deny that most of us need a good portion of gits and shiggles along the way.

The world is changing. People have longer life spans. In a fraction of the earth's existence, we'll all be gone, and the human race will be like something that's never happened. In a relatively short amount of time after that, the earth will no longer exist. Nothing you can do will change that. And that's why I am a happy person.

[paddyfool]

The world is changing. People have longer life spans. In a fraction of the earth's existence, we'll all be gone, and the human race will be like something that's never happened. In a relatively short amount of time after that, the earth will no longer exist. Nothing you can do will change that. And that's why I am a happy person.

Hm. Yeah, the human race will doubtless get shunted along at some point*. We've only been around for a couple million years, no reason we'll still be around to see how the story ends.

But in our lifetimes, we can make a big difference to our own lives, to a lot of other people alive today and to a lot of other people not yet born. Which on the ordinary, everyday, human scale of you and me, does make a difference, even if the universe as a whole really doesn't give the rear end of a rat.

*Whether we nuke ourselves, invent our own successor/destroyer, evolve, devolve, get squashed by space aliens, get incinerated in a solar flare, get hit by a really big asteroid, destroy ourselves with some wacky science experiment, or something else.

EDIT - The really lucky people, of course, are those who can get their gits and shiggles while trying to change the world, and succeed (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3353906/Dean-Kamen-part-man%2C-part-machine.html). (B******s).

[hamishspence]

optimistic guess is- evolve. still, species that survive the evolution lottery are often more lucky than anything else: Lystrosaurus- piglike therapsid- dominated the world in the Permian and didn't have anything obvious going for it.

Generalists tend to be more likely to survive mass extinctions like the ongoing one than specialists.

[Evil DM Mark3]

You are one person. A single person. In a massive world. You where lucky enough to be born one of the richest and most comfortable.

So, here is the question we should all ask at least once a week.

What are you going to with it?

[GoC]

You are one person. A single person. In a massive world. You where lucky enough to be born one of the richest and most comfortable.

So, here is the question we should all ask at least once a week.

What are you going to with it?

I know someone back in Colombia who runs a charity that helps pregnant teenagers who have nowhere to go (some pretty messed up stories here). My parents there can think of 100 different uses for a mere $1000.
It costs $3000-4000 to turn someone's life around.
Care to donate?

[Moff Chumley]

You are one person. A single person. In a massive world. You where lucky enough to be born one of the richest and most comfortable.

So, here is the question we should all ask at least once a week.

What are you going to with it?

Never heard THAT before... >.<

[chiasaur11]

you're thinking of the Total Perspective Vortex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Perspective_Vortex#Total_Perspective_Vortex) .

yes, that is the full extent of my contribution to the discourse.

What does it indicate if it says you're a pretty cool dude?

[some_other_dave]

Brings to mind Stalin's famous quote:
"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

-soD

[Rebonack]

I'm only a person, but I am a person.

I can't help everyone, but I can help someone.

I can't solve all the world's problems, bit I can solve some of them.

These statistics don't make things meaningless. They serve to remind us just how important every moment is.

[Doran_Liadon]

Well, those are numbers. I prefer not to get mixed up in what people say. I prefer to pay attention to peoples actions rather then words.

[llamamushroom]

I think I know a way to truly put statistics into perspective: the number is actually a link to a list of names, with photographs, of each person in the category.

Like Lenin said: One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.

[Helanna]

Hm. Yeah, the human race will doubtless get shunted along at some point*. We've only been around for a couple million years, no reason we'll still be around to see how the story ends.

Y'know, I think about this all the time. And then I think: so why the HELL do I have to do all this homework???? And I'm not even being sarcastic. It really bothers me that I have to do homework. Because someday I'll be dead. So shouldn't I spend my time doing something I'll enjoy? This life is all you get, and I'm spending it doing homework. :smallmad:


Brings to mind Stalin's famous quote:


Like Lenin said

Heh. Now I don't know which one it was. . .



You are one person. A single person. In a massive world. You where lucky enough to be born one of the richest and most comfortable.

This is why it pisses me off so badly when people say "[Something bad] won't happen to me. That only happens to other people." To paraphrase Calvin and Hobbes: "The problem is, we're all someone else . . . to someone else."

I have to deal with my classmates acting like they can do whatever they want with absolutely no risk because it "can't happen to them". It bothers me. :smallfurious:

[Faceist]

Heh. Now I don't know which one it was. . .
Hell, me too. I thought it was Marilyn Manson (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/marilynmanson/thefightsong.html). :smalltongue:

Here's my advice. Focussing on the big picture is a bad idea. The bigger the picture becomes, the more depressingly small and pointless everything seems by comparison. So focus on the little things, instead, and work your way up towards the bigger things, one step at a time. Help an old lady across the street, donate to charity every month, cut down your carbon emissions, get out and jog every morning. If everyone does a little thing, then it'll swiftly add up into big things, and oh good lord I sound like a hallmark card.

[paddyfool]

"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

It's usually attributed to Joseph Stalin. However, according to Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin) at least, there's no evidence of him ever actually having said it, and the earliest source they have for it is a novel written in 1956. Ergo, this could just be another "I can see Russia from my house" misattribution.

EDIT - Oh, and it definitely wasn't Lenin.

[Project_Mayhem]

Your world's only as big as you let it be. Mine mostly consists of a small bubble around me. Hence I'm the single most important thing in it.

[oreganoe]

To quote "Circle of Life" from Lion King,

"From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found..."

I have to say, a ridiculously large picture is fine by me, so long as the picture isn't homogeneous. Then I could see that being depressing.

[Devils_Advocate]

This world, this small planet of ours alone... well, it's too big for me.
No, it isn't. You seriously do in fact exist here. The world's enormity has not crushed you into nothingness. (Odd how it's sometimes helpful to call attention to the obvious, isn't it?)


And maybe, the positive and wholesome message to take from all this is that perhaps we shouldn't stare at the world too long. We'll never take in all of what's really happening, and what's fed to us by the media will have been filtered for oddity and other entertainment value anyhow. Instead, we should obviously all get on with living our own lives.
Well, we shouldn't disregard the world in the sense that we pretend that only the small part of it that we live in exists. I definitely wouldn't call that positive and wholesome. At the same time, we shouldn't just stare into space contemplating what great big numbers represent. We should do things about the stuff they represent as is appropriate. Other than that, though, there's nothing all that productive about dwelling on things.


Nothing, in the long run, makes any difference worth noticing.
Small effects get magnified into large effects over time, and this does not happen in a completely unpredictable fashion. So that's a load of bunk.

If anything, we should be very mindful of our present actions because of the degree of impact they'll have on the future.

Even if not... You and a bunch of others seem to be somehow confusing relative value with absolute value. See, if there are countless trillions of worlds that will exist for countless trillions of years, that just means that human experiences are a very small fraction of everything that is. It doesn't diminish human experiences a drop. It's like how if someone is two meters tall, he's no less two meters tall for the galaxy being I-don't-know-how-many light-years across. A life is still a life, and no less so for there being billions of lives.

If you want to get relative, take the amounts of happiness, safety, knowledge, ect. you would produce by deliberately attempting to maximize these things, and divide that by the amounts you produce just casually screwing around. That's the sort of figure that should be driving your actions. If one hour of work can save one life out of a thousand, that's an extremely good payoff. You don't compare the one life to the thousands of lives, you compare it to the hour of work, since those are the actual costs and benefits you're dealing with. That there is OMG A WHOLE BUNCH of other stuff also going on elsewhere at the same time doesn't alter that.

Seriously, "Next to all that, we seem so small" is just a rephrasing of "There are other things that are really damn big". It actually becomes relevant when you can control your interaction with the really damn big things, but outside of that, it's not relevant. It's not even a factor when you're dealing strictly with relatively small stuff, and it doesn't make the relatively small stuff any less absolutely big.

Honestly, my awareness of the scope of Great Big Things does tend to blunt my emotions, but I recognize that this is completely irrational. To the extent that my awareness of Great Big things ought to causes me to devalue the relatively small impact I have on people -- because I only have so much emotional energy, and it ought to be assigned proportionately -- it should cause me to devalue casually screwing around even more. Ideally, I would not be having this conversation, because there are better things I could be doing.

And that's all without even getting into how a surprisingly small investment of effort can pay off BIG dividends over time. Basically, screwing around < deliberately working towards positive results < making intelligent decisions to maximize positive results over the long term.


Y'know, I think about this all the time. And then I think: so why the HELL do I have to do all this homework???? And I'm not even being sarcastic. It really bothers me that I have to do homework. Because someday I'll be dead. So shouldn't I spend my time doing something I'll enjoy? This life is all you get, and I'm spending it doing homework. :smallmad:
Theoretically, you should do homework because it allows you and others to experience more enjoyment over the long run.

In practice, schools sometimes heap a bunch of busywork on students, because the people assigning the work aren't directly impacted by how beneficial it is to anyone. So, well (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/lost-purposes.html)... :smallfrown:

[Nerd-o-rama]

Hm. This sounds familiar.

Try starting a club.

[paddyfool]

Excellent post, Devil's Advocate. Happily, it's motivating me to go back to work for now, so I won't write any more at this time ;-).

[Helanna]

In practice, schools sometimes heap a bunch of busywork on students, because the people assigning the work aren't directly impacted by how beneficial it is to anyone. So, well... (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/lost-purposes.html)

Wow. I'm going to waste so much time on that site now. That's pretty cool, thanks!

. . . Meanwhile, I have a Physics test in an hour, so I'll be off :smalleek:

[Project_Mayhem]

In practice, schools sometimes heap a bunch of busywork on students, because the people assigning the work aren't directly impacted by how beneficial it is to anyone. So, well...

That linky was interesting. Fortunately, I know I'm not the student in the example, 'cause who the hell takes English for job oppertunities.

[Ceska]

Do you know Stanislaw Lem's One Human Minute? It plays with the whole idea in form of a book review.
The whole book it's in (it's a collection of short fictional reviews) is very good, frighteningly close to reality in many parts, too.