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 Africans
52 would be female, 48 would be male
70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual, 11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth . . . and all 6 would be from the United States
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 would own a computer (a year ago no one had a computer)

How could the wealthy 6 live in peace with their neighbors? Surely, they would be driven to arm themselves against the other 94 . . . perhaps even to spend, as Americans do, about twice as much per person on military defense as the total income of two thirds of the villagers. When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

~ Philip M. Harter, MD, FACEOP, Stanford University School of Medicine

Do you see what makes people different?
Or what makes them the same?

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 27th, 2009 at 4:13 am and is filed under Food for Thought. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.