Tomorrow Landand

The Direction of Everything

Information and Extrapolations On:

Population, Work, Money, Criminals, Debt, Santa Claus, Heaven, Plastic Bags, Inflation, Muslims, Big Numbers,

Something or Nothing

James A. Cunningham, Ph.D.

June 2012

This is a quantitative look at everything you have been worrying about. Except maybe old age and hemorrhoids.

Time and a Growing World Population

The population of human beings on earth is about 7 billion. We are growing in number at about 1.2% per year. Seem slow enough? I don’t think so.

After 195 years, the world’s population will have grown by a factor of ten to 70 billion.

After 1610 years we’ll be all standing smack dab together on one square foot on all the land (and ice) in the planet.

At 150 pounds each, in 2500 years the weight of all the people will equal the mass of the earth.

In 2741 years, we will be expanding into the universe at the speed of light.

At that point, we might slow down. Probably run out of ground beef.

The New Economy in Tomorrow Land

Pretty soon, we Americans will not have to do any actual physical work. (Except for maybe some farm and construction endeavors, but all those illegal types already here can easily take care of that for us.)

In Tomorrow Land, China will make everything. It will be great. We simply send over our designs, some raw materials, and a few borrowed dollars and every thing we might ever want soon arrives in gigantic container ships already in bubble pack.

How long will it be before we get there? If we ignore population growth, it’s an easy calculation. Here is how it’s done, and the necessary numbers.

In recent years, China has set up 110 million workers doing manufacturing, mostly assembly. This number has grown at about 2.4% per year since 1980. The total number of manufacturing workers in the world is about 440 million. So how many years are required until the Chinese labor grows to equal all 440 million?

110 [1.024] n = 440

The number of years n is equal to 60. Your great grand children will be part of the great new economy.

If the number of people doing manufacturing grows with the population, it will take the Chinese twice as long. But however long it takes to get there, in the new economy, nobody makes anything with their hands but the Chinese.

The professional economists in their infinite wisdom have shown us the way. The path to prosperity is through productivity increases. This is accomplished, of course, by getting rid of as many people as possible. A business might keep an automated factory such as making candy or refining gasoline, but any and all labor intense operations must go.

Apple, now the largest company in the world has shown us the way, taught us the lessons of prosperity and growth. Taught us how to get really, really productive. Here’how:

For any company doing manufacturing, the only work you actually need to do here is sit at your computer and design new products and maybe write code for nifty new apps and social stuff. China does everything else. You can have Wall Mart pick up the parts at the dock, and sell them. Don’t even bother with such mundane crap. Your employees should all live the good life. They can bring their dogs to work and eat lunch in the gourmet company-cafe.

And don’t worry about all those Chinese worker bees doing all those millions of repetitive motions. Don’t worry about them being mistreated. If they go berserk after several billion movements all exactly the same, and suddenly bolt up the stairs to the fifth floor and jump off, most Chinese companies (i.e. Foxconn) have already put up wire nets to catch them on the way down.

But what about all the unemployment here at home in Tomorrow Land? No problem. The government simply extends unemployment benefits each year like it does now. This will free up new millions to do what they really always wanted to do -- make Google searches, watch reruns of Dancing with the Kardashians, keep up with everyone on Facebook, make babies, and eat dinner at McDonalds while simultaneously texting. What could be finer?

Borrowing Lots of Money

The federal debt ending 2011 was about $15 trillion, growing at 9.2% each year since 2000. The value of all assets in the U.S is about $200 trillion. At this rate, in 36 years the public debt will equal the value of everything -- all assets, the money supply, all our gold, everything. Assets will equal liabilities. In Tomorrow Land, the net value of America will be zero.

For those who think it want take as long as 36 years, they are right. If you use the total debt, we’ll be there in 20 years. (Total debt includes all government, corporate, mortgage, credit card, student loans and so forth. It’s already well over $50 trillion)

When we finally get to zero, the Muslim countries can then buy us for no down, which is already their approximate net worth.

This will be, of course, the fault of Barack Obama, notorious African Muslim Leader and Socialist.

Go directly to jailDo not pass GoDo not collect $200

Growing in number at 6% per year since 1980, by 2010 we had 2.3 million people incarcerated. If the U.S. population were to remain at 313 million persons, we will all be in jail within 84 years.

But it may not be so bad. Our multitasking skills honed to perfection by then, we can all simultaneously be watching Dancing with the Hot Guards on FOX (Felons On Xanax), tweeting our friends in other cellblocks, and ordering stuff from Amazon.com.

Santa Claus

Sorry, but I have a problem with Santa Claus. I can’t figure out how he does it. We have this plump overweight guy in a red suit in an airborne sled pulled by nine reindeer. He has all the presents in one big bag. I get that part.

But no matter how well intentioned he might be, come Christmas night, he has a bear of a problem. He has to deliver gifts to over 2 billion Christians in one 24-hour period. And they’re not all sitting in one big church, waiting. They’re spread all over the world.

I want bore you with the math, but I calculate that Mr. Claus has 0.0001 of a second for each family. A typical blink of an eye takes 1000 times longer then that. Even overcoming this, if each family of three is separated on

average by only 300 feet, this poor guy has to travel at the speed of light to get it done.

He must be really tired by the time he gets back to the North Pole. And just think about those poor reindeer. They’ve been converted to electromagnetic radiation and have been dissipated into space.

But speaking of Santa Claus,

Where in the Hell is Heaven, For Goodness Sake?

Where is heaven? I myself wouldn’t mind going if I only could figure out where it is. I’d like to take a look and check it out first.

It’s been mentioned by those in the know about such things that it’s “upward,” you know, you have to “ascend” to get there. But if you are on the other side of the earth you would ascend in the opposite direction. And maybe end up in really bad place.

How come the Hubble can’t find it? Maybe they don’t where to look. Maybe some numbers would help. Just how big is Heaven? I can make a calculation.

NASA postulates that the universe has 100 billion earth-like planets. Let’s assume the earth is typical. Lets also assume that maybe one half of the 110 billion people here on earth that have already died and have gone (ascended) to heaven. I assume the Diety is reasonably tolerant since we are presently stuck with over 500 separate religions, many with different rules of entry. Seems to me if He were really going be sticky about the entrance exam, He’d let us know which one he likes.

But of course all those various overt sinners, and maybe some of those “unsaved” types don’t get go. Anyway, let’s assume that Heaven has about the same density of sentient beings now on earth. Actually, a little more room might be better since if these beings are anything like us we aren’t going to want to room together.

Anyway, with these numbers I can calculate the size of Heaven. It’s roughly 10,000 times the diameter of the earth. So, it’s way bigger than the sun. I can’t figure out why the Hubble can’t spot it.

Well, of course, some might argue it doesn’t need to be so big since most inhabitants are simply spirits. If this is so, I don’t think I’m interested. No way to do woodworking with non-corporeal fingers.

Plastic Bags

A lot of people are worried about plastic bags. You know, the ones we put our stuff in at the food store, and etc. They aren’t bio degradable. Some say they’re eternal. A don’t know about that, but they do tend to accumulate in what’s left of the environment.

But just how serious is this? Again, we need some numbers to size it. I understand that we in the U.S. consume 100 billion bags a years. That’s a lot of bags. It comes to almost one a day for every person in America. If we were to put them all within the city limits of San Jose, for example, they would be 8 feet deep in 7 years. That’s deep enough to suffocate even basketball players.

We probably shouldn’t do that.

Inflation

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of inflation. Tired of saving money and having it lose value.

So. Just how bad is it? Let’s calculate how long it will be, using the rate of inflation we have experienced over the past 100-years, until the paper dollar will be worth less than the cost of making one. That will happen in 85 years. My grand children might see it.

Then the Government will have to find something cheaper than paper to use for money.

Muslims

It is estimated that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and they grow in number by 3.2% per year. If this is true, everyone in the world will be Muslim within 84 years. And yes, the calculation does take into account the world’s growing population.

Today, there are more Christians than Muslims. Christians number about 2.1 billion. But their growth rate is roughly that of the population. Thus, relative to the Muslims they may shrink away like easy credit in Athens.

In order to grow this fast the Muslims will of course have to convert everyone who now embraces another religion. This might work for everyone except the atheists and the agnostics. They number almost one billion. A notoriously stubborn group, probably the better solution here is to behead these undeserving types. Or maybe put then all on reservations like the Indians

Some argue that the Muslims are not growing by conversion but simply by immigration, high birth rates and various forms of persuasion such and the new strap-on vests combined with the availability of lots of nubile virgins in Paradise. Maybe the women can’t resist the new high fashion burkas.

Really Big Numbers

I thought the Physicists were supposed to simplify all this.

1011 That’s the number of planets that should have sentient beings.

1021 If the earth is average, that’s the number of people-like beings in the universe.

1049 That’s about the number of molecules in all the beings.

1050 That’s about the number of atoms in them.

2X1051 That’s about the number of protons, neutrons and electrons.

6X1051 That’s about the number of quarks, not even counting the silly little gluons who don’t have any mass.

6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

As far as I’m concerned the Physicists can stop right there.

Something versus Nothing

Finally, why is there something instead of nothing? If you consider only reality, this one is easy. Since nothing cannot create anything, there had to something at first. Therefore, there must be something.

But, of course, there could have been nothing at first. So where did the first something come from?

I’m getting a headache

END