A recent Awake that said earth's population would fit in T

AlmostAtheist

I bumped into a JW at the store the other day. He doesn't know I'm DF'd (apparently) and I didn't decide to enlighten him. He banged on for a bit about people we both knew, how service was that morning, etc. Standard JW chitchat.

He tossed in that an Awake magazine recently said that if you put the entire earth's population into the state of Texas, they'd all have 1/2 an acre. I said, astonished, "Wow, that's a questionable figure."

He looked at me blankly for a sec. I could see the word "questionable" trying to find something in his head to connect with. When it gave up, he asked, "What?" I said, "That's a questionable figure. Where'd they come up with that?"

He stood for a moment and said, "You know, I think it was a family of five. A family of five would have half an acre. Isn't that amazing?" I'm not sure why he was so excited about the idea of a concentration camp the size of Texas, but he clearly was. I wasn't in a position to dispute this new figure, so I said, "Well, that's more believable. I could maybe see a family of five."

I just did the math on it and it still doesn't work out. If Texas has 267,000 square miles (which includes water, I think), that would give 1.2 billion families of 5 about .14 acres each.

I know it's silly, but I can't help thinking that my ol' JW buddy just might wake up a hair if he could see in black and white that the Awake is willing to print something so blatantly and provably false.

BUT I've never seen the article he's talking about. Do any of you know what article he's talking about? Could you toss me a quick note telling me which mag it is, and what it really says on this texas/population-of-earth thing?

Here's my math on it, in case I've screwed something up somewhere:
Texas = 268,581 square miles
1 square mile = 640 acres
640 * 268,581 = 171,891,840 acres
6 billion people / family of 5 = 1,200,000,000
171,891,840 / 1,200,000,000 = 0.14 acres per family of 5

Thanks!

Dave

Elsewhere

The problem is that few JWs will actually take the time to sit down and do the basic arithmetic.

Will Power

did you subtract the 6 million JWs? - they are not part of this world.wp

wp

fleaman uk

hmmm i was always told that the worlds population would fit in the isle of wight.....be bloody cramped!

Elsewhere

Hell, that's nothing... I also know for a fact that the entire world's population -- past, present and FUTURE -- could all fit into the infinitely small area of a black hole.

Beta Male

You made laugh Will.

Legolas

Yes I have heard that before...blahblahblah

01 awake

"‘Overpopulation’ a Myth?"

"Amazing as it may seem, the entire population of the world can be housed in the U.S. state of Texas," reports Vitality magazine. According to the article, the current United Nations estimate of the world’s population is about six billion people, and Texas has a land area of some 262,000 square miles [680,000 sq km]. The amount of living space per person would therefore be more than 1,217 square feet [113 sq m]. "A family of 5 would thus occupy more than 6,085 square feet [565 sq m] of living space. Even in Texas, that’s a mansion," says Vitality. "Meanwhile, the rest of the world would be completely empty, available for all of mankind’s agricultural, manufacturing, educational, and recreational activities!"

flyphisher

Ohhh...Mhm.., Texas is a special place with some weird inhabitants. They are able to reduce the earth`s population at first so they fit properly.;-)

Finally-Free

A family of five would have half an acre.

Even if it was true, could a half acre of land realistically feed 5 people for any length of time?

Even if it could, it doesn't sound like much of a "paradise".

W

daystar

Jesus H. Christ on a stick! Could you imagine the utter horror of all of the earth's population stuffed into Texas?!

What is their reason for even bringing this up? Well, I suspect they want JWs to have an answer when someone at the door says that the earth would be way overpopulated if all the dead were resurrected.

What they fail to comprehend is that the earth, as a biological system, could not support that many humans, particularly the way they most often envision life to be like in the New System. Gosh, idiots...

A recent Awake that said earth's population would fit in T

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