Urban Legends -- If the Earth Were 100 People (All Lies)

The Legend

Found on the Internet in October 2000.

If the entire population of the Earth was compressed and combined until it was precisely represented by a village of 100 people, there would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
8 Africans
2 from the Middle East
57 would own convenience stores or be really good at math and computers
21 would be snooty and condescending
8 would be unusually well endowed
2 would be potential terrorists
51 females
48 males
1 "other"
30 would be white
70 wouldn't
30 would be Christians
70 would be going to Hell
89 would be heterosexual
11 more would be going to hell
6 people would own 59% of the entire world's wealth, and they would be Bill Gates, Paul McCartney, Donald Trump, Ross Perot, a Saudi prince, and an amalgum of various Kennedys and Hiltons
80 would live in substandard housing
12 would live in standard housing in a place with really bad standards
30 would be able to read
70 would be unable to respond to this survey when it was mailed to them
11 would own a computer
10 would engage in illegal file sharing
9 would have computer viruses
2 really cool ones would own an iPod
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
2 would be arranging for another birth
1 would walk in on them and perhaps cause another death
3 would have a college education
1 would have a college education and actually be able to use it for something
1 would believe OJ is innocent
Nobody would be reading this list

Behind the Legend

These statistics, although interesting and (at least in the case of the more objective and less racist ones) completely accurate, are difficult to verify. The closest we can come is to take a look at the small village of Joyeux in France, popularized in a book by Hillary Clinton, which has 100 inhabitants and claims to "exactly mimic the makeup of the world population."

From the example of Joyeux, we can conclude that out of 100 people representing the world, 50 would be female, 2 would have a college education, and all would speak French. This is fairly close to the statistics being circulated, adding to the likelihood of their veracity.

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