so, most people don’t have any clue of scales involved with economy at large. let’s play a game:

without looking it up, give estimates for the following:

  • how many kg of concrete / steel are being produced per person per year (worldwide average)
  • how many kg of cereals per person per year
  • how many kWh of energy per person per year
  • what’s the average population density for rural areas / cities?
  • Dpek@lemmy.zipEnglish
    5·
    7 days ago

    • tens to hundreds of millions of tons

    • no fucking clue

    -depends if total enegy or just electricity, if total then i have no clue, if electricity 400 kwh (mainly due to poorer countries)

    -rural 20 people per km², city 300 km²

  • questionableunsteady@feddit.ukEnglish
    4·
    7 days ago
    • 1,000 kg concrete per person per year
    • 500kg cereals per person per year
    • 750kWh per person per year
    • rural, 10 per km^2, city 100 per km^2
  • Aniki@feddit.orgOP
    31·
    7 days ago

    i’ll give my own estimates after you’ve all had some time to think about it yourself. i’ve already looked up some of these numbers so it’s kinda unfair if i just state them immediately.

    • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.caEnglish
      3·
      7 days ago

      You could have put it in a spoiler tag. Those with no impulse control or interest in guessing would have their answers and those who want to give their guesses can with immediate access to the correct numbers.

      • Aniki@feddit.orgOP
        3·
        7 days ago

        yeah you’re right, i didn’t think of that.

        so my guesses are:

        • 1 kg per day, so 365 kg per year

        • 1 kg per day, so 365 kg per year

        • 2 - 3 kWh per day, so about 1000 kWh per year

        • about 300 people/km² for rural areas. cities can go arbitrarily high but max out at about 30k people/km². often far less than this, though.

        the reason for 300 people/km² is largely that that’s the amount of people who can be fed on that area, i.e. biological carrying capacity, if you fully utilize the arable land (as long as it’s fertile). so it would be 300 people/km² in most of the US midwest but around 0 people/km² in the great desert to the west of that. surprisingly, that’s not at all how people are actually distributed within the US: the midwest is about equally densely populated as the desert, which in my mind just doesn’t make any sense.

        world population density map