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Josh Allan Dykstra
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LegacyFebruary 4, 2008

What’s 3 Trillion?

  • Written out, a trillion is a one followed by 12 zeros, or 1,000,000,000,000. That's a million times one million, or a thousand times one billion. Multiply that times three and you have 3 trillion.
  • Counting to 3 trillion at a rate of one number a second would take almost 95,000 years.
  • One would have to circumvent the globe 120 million times to travel 3 trillion miles. Similarly, that would be some 17,000 round trips to the sun. The universe, 15 billion years old at the outside, would need another 200 such lifetimes to reach 3 trillion years.
  • A trillion is a figure more commonly used when talking about outer space. A light year, the distance that light travels in a vacuum in a year, is about 6 trillion miles.
  • There are about 6.8 billion people in the world, meaning that every living person would get $441 if $3 trillion was divided up. If the money was split among the 300 million Americans, everyone would take home $10,000.
  • A person given $1 million a year to spend would need 3 million years to blow $3 trillion.
But mostly...
  • Three trillion dollars is about what the federal government will spend this coming year for domestic and defense programs and benefit entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, according to President Bush's latest federal budget proposal Monday. ($3.1 trillion, actually).
Source: Associated Press UPDATE: Want to see what a trillion dollars LOOKS like? Click here. UPDATE #2: Just heard this fact: 1 trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years. //
LegacyJanuary 29, 2008

The Rich Young Me

I had coffee last week with my friend Greg, and, as always, we had some great conversations about church, life, and the meaning of basically everything. In the Christian Bible, there's a story about a rich young man who, one day, approached Jesus, wanting the inside track to the Kingdom. Jesus responds by reciting a bunch of commandments to follow, and when the young man says he already does all those things, Jesus tells him that he has one more thing to do: go sell his stuff and give it to the poor. The man was rich; he couldn't do it. It's in this context where Jesus introduces that timeless sticky idea we've all heard about a camel trying to squeeze through a needle's eye, in reference to how difficult it will be for the wealthy to actually find his Kingdom. If you grew up in the Christian world of "church," you've probably heard this story a million times (I know I have). And outside of painting a pretty cool picture in my head -- "As hard as that big 'ol camel tries to suck in his camel-fat, he can never fit! Haha!" -- I never take too much away from it, honestly. But today, Greg turned me into the rich young man. I typically don't think of myself as rich. I look around and notice the wealth of the world, and, honestly, I don't see me. I see a lot of other people, and strangely (or not), they're all probably the same people you see when you think "rich." But the fact is (and you probably already know where I'm going with this) that compared with the rest of the world, I'm pretty stinkin' wealthy. Take a look at this clip from Rob Bell's NOOMA entitled "Rich": The fact is, I think I often don't value truth very much. I make comparisons all the time, but only when they're in my favor. I compare UP when it benefits me ("I'm nowhere near as wealthy as Mr. Gates!") and then compare DOWN when that works better ("I'm giving a full 10% of my income to my favorite charity. I'll bet they don't even give at all!"). But this is ignoring the whole truth; I'm disregarding most of the facts. Once in awhile, I think it's good to compare in the direction I'd rather not -- UP to, say, a Mother Teresa. Or DOWN to kids in Rwanda. Might be good for me. Otherwise I start to look at lot like that stupid, fat 'ol camel. //
LegacyDecember 13, 2007

The Shopocalypse Is Upon Us!

Morgan Spurlock, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite people, recently released a new film called "What Would Jesus Buy?" From the movie's website:
"What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!"
I haven't had a chance to see the film yet (unbelievably, it's not currently playing in Los Angeles -- Iowa City and Lawrence, KS, but not L.A.), but the more innundated I become with marketing which insists Christmas=Debt, the more I'm drawn to a different message. I also came across this interview with the Reverend Billy himself. In the interview, I found this part to be especially interesting:
INTERVIEWER: Do you consider yourself a religious or spiritual person now? REVEREND BILLY: I've just kind of moved beyond calling myself labels. I think a part of resisting consumerism and giving people the example of resisting consumerism is to stop imitating products. That's why we don't get any money from foundations. Are we political? Are we religious? Are we artistic? Those are three labels that would come to us from the foundation world. Well, the political foundations think we are clowns. And the artistic foundations think we are political. And the religious foundations think we are atheists. So the thing that makes us powerful to people is also the thing that makes it hard to define.
Related Reading: Creative Cures for the Common Christmas (by Shane Claiborne) //