Turn back now. This one is dark.

I typically listen to music when I drive. It makes the ever longer commute seem a little more bearable. But sometimes I turn the music off and listen to the tires against the asphalt. I look at the cars around me and wonder what the other drivers are listening to, who they are talking to, what they are late for, what situation are they driving away from, and so on.

Earlier this week I was in a thinking mood, so I turned off the music. When I get into this mode, music loses it's taste and I have to allow my brain and heart process my thoughts.

Relative silence, save for the white noise of the AC blasting away the Florida sun surrounded me, and my thoughts began to move.

Stop here if you want to have a nice weekend.

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This picture is the funniest part of this post.

Randall Munroe of XKCD once calculated that if all of humanity were to be instantly transported into one location that we would occupy a chunk of land the size of Rhode Island.

Cool visual, right?

It's fun to think that all of the currently alive humans could stand together in one space since we occupy the entire earth, it's a good place to start to realize how small we really are. But here's the problem. Randall's calculation seems to assume (at least graphically) that everyone will be standing.

Well, all of humanity is not standing right now.

Disclaimer: This is where I go dark. Turn back now. The darkest parts are appropriately in red for those of you who want to continue this journey into my thought process. I'm serious... Are you sure? Okay, fine. Read on. 

The cute visual of everyone standing there confusedly looking at each other quickly dissolves when you realize that if we were to randomly and evenly distribute humanity this would be the most depressing scene ever conceived.

In my version of this scenario everyone is transported to one level field, and we are frozen in whatever activity we were currently engaged in when the magic alien teleportation device moved us.

Only you are able to see those around you. No one else seems to realize that they have been teleported. This is like a version of A Christmas Carol on LSD. You really don't have to keep reading.

Looking around you would see wealthy magnates in the middle of business deals, a great many people peacefully sleeping, mothers and fathers cooking dinner for their children, weddings, babies being born, surfers strangely riding an invisible pipe, musicians writing and singing, kids playing, and all of the other happy things!

But right next to those happy things you would also see people in the midst of betraying their loved ones. You will see others shooting up their veins with all manner of drugs. There are people killing other people. There are abortions. There are people abusing, enslaving, and raping other people (I told you it would get dark). 

There is a starving mother struggling to provide milk for her emaciated baby while another of her children stands feet away cupping her hands towards passers by for a donation (Something I have physically witnessed first hand) while right next to them a man yells for a waiter because his steak is too well done!

You can smell the odors of poverty and death mixed with the expensive cologne and perfume of men and women in suits and evening gowns. 

You can hear the cries, screams, last breaths, shouts, gun shots. You are immersed in it. You are swimming in it.

It's not fun to imagine my scenario, is it? Now remember, you are frozen in place. You can't move and you can't help them. The aliens are performing a social experiment to gauge your reactions for exactly 1 minute! After 1 minute you are teleported back to your desk, bed, car, wherever you were before.

What now?