Horrendous Hypotheticals Two || What if Everyone on Earth Could Bend an Element?

     Many now seventh graders remember watching a Nickelodeon show called, “Avatar, The Last Air-bender”. These kids may remember the sad feeling they got when they couldn’t bend elements like the characters in the show. Drawing inspiration from characters such as, Zuko, Aang, and Toph, and thinking how great it would be if they themselves could bend. Maybe even, if everyone could bend elements. But the reality is, things wouldn’t be so nice for the world if people could bend elements as depicted in the show. First off, for those who don’t know what bending is, here’s a little lesson on bending. “Bending” is the process of manipulating an element with the power of your mind and body alone. This is done through a series of martial arts moves. There are four elements that are bendable, fire, earth, water, and air. Within these elements, there are sub-elements, like, ice, metal, lightning, and sand to name a few. In the show, there are a small percentage of people unable to bend, but in this situation, only .75% of the world can’t bend. Most likely, there would not be an equal amount of fire benders, air benders, earth benders, and water benders. This is the way it works in the show. So, now we need to figure out who bends what. In Avatar, it’s based on your parents’ bending, but since no one’s parents can currently bend, that wouldn’t work. Therefore, we at the gazette have taken a creative liberty and decided that your element is based on region. In Avatar, different benders are allocated to their own nations. For example, the Fire Nation is on the west side of the world, the Earth Kingdom is on the east side of the world, the water tribes are on the north and south area, and the airbenders are on the highest mountains. Meaning that Asia consists mostly of earthbenders, the US consists mostly of firebenders, etc. With this knowledge, we can determine the rough number of benders for each element. There would be roughly, 36,688,759 airbenders in America, 2250+ airbenders in Asia, 92,811,241 fire benders in America, 4,560,997,750 earthbenders in Asia, and 748,352,219 earthbenders in Europe. 

   Now that we have the approximate number of benders, it is also important to know that about 2.484 billion people would not be able to bend. This coincides with statistics given in the show. We have reason to believe these people would reside mostly in Europe. The main problems that would come forth would be bending accidents and abuse of power. Petty crimes would escalate in volume and lethality, as elements of fire, rock, and air are thrown in. In 2020 alone, there have been about 600,000 homicide deaths.. I believe that the amount of such crimes may have increased since COVID-19 lockdowns may have reduced the amount of outdoor activity. Due to the amount of babies born per day in America, it would (surprisingly) not crumble within days, or even years. With this factor of babies being born. This effect may be replicated in other countries as well. There are some countries that will be a problem. Many countries are impoverished and fighting oppression. With the ability to manipulate the fabric of the universe, violence would break out amongst almost everyone. This would likely cause so many massacres that in a week, the population would decrease drastically. Some countries would invade other countries. I would assume that they would try to start revolutions within days. So much chaos could topple all known governments and countries within an insanely short time. Order would be found and lost within the span of days. Small disputes could turn into homicide cases. These newly found powers would not only result in small disputes. The ability to control elements could cause whole world wars. For example, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Russia would attempt to militarize their new powers to invade Ukraine. But the Ukranians most likely would not fall victim that easily. If captured the Ukranians would probably try to form revolutions and branch off from Russia. This, no doubt, would result in many massacres. There would most likely be 2.97 million deaths after 1 week, at least. I would assume that they would try to start revolutions for at least 2 weeks, meaning that in that time, the population of Ukraine would decrease from 43.6 million to a horrifying 2.1 million people! othor casualties on the Russian side would probably permanently cripple both of the countries. After the war in Ukraine and Russia alone we can tally up the new population of Earth: to be approximately 7.868 billion people. At this point, you may be wondering why I would make this into a horrendous hypothetical if after 2-3 weeks, there would only be a little less than 50 million (rookie numbers) deaths? Well the answer is that I’m not going to go up till only a few weeks, I’m going to be calculating decades into the future. Now I can’t see into the future to know everything that will happen, but I will make educated guesses based on current information. No better way to get started than just to get into it. There are currently many serial killers in the US. active ones too. So with the newfound power of fire, they will be able to kill in sprees more often. There may be an estimated 272,160 deaths weekly in the U.S. from sprees from many of the different serial killers. That’s not all. There’s also abuse between adults and children, as well as women and men. Abusers would most likely accidentally kill from a loss in control, adding 241,920 deaths per week based on NCADV statistics. This would make the USAs population start spiraling down at a slow, but steady rate. There would be an insanely large number of deaths per week too. Even with the factor of childbirth there would still be 442,211deaths per week, meaning that the US would hit the Population of 0 in approximately 751 weeks, or 13 years provided that the population declines at a steady rate. At this point, the world population is at 6.818 Billion people. South America won’t last more than 5 years, so there is barely a need to mention them too much. Using the same methods for Europe, the time in weeks that Europe has to live is 656 weeks, or 12 years. After that final fateful year for Europe, the new population of earth is 6,695,257,839. Or 6.695 billion people. Now there’s Asia. Asia has 4.69 billion people living there as it is, so with the conditions of theft and murder. Asia would last for about 28 years before they crumble. The final continent remaining is Australia. Now those Aussies were the last to survive the last hypothetical, but will they keep their reputation of last humans standing? Well the sad answer is No. Heck, they wouldn’t even last 5 years! Now one of the bigger continents, Africa. So with the same process, I don’t need to bore you with it by doing it again. It would result in 14 years before Africa would die then the population of the earth for its last 14 years would all be in Asia. For the last year of life on earth, the population of Asia, the final remaining humans, is 11,199,750. Eventually, though, the final human will take his breath in china in approximately mid-september.

Now that we know the answer to this question, let’s see what some of your peers thought would happen. A majority thought that Asia or North America would be the last country standing. And a majority believed that humanity would end within 5 or less years. Boy were they wrong, but hey! No one knew the outcome, neither did the H̷̡̺̼̣̹̮̙͗Ổ̴̆͋Ŕ̵̔͆̒̚Ř̷͊̚E̷̯͚̜̘͑̈͆̇́̎̏N̴̰͗͊̎̐͠D̴̢̛̠̖̰͙̩̖̫͓̞̹̈̈́́̉́̑̕͜͜͝ͅǪ̴̙̩̪̩̼̠̫͖̦͈͆̀͐̒̉͘̕͝͝Ư̶̢̡̨͍̩̘͕̺̤̮͎͉̫̖̱͂̑S̵̐̚ ̶̾̔͠H̵͗͑̈́͒Y̷̆̒͛͐P̷̨͎̠͓̻̝̞̠̟̞̟̺̬̈́Ó̷̋̂̍͛̓T̶̤̪̞̯̖̱͈͕̟̟̘̯̠̀͜H̸̰̘̻̳̻̖͇̄̌͋IT̸͋̐̎̊͠I̸̔̊C̷̛À̶L̷͉͎̦͙̠̭͈̚ ̴̏̈́͌́̄͝TR̷̉͛͝O̴̾̏ until after writing this. 20% of gibbons students would want to bend air, another 20% would bend earth, 40% would like to be a waterbender, and  the last 20% would bend fire. As for me, and the Co-author, we’d love to be able to firebend as it seems just so cool. Well folks, that was another Horrendous Hypothetical, as for the next hypothetical, expect it soon.