# Help me remember a story

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-remember-a-story/465126>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 25, 2008, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-remember-a-story/465126 "2008-09-25T06:08:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-remember-a-story/465126/1 "2008-09-25T06:08:29Z")

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I remember reading a personal account some years ago, about someone’s high school principal (or some other staff member) coming into a classroom and reciting the relative worth of various groups of people, as a kind of protest against apathy. It was something like 10 million famine-struck Tanzanians equals a hundred thousand Indonesians killed in a flood equals 200 Americans killed in an earthquake equals one guy from your neighbourhood killed in a car crash. I seem to remember it being a fairly widely-circulated story (an email forward, perhaps), but I don’t remember the exact wording enough to google it. Does anyone else remember this?

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**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-remember-a-story/465126/2 "2008-09-25T07:29:07Z")

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The [Monkey Sphere.](http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html)

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**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-remember-a-story/465126/3 "2008-09-25T07:35:58Z")

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> [@Mr\_Shine](#):
>
> The [Monkey Sphere.](http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html)

Also known as [Dunbar’s number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar_number).

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**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-remember-a-story/465126/4 "2008-09-25T08:12:20Z")

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Well, I guess that’s the general idea, but I mean the story was actually about the principal coming into the classroom and so on. Anyone remember something like that?