The Powers of Ten that Be

In the beginning, it was simple. I'm better than you. But then, we got numbers. So the question became, how much better am I? Those Greeks with their love of division but ignorance of zero and decimal points could say, quite simply, I'm half again as good as you. There, you were ahead of someone else by an almost insurmountable margin. But then you start learning about incrementing. The simple act of adding one to one. And then you need to be twice as good as someone.

This of course becomes an arms race of integers. My love for the woman whose hand I'm seeking can not shine merely twice as bright as the sun (for then I might leave her in the event our Sun becomes a Red Giant and consequently that much brighter), but thrice will secure our position in the eternal book of couples. And then, not thrice but quat... tetr.... four times better. Four leads to five, and six is afraid because seven ate nine.

Soon, we're in double digits. And you're slapping zeroes on willy nilly. Ten times better. 100 times stronger. Samson slayed One Thousand men! (With the jaw of an ass, no less. Keep that in mind, all those who tell me to shear myself in real life. If I ever find a jaw of an ass, I will be your worst nightmare.)

We all know what madness lies down this path. Millions. Billions. English Billions. Trillion. Googols. Googolpleces. Plaid. Ludicrous.

The real culprit, of course, is the machines. Men do not work in terms of thousands. Allow me to quote a sage mentor: "How do you make my dick 8 inches long?" "Fold it in half." This 2/3 foot phallus is still only 4 times as long as D.R.F.'s semblance of an organ: less than an order of magnitude separates us.

Instead, it is McCormack's Reaper, Whitney's Gin (Cotton, not the Christmas Tree liquor), McCoy's Not a Bricklayer, He's a Doctor, and such contraptions of the 19th Century that introduced the idea that one man, no matter how great, even if he were John Henry, could not match up against machines measured in Hundreds of Horsepower. (I don't believe in posthumous medal ceremonies).

And it was their 20th Century progeny, the computer, that delivered the final blow. That chip in your current computer can add billions of numbers every second. You could add, in that same span, what? 2 single digits and a Roman Numeral?

But towards what end? That chip could challenge a grandmaster at chess, but only if it has a friend to move the pieces. It cannot fell trees, it cannot heave coal. It cannot even solve tic-tac-toe until the climax. It may be a trillion times superior to you... at what you don't care about.

So, say it with me and say it simply: I'm better than you.