The Numbers Game

There is something weird in our collective psyche that seems to think quantity counts.  Deep down, on a fundamental level, we equate value with numbers.

Take juggling, for example.  If you tell someone you juggle, and they are not jugglers themselves, one of the first questions you will be asked is "how many balls can you juggle?"

Not "do you juggle knives?" or "how long can you go without dropping them?" (and certainly not "contact or toss juggling?" - because only other jugglers ask that).  No, all they care about is "how many?".

Now numbers juggling can be interesting to watch, but so often the routine just devolves into keeping the balls moving, rather than trying to move them in an interesting way.  Personally, I prefer to watch the routines which involve juggling smaller numbers of props but with a wider range of interesting manoeuvres.  I once heard someone say that the mark of a good juggler was what they could do with three balls.  I think there's a lot to that.

It's the same question, regardless of what you seem to be talking about.  Always "how many?"

"How many books has he written?"

"How many times has the article been cited?"

"How many downloads has it had?"

"How many tickets were sold?"

"How many native speakers does the language have?"

I think the biggest problem with the numbers game does not come from confusing the value of quantity with the importance of quality; I think it comes from the slow death that is often inflicted on things with low numbers.

High citations beget high citations (whether the content is worth it or otherwise), but articles without high citations are often overlooked in favour of their highly cited cousins - and many people won't even bother looking at them.  It's possible they will never be cited again.

Languages with low numbers of speakers will dwindle and die, as everyone makes the decision "what language shall I learn?" based on the answer to the question "how many people speak it?"

As we make decisions based on numbers, we condemn things to obscurity, rather than just "poor numbers".

It's better to have low numbers than none at all...