They could make those.

I don't think most people know how to make those things.

I think I could teach them but I should probably practice first. When I help build houses I don't do any of the hard parts.

You can't teach everyone. There's billions and billions of people.

How many is that?

Do you know how many a hundred is?

No.

A hundred is like if you counted on your fingers, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten, and then you did that on nine more people's fingers, then you would have a hundred fingers. Does that make sense?

- yeah, okay. 

OK!

So a billion is if you make a pile of a hundred things, and you make a hundred piles, and then you put the piles on trays, and you have a hundred trays, and you fit those trays into shelves, and then you have a room of a hundred shelves, and then you have ten rooms of shelves of trays of piles of things. I think. Unless I got confused in there.

And that's about how many people there are. Except more than ten rooms, but I think less than a hundred.

- so is the problem that they have more babies every year than I can teach in a year?

I guess?

I think if I worked really hard I could teach them faster than they have babies, but maybe it would make more sense to teach people how to teach it and then other people could teach it and we could keep up with all the babies, easy-peasy, and get everyone else eventually.

I don't think you could teach all the babies in the world how to do stuff. Also lots of people can't learn how to make clothes because they have to work and if they didn't they'd run out of money.

All of this sounds really stupid and horrible and whoever your king is I think they are very bad at their job.

Oh we don't have a king anymore. We had a war about it. Everybody had farms before but I think things were worse back then because they didn't have vaccines or libraries or freedom.

I think it would have been better, actually, if you had farms.

I bet farms don't keep you from dying of smallpox.

Well we have farms and I've never heard of anyone dying from smallpox. Just from having a baby or swimming in the river when they're too little or hunting accidents.

I don't mean that farms give you smallpox. I just mean we used to all have farms, but then everyone had to spend twelve hours a day doing farm stuff and nobody had time to cure smallpox or build libraries or build planes, so I think I like not having a king better. Also he was terrible and kept taxing everybody.

Working on farms is nice, though, you can sing and tell stories while you do it and your children don't have to sit still under a desk and you won't be hungry no matter what and also I think people still have time to build things though I have not heard of libraries or planes in particular. It is too bad that your King did some things wrong but everyone living on farms still sounds much nicer than -

He gestures around at the apartment without opening his eyes.

I bet the houses were worse back then, too.

But they aren't, they're way nicer. You have a lot more flexibility when you aren't trying to make the whole street of houses designed by different people fit the same look.

I think you're really confused about how kings work. Back when people had kings, they all lived in, like, tiny houses with dirt floors, and had to work in the fields all day from sun up to sundown, and sometimes they weren't allowed to leave or get married without permission from their lord, and they couldn't say anything the king didn't like or worship in ways the king didn't like, and they had to give a bunch of their money and crops to the king because he was in charge and he said so, and also their babies kept dying of smallpox and cholera, and nobody could read, and they kept having wars over who should be king every time the king died without any sons. So we decided we were done with that.

- but we have a king and none of those things happen. Except that most people can't read.