Do machines outnumber humans?

What kinds of machines are you talking about? Computers or just, well, machines. And, do you mean working or not working?

Two people live in my house and we have two working computers. Hence if by machines you mean computers that work, then I'm breaking even. Oh and that's assuming computers as a whole and not as a sum of several parts, including peripherals like a scanner.

If you count nonworking computers then my husband and I are outnumbered, 2 to 2 1/2 (it's bits of a computer, not the whole thing, up in the attic). If you count all machines, then, let's see, just in this room -- and I'll go with anything operated by either battery power or electricity, and not differentiate between working and nonworking -- in this room alone, and not count fixtures like the overhead light, there are the following:

1. desk lamp
   
2. this PC's monitor (it plugs in separately)
   
3. this PC's keyboard
   
4. this PC's CPU
   
5. this power strip
   
6. digital camera (working)
   
7. digital camera (not working)
   
8. iron
   
9. portable sewing machine
   
10. cable modem surfboard
    
11. switcher so that both PCs can be plugged into the cable modem
    
12. printer/scanner
    
13. other PC's monitor
    
14. other PC's keyboard
    
15. other PC's CPU
    
16. floor lamp
    
17. boom box
    
18. space heater
    
19. old TTY that I think still works
    
20. calculator
    
21. Iomega zip drive
    
22. clip-on lamp

There you have it. In this room alone, the people are outnumbered by a factor of 11 to 1. Even assuming it being balanced out by 20 people in some place without electricity or batteries, that's still a point of breaking even, and doesn't even take into account all of the stuff in the rest of the house, such as the slow cooker, the food processor, the hand blender, the stand mixer, the alarm clocks, the wall clocks, the Walkmen (both working and non), the cel phone, the fans, the air conditioners, etc. If you count appliances and fixtures then it's also the oil burner, the stove, the dishwasher, the washer, the dryer and the hot water heater, plus all of the ceiling fixtures (this room has one, although not all of the rooms in the house do). Plus there are machines outside, and not just the car. We have a snow blower and a lawn mower.

And we aren't even gadget-happy. There are plenty of folks with things like weed whackers and rice cookers and PDAs.

Even if it's just limited to working stuff, we (and I don't just mean my husband and myself, but all of humanity) were long ago overtaken by the number of machines. Yet even if you limit it to just computers, we're probably still outnumbered. After all, my husband and I don't just have the 2 PCs here -- we're also both assigned a computer at work. Plus technically the cel phone and even the car might be considered to be computers or computer hybrids.

There's a lot of metal and electricity out there.

Simple machines certainly outnumber humans.. Unless you live in a wood hut in the middle of the forest.. just look around I think.

A lever is a simple machine. The human skeleton contains many levers. So yes, machines outnumber humans.