The "I, Pencil" story, only with soda
The number of individuals who know how to make a can of Coke is zero. The number of individual nations that could produce a can of Coke is zero. This famously American product is not American at all. Invention and creation is something we are all in together. Modern tool chains are so long and complex that they bind us into one people and one planet. They are not only chains of tools, they are also chains of minds: local and foreign, ancient and modern, living and dead — the result of disparate invention and intelligence distributed over time and space. Coca-Cola did not teach the world to sing, no matter what its commercials suggest, yet every can of Coke contains humanity’s choir.
See also "I, Pepsi".
A state-of-the-art facility with two filling lines working can fill over 1.5 billion cans of soda in a year. Yes, 1.5 billion. How many people are necessary to produce those billion and a half cans? Maybe 10 or 20 people, depending on the facility and whom you count as production workers. Twenty people can take over one billion empty cans and get them filled and put on a pallet, ready for shipping.
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