For all the ease in Carpenter’s response, Philbin might as well have
told him that for a million dollars, he’d need to state his own name
aloud or calculate the sum of one and one.
I know "might as well" is used to suggest doing something, often when there is nothing better to do.[1]
But I think "might" belongs to the structure "might + have + past participle"
And we can rewrite the sentence in this way:
Carpenter answered so easily, as if Philbin might have told him that for
a million dollars, he’d need to state his own name aloud or calculate the sum of one and one.
But I am not sure, so could you tell me what the meaning of the sentence above is?
The fuller text is:
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is one of the most successful TV game
shows in history. It’s also an excellent place to watch people grapple
with disfluency— the experience of struggling to make sense of
information. The show has more than a hundred international variants,
but in each case contestants answer trivia questions that become
increasingly difficult as they’re worth larger sums of money. Two of
the U.S. show’s most famous contestants are John Carpenter and Ogi
Ogas, who both walked away with impressive winnings. On November 19,
1999, Carpenter became the first contestant to win $1 million on the
U.S. show. For the million-dollar question the show’s host Regis
Philbin asked Carpenter which one of the following presidents appeared
on the television show Laugh-In: Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy
Carter, or Gerald Ford. Carpenter smiled briefly […][then said] the U.S. president that appeared on Laugh-In is Richard
Nixon. That’s my final answer.Carpenter was right, and he’d known the
answer from the second he saw the question. The smirk that briefly
crossed his face was the hallmark of fluent— smooth and
effortless—mental processing. A small space in his longterm memory
bank housed the link between Richard Nixon and Laugh-In, and the
answer appeared to him without demanding much mental effort. For all
the ease in Carpenter’s response, Philbin might as well have told him
that for a million dollars, he’d need to state his own name aloud or
calculate the sum of one and one. (Drunk Tank Pink by Adam Alter)
[1]https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/may-might-as-well
Best Answer
He does A. He might as well {do B}
Doing B would yield the same result as doing A.
The president heeded the advice as well as a wall would heed it.
He was no more ready to lend me his car than give me a million dollars.
In your example, his ease in answering was so great, the questions might have been as simple as "What's your name?" or "What is one plus one?" The ease with which he answered would be the same.