Wondering how many will ever be born here, if it lasts until the sun dries out for example
How many people have ever lived on Earth?
21–30 of 180 posts
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#22Wondering how many will ever be born here, if it lasts until the sun dries out for example
The Doomsday Argument[0] relates to this. It says that since the reader is born in the current times with there being X billion humans so far, statisticslly there shouldn't be too many more (not say tens of trillions).
I don't think the logic is too sound though. Or rather that the premises should be taken for granted.
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#23It depends on what you consider "people". How far back before our ancestors no longer qualify?
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#24Wondering how many will ever be born here, if it lasts until the sun dries out for example
The Doomsday Argument[0] relates to this. It says that since the reader is born in the current times with there being X billion humans so far, statisticslly there shouldn't be too many more (not say tens of trillions). I don't think the logic is too sound though. Or rather that the premises should be taken for granted. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument
Reading admitedly quickly, it appears to actually say that there shouldn't be more than 2 trillion total humans, and we're, at 117Bn, so yeah, there's a lot left if we make it all the way to the upper bound.
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#25If you are just curious, the number is 117B people who was ever born on Earth. High amount of guesstimates and assumptions involved. Yadda yadda popsci article phrases.
what are the error bands on this?
"Error bands" aren't really calculable for something like this, because a lot of it is as much definitions as anything else. As the article points out, there is a lot of uncertainty just when we say the first "modern home sapien" "counts" as a person.
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#26Why do I keep (mis)remembering a fact that most members of the human race are alive right now?
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument
This is worth a read for those unfamiliar with this argument. Essentially, it’s a way to make a probabilistic guess for when humans will go extinct based on the number of humans that have been born. There are several variants and as far as I know, the argument’s premise has never been conclusively refuted.
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#27> Average life expectancy in Iron Age France (from 800 B.C.E. to about 100 C.E.) has been estimated at only 10 or 12 years.
Doesn't that sound extremely weird? Like, how does puberty, and 9 months to have a baby, fit in with a 12 year total life expectancy?
Maybe I need more coffee or something...
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#28> Average life expectancy in Iron Age France (from 800 B.C.E. to about 100 C.E.) has been estimated at only 10 or 12 years. Doesn't that sound extremely weird? Like, how does puberty, and 9 months to have a baby, fit in with a 12 year total life expectancy? Maybe I need more coffee or something...
That average, there are people life longer than that.
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#29> Average life expectancy in Iron Age France (from 800 B.C.E. to about 100 C.E.) has been estimated at only 10 or 12 years. Doesn't that sound extremely weird? Like, how does puberty, and 9 months to have a baby, fit in with a 12 year total life expectancy? Maybe I need more coffee or something...
High infant-mortality rates account for it.
If there are 10 births, where 9 of the children die in infancy but 1 lives to be 100 years old, their average life expectancy would be about 10.
Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?
#30> Average life expectancy in Iron Age France (from 800 B.C.E. to about 100 C.E.) has been estimated at only 10 or 12 years. Doesn't that sound extremely weird? Like, how does puberty, and 9 months to have a baby, fit in with a 12 year total life expectancy? Maybe I need more coffee or something...
I think this is a case where an average value cloaks the distribution. Consider very high infant and childhood mortality rates, and how that might skew the average value.