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How many people have ever lived on Earth?

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Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#91

Post by fractallyte »

somenameforme wrote: post #78
soligern wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I love life and there’s nothing after this?

What do you think would happen if perpetual longevity were achieved? I mean realistically, not ideally? I think it's almost certain we'd see those at the top become [even more] vainly obsessed with their own mortality to the point of doing absolutely every single thing they could, with no norms of behavior, to ensure no other human could ever, under any circumstance - no matter how remote, pose a possible threat to t…

This is precisely Emperor Cleon's storyline in the TV series Foundation...

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#92

Post by isaacremuant »

lyu07282 wrote: post #33

Makes me wonder how many more billions will have to die before we bother to put some actual effort into ending death, but I know that's a very obscure opinion. https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon

Why would you want to end death? Or you mean ageing so your body never deteriorates from a certain point?

Your brain's capacity to handle memory would still be a blocker for any meaningful extended survival.

Any decent scifi novel would name many of the very simple problems it would cause at an individual and societal level, not to speak of every other biological ramification of the body.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#93

Post by suddenclarity »

sigg3 wrote: post #83
Gualdrapo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now wonder how many people have been born anywhere but Earth

Apparently there have been cases of sexual intercourse on the ISS, so we could potentially have a human conceived there.

The original claim seems to have been based on an internet hoax.

> All in all, it now looks pretty much indisputable, eight years on and despite his many protestations to the contrary, that Kohler (and by extension, me, and, by further extension, all those who have read and giggled at this story -- written, I hasten to say, by a person in an office in a country which at the time barely knew what the internet was, let alone having reliable access to it or knowing how to use it) have all fallen victim to a particularly fine hoax. The admirable mythbusting Snopes and Urbanlegends websites certainly reckon so, and to prove it supply the fake Nasa document on which the relevant chapter in Kohler's book is based.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2007/dec/06/sexinspace...

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#94

Post by hanselot »

gizajob wrote: post #55
lyu07282 wrote: post #33

Makes me wonder how many more billions will have to die before we bother to put some actual effort into ending death, but I know that's a very obscure opinion. https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon

We do put huge amounts of effort into ending it, which so far has only served to delay it by decades. It's part of life that it ends, it seems. No way of getting around that no matter how many sci-fi solutions Bostrom proposes as realistic.

I don't like to comment much anymore, but I feel like I have spent a substantial portion of my life on this topic, and consequently can direct people to some resources that can bridge the knowledge gap a bit in this regard.

>delay it by decades

Yes, but we aren't solving the problems, we are dealing with symptoms. The entire industry is currently treating old age diseases as diseases, and not as symptoms of bodily decay. This is covered extensively by the work of Dr Aubrey de Grey (yes, that one), in any case, he documents 7 different ways in which the body accrues damage over time, and is actively researching in all these fields to find methods to mitigate, and reverse said damage.

To aid in this regard, feel free to visit the SENS research foundation website at https://www.sens.org/

This approach is very different from the one currently deployed in the field afaik. The idea is that the human body, like a car, can be kept in pristine condition if these 7 sources of deterioration is reversed/addressed.

It is really quite fascinating. I would advise you to go check out the healthspan discord on https://discord.gg/sCwyPXu

There are a number of highly motivated individuals actively researching and following the SOTA as well as excellent news aggregation.

This is the initial reason I got interested in this in the first place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvWtSUdOWVI

One of Dr de Grey's quotes that I find quite compelling is:

"There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life."

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#95

Post by [deleted] »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #90
thriftwy wrote: post #65

I don't think that Earth had 300M people in 1 c.e. Roman empire with client states probably had population 30M, maybe another 30M for China and 30M for Indian subcontinent. These would absolutely dwarf everything else. No room for 3x of that.

Africa had people, North, South and Central America had people too at that time.

[deleted]

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#96

Post by ithkuil »

defrost wrote: post #81
ithkuil wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah pretty much any pagan religion has some sort of post mortuary soothing story. Worth looking into?

Seems redundant given 'pagan' means either * not Christian other religions in the Roman Empire, or (more generally) * not Christian religions. Easier to say most, if not all, religions have an afterlife story.

Yeah I love picking nits too.

I just meant to reaffirm that it's not an Abrahamic religion innovation.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#97

Post by badcppdev »

thriftwy wrote: post #65

I don't think that Earth had 300M people in 1 c.e. Roman empire with client states probably had population 30M, maybe another 30M for China and 30M for Indian subcontinent. These would absolutely dwarf everything else. No room for 3x of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_by_population_i... these guys disagree and even have some references.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#98

Post by nunuvit »

KSPAtlas wrote: post #88
sigg3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there have been cases of sexual intercourse on the ISS, so we could potentially have a human conceived there.

If they happened (which is unlikely considering how professional and monitored the ISS is), it would have not been in a way that can conceive a child

I know people who work in mission operations, where they're basically on a Skype call with the ISS all day. Several years ago, there was one astronaut in particular who had to be frequently reminded to cover up. Once they're up there, no one can prevent them from doing what they want, especially if it's their last flight. They're professional in the sense of completing the mission, but they're humans with pilot personalities and nearly zero privacy to begin with.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#99

Post by Bombinator »

aydyn wrote: post #80
proc0 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know that.

You do know it. All empirical evidence from thousands of years of scrutiny points to you ending when your body dies. You dont treat any other piece of knowledge with the same demand as you do the (lack of) afterlife.

dude... whether it's jesus or eternal nothingness, it takes faith to believe in both. There's no evidence for any of this so the only correct answer is we don't know.

> All empirical evidence from thousands of years of scrutiny

Yes, I'm very curious to see empirical evidence of what happens post-death and someone who lived to tell us.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#100

Post by mkl »

somenameforme wrote: post #73
gizajob wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do put huge amounts of effort into ending it, which so far has only served to delay it by decades. It's part of life that it ends, it seems. No way of getting around that no matter how many sci-fi solutions Bostrom proposes as realistic.

I think there's a much more firm reason you're right - life expectancy isn't increasing how most think it is. There was an interesting study [1] that examined the life expectancy of all known individuals from Ancient Greece, excluding those with violent deaths (assassination, forced suicide, etc) and found the average male born before 100BC lived to 72 years old on average. In America in 2019 (to avoid COVID biases),…

That study is based on a very biased sample, and is very much not about life expectancy at birth. It is based on records of noteworthy people: "both ancient and modern samples were comparable with respect to males who survived into adulthood and who achieved notability (or notoriety)."
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