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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?

#131

Post by cartermatic »

mcbits wrote: post #126
jncfhnb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are those two concepts related

We could launch a vessel to Proxima Centauri right now that would arrive in thousands of years. If the passengers have lifespans measured in millions of years, that's comparable to a month for someone who lives 80 years.

Has a method of long term stasis been found yet (like you see in Interstellar or other movies) where you can nap and be kept alive for that long? Otherwise I think you'd still need to overcome the mental limitations of being stuck in a metal tube for thousands of years with no way out and no way to pass the time. Or at the very least, some way of staying asleep for a few years--wake up for a few months--sleep for a few years--wake up for a few months and so on.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#132

Post by pizzapill »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #129
pizzapill wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's not a general truth. The Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish is biological immortal.

Nothing is immortal Entropy guarantees that every system will eventually disintegrate

Can't argue with that tbh. only that we then start to talk about unimaginable timeframes.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#133

Post by jncfhnb »

mcbits wrote: post #126
jncfhnb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are those two concepts related

We could launch a vessel to Proxima Centauri right now that would arrive in thousands of years. If the passengers have lifespans measured in millions of years, that's comparable to a month for someone who lives 80 years.

One, no, it’s still thousands of years of isolation on a shitty ship.

Two, they would all die from a number of things over the course of a thousand year journey

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#134

Post by AndrewKemendo »

pizzapill wrote: post #132
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is immortal Entropy guarantees that every system will eventually disintegrate

Can't argue with that tbh. only that we then start to talk about unimaginable timeframes.

I would argue that by invoking the concept of immortality, you have therefore invoked the “unimaginable timeframe” of infinity to the conversation from the outset.

so it’s not like it was ever not part of the conversation

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#135

Post by shagie »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #113
nunuvit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perso…

Who would honestly turn down the opportunity to have sex in 0G if given the chance

There was an article in Playboy many years ago that I read (and the search results in that domain are now far too polluted - and yes, I did read the articles) that basically said "either you're going to need a lot of velcro or assistants.

The problem being that every action has an equal and opposite reaction makes certain activities more likely to result in new force vectors which in turn results in velocity that may lead to bumping into things you'd rather not bump while trying to bump uglies.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#136

Post by [deleted] »

pfdietz wrote: post #124
theodorejb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus claimed to offer everlasting life to those who believe in him (see Gospel of John). Worth looking into?

Flying Spaghetti Monster promises eternal meatballs. Worth looking into? Maybe I should hold out for "and everyone gets a pony."

[deleted]

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#137

Post by mcbits »

cartermatic wrote: post #131
mcbits wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could launch a vessel to Proxima Centauri right now that would arrive in thousands of years. If the passengers have lifespans measured in millions of years, that's comparable to a month for someone who lives 80 years.

Has a method of long term stasis been found yet (like you see in Interstellar or other movies) where you can nap and be kept alive for that long? Otherwise I think you'd still need to overcome the mental limitations of being stuck in a metal tube for thousands of years with no way out and no way to pass the time. Or at the very least, some way of staying asleep for a few years--wake up for a few months--sleep for a f…

My guess is that stasis would be feasible sooner than keeping people fully alive and awake for the whole journey. In the latter case, they'd probably spend most of their time in the holodeck. Either way, on the scale of the universe, living in a metal tube is not very far removed from being stuck to the surface of a small iron pebble as we are now.

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#138

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25
yifever wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If I wanted to include some weird little subspecies though, or even expanded it out to H. erectus... surely they don't add much to the total. Prior to the invention of agriculture, they could never achieve high population densities, so "success" would mean what, hundreds of thousands of individuals across the globe?

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#139

Post by KineticLensman »

ta1243 wrote: post #112
troupo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your definition of "on Earth". There have been people born on planes, for example.

Anyone in a submarine?

> Anyone in a submarine?

Yes, in WW2, when civilians were being evacuated on the USS Crevalle

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Crevalle#Third_and_fourth_...

Re: How many people have ever lived on Earth?

#140

Post by wongarsu »

shagie wrote: post #135
pcthrowaway wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would honestly turn down the opportunity to have sex in 0G if given the chance

There was an article in Playboy many years ago that I read (and the search results in that domain are now far too polluted - and yes, I did read the articles) that basically said "either you're going to need a lot of velcro or assistants. The problem being that every action has an equal and opposite reaction makes certain activities more likely to result in new force vectors which in turn results in velocity that may…

On the other hand, my impression was that they do have a lot of velcro on the ISS, or places to strap yourself to in general.
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