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What percentage of people are alive today?

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Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#61

Post by FrojoS »

jrockway wrote: post #58
FrojoS wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(A) It fits into peoples agenda. (B) Most people know almost nothing about statistics. Even those who use it on a every day base. Honestly, I'm afraid, I'm not really an exception. I think if you have to guess between human evilness and stupidity the latter is more likely, right?

Most people know almost nothing about statistics. Even those who use it on a every day base. The same could be said of English.

Not every poster here calls English his or her first language. If you send me corrections, I very much appreciate it.

Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#62

Post by jodrellblank »

wbhart wrote: post #59

This is an important computation. It's even scarier if you suppose that you are not in any way special. It is likely that you are not one of the first 5% of humans to ever live. Thus, given that such a great proportions of all humans who have every lived are alive now, the implication is that the human race hasn't got long to go even if the population remains constant ! Or you could just assume you are special.

By that calculation, no human should assume they are in the last 5% so the human race is immortal.

It sounds like nonsense; the people actually in the first 1% are not more special than the people in the 43rd 1%, but you have to be somewhere in the distribution.

No point is special in the sense that you have a stronger than usual reason to assume you aren't there and are more likely elsewhere.

Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#63

Post by troystribling »

petercooper wrote: post #31

Not to detract from the insight but: Until very recently life expectancy at birth hovered between 20 and 35 years, but in the past century it has risen to 67 years Most of this increase has been due to a precipitous crash in infant mortality, rather than a soaring increase in the median life expectancy. For example, even in the 1500s it seems a well-to-do Englishman (who lived a somewhat more hazardous life medically…

Here are a couple posts questioning the impact of infant mortality on ancient lifespan estimates, http://santafereview.com/chronicle/2011/02/01/ancient-mortal..., http://www.wonderquest.com/LifeSpan.htm both referencing this paper, http://www.animalsimulation.org/index.php?option=com_content....

A few statistics from the paper are the mean lifespans of the Kings of England and Scotland between 1000 and 1600 were about 50. This was also about the mean lifespan of people at court. In a monastic population studied only 5% lived past 45 and excavations of anglo-saxon cemeteries dated at 600-1000 CE found no one older than 45.

Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#64

Post by rickdangerous1 »

FrojoS wrote: post #61
jrockway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people know almost nothing about statistics. Even those who use it on a every day base. The same could be said of English.

Not every poster here calls English his or her first language. If you send me corrections, I very much appreciate it.

"on an everyday basis."

Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#65

Post by wbhart »

jodrellblank wrote: post #62
wbhart wrote: post #59

This is an important computation. It's even scarier if you suppose that you are not in any way special. It is likely that you are not one of the first 5% of humans to ever live. Thus, given that such a great proportions of all humans who have every lived are alive now, the implication is that the human race hasn't got long to go even if the population remains constant ! Or you could just assume you are special.

By that calculation, no human should assume they are in the last 5% so the human race is immortal. It sounds like nonsense; the people actually in the first 1% are not more special than the people in the 43rd 1%, but you have to be somewhere in the distribution. No point is special in the sense that you have a stronger than usual reason to assume you aren't there and are more likely elsewhere.

Not really. You shouldn't assume you are in the last 5%. Statistically, by definition, it is most likely (though not certain) that you are not.

Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#66

Post by Unseelie »

jrockway wrote: post #58
FrojoS wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(A) It fits into peoples agenda. (B) Most people know almost nothing about statistics. Even those who use it on a every day base. Honestly, I'm afraid, I'm not really an exception. I think if you have to guess between human evilness and stupidity the latter is more likely, right?

Most people know almost nothing about statistics. Even those who use it on a every day base. The same could be said of English.

Aside from the fact that more than half of the people in the world actually don't know anything about English, what does that have to do with..anything?

I do claim to be at least moderately familiar with the language, and have no idea why you're quoting that line.

Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#67

Post by 6ren »

spindritf wrote: post #41
yummyfajitas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Common Malthusianism" is a strange name to apply to a claim Malthus didn't make. Malthus didn't attempt to extrapolate current trends, he merely pointed out (correctly) that there will eventually be a limit to productivity. From "An Essay on the Principles of Population": We may be quite sure that among plants, as well as among animals, there is a limit to improvement, though we do not exactly know where it is. It i…

> he merely pointed out (correctly) that there will eventually be a limit to productivity I don't understand this point. Why would there be a limit to productivity, especially with machines and computers to leverage our efforts thousandfold and more? And how could anyone know that such limit exists, even if it is actually reached one day? That would require predicting any possible innovation of the future.

Yes, I think a limit on productivity amounts to a limit on knowledge. Does knowledge have a limit? There's no evidence for it; all our present mathematics of complexity suggests not (but it's possible one will be discovered...)

However, energy needs do seem to increase with productivity, and there's limit on how much energy we can get from the sun (a dyson sphere encloses the sun, capturing all its energy). But there's some assumptions here: that we can't discover ways of being productive that require less energy (and wouldn't that enhancement itself be "productive"?); that we can't discover other sources of energy (e.g. room temperature fusion micro-suns - or something better).

Once you factor in the unknown (i.e. knowledge that we don't yet have) it's hard to know what the limits are. I guess the entire universe is a limit on matter... if we can't discover a way to make more matter... or more universes.

Re: What percentage of people are alive today?

#70

Post by Unseelie »

mlinsey wrote: post #21
tel wrote: post #9

Am I the only one absolutely terrified by that number? Malthus wasn't wrong in principle, just in timescale. It's clear that technologies have improved Earth's human carrying capacity, but I don't know any method to claim that an S-shaped curve isn't inevitable. It's sounds science fiction-ey, but I don't understand how you can see data like this and then defund NASA.

Of course Earth must have some finite carrying capacity, but that's only terrifying if you assume that "The Crunch" is the only way to bring population growth to a halt. Population growth is already zero or negative in most developed countries if you remove the effects of immigration. If this becomes a consistent rule for all countries once they become fully developed, the real question is not whether we can sustain…

That currently developed nations currently have a negative growth rate only makes sense in terms of our current medical situation. If it were a hundred years ago, they'd all have collapsed by now, and if life expectancy doubled, or if people could halt their aging, population would once again explode, simply because couples like to raise children.
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