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Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 1:18 pm
by Gwenno
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... mber-dead/
I often think when we have thread discussions that I am in the minority - nothing wrong with that, it fits in with my delusions of grandeur- and while walking the dog, and mulling this over, I sardonically thought that at least when I die I will be in the majority, but then I remembered a 'fact' from younger days that those alive outnumber the dead, and I think could be proved mathematically - well thank God for Google, looks as if the question has been settled.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 1:25 pm
by 6.Jones
I always thought that too [about the living and dead, not the delusions of grandeur] - that it was an urban myth. But this doesn't take into account zombies.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 1:26 pm
by Gwenno
6.Jones wrote:I always thought that too [about the living and dead, not the delusions of grandeur] - that it was an urban myth. But this doesn't take into account zombies.
They probably don't register on surveillance cameras, for example.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 1:29 pm
by 6.Jones
Gwenno wrote:
6.Jones wrote:I always thought that too [about the living and dead, not the delusions of grandeur] - that it was an urban myth. But this doesn't take into account zombies.
They probably don't register on surveillance cameras, for example.
Or fill out census forms. Three states is quite a bit more complex.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:13 pm
by Insane_Homer
“Modern” Homo sapiens (that is, people who were roughly like we are now) first walked the Earth about 50,000 years ago. Since then, more than 108 billion members of our species have ever been born, according to estimates by Population Reference Bureau (PRB). Given the current global population of about 7.5 billion (based on our most recent estimate as of mid-2017), that means those of us currently alive represent about 7 percent of the total number of humans who have ever lived.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:20 pm
by 6.Jones
Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:29 pm
by penguin
6.Jones wrote:Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?
I choose to believe that Jehovah made the earth 1 second ago, complete with our memories, so there are no dead...except those who died in the time it took me to write this nonsense.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:58 pm
by Insane_Homer
6.Jones wrote:Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?
Seeing as we're playing the imaginary friend game, what happened to the other ~1600 to 3000+ know recorded Gods before Jehovah ruled the roost :roll:

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 2:59 pm
by Mahoney
penguin wrote:
6.Jones wrote:Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?
I choose to believe that Jehovah made the earth 1 second ago, complete with our memories, so there are no dead...except those who died in the time it took me to write this nonsense.
I think that Bertrand Russell observed that since the universe trends from low to high entropy, and a randomly generated universe would have high entropy, at any given moment it's more likely that the universe has just leapt into existence than that it leapt into existence at an earlier point.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:06 pm
by Lord Denning
Insane_Homer wrote:
6.Jones wrote:Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?
Seeing as we're playing the imaginary friend game, what happened to the other ~1600 to 3000+ know recorded Gods before Jehovah ruled the roost :roll:
Jehovah won a knock-down-drag-out scrap with the other gods. L Ron Hubbard was on the undercard against Joseph Smith Jr: split decision.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:06 pm
by 6.Jones
Insane_Homer wrote:
6.Jones wrote:Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?
Seeing as we're playing the imaginary friend game, what happened to the other ~1600 to 3000+ know recorded Gods before Jehovah ruled the roost :roll:
Fcuk them, they're dead.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:07 pm
by penguin
Mahoney wrote:
penguin wrote:
6.Jones wrote:Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?
I choose to believe that Jehovah made the earth 1 second ago, complete with our memories, so there are no dead...except those who died in the time it took me to write this nonsense.
I think that Bertrand Russell observed that since the universe trends from low to high entropy, and a randomly generated universe would have high entropy, at any given moment it's more likely that the universe has just leapt into existence than that it leapt into existence at an earlier point.
Well, Bert was a smart cookie - he'd have been against leaping into existence, if he didn't only exist as a memory implanted in our heads a few minutes back.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:09 pm
by 6.Jones
Mahoney wrote:
penguin wrote:
6.Jones wrote:Ah yes, but what about if Jehovah created the fossil record in 11 August 3114 BC, along with the rest of the world?
I choose to believe that Jehovah made the earth 1 second ago, complete with our memories, so there are no dead...except those who died in the time it took me to write this nonsense.
I think that Bertrand Russell observed that since the universe trends from low to high entropy, and a randomly generated universe would have high entropy, at any given moment it's more likely that the universe has just leapt into existence than that it leapt into existence at an earlier point.
Wouldn't a randomly generated universe have median entropy?

Edit: oh yeah, that'd only be true if they popped out of existence when they were finished. Der.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:10 pm
by inactionman
In my current place of employment, only just.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:11 pm
by Mahoney
I'd have thought not? If you randomly generate a list of numbers you don't get them half ordered, half not. There's an all but inifinite number of entirely disorganised ways for the atoms in the universe to be arranged; arrangements with some order make up a tiny proportion of the possible arrangements.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:14 pm
by 6.Jones
Out of interest, 10^10^3 years is about the time to heat death, when the universe can no longer sustain processes that increase entropy.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:15 pm
by 6.Jones
Mahoney wrote:I'd have thought not? If you randomly generate a list of numbers you don't get them half ordered, half not. There's an all but inifinite number of entirely disorganised ways for the atoms in the universe to be arranged; arrangements with some order make up a tiny proportion of the possible arrangements.
I'm with you now. It took a moment for my brain to click out of the zombie porn I started watching.

Did you know that 10^10^10^56 is about the time required for all the elementary particles to cycle through all their possible states, which is the longest time required for a quantum-tunneled big bang to produce a new universe identical to our own? In a sense, the most time possible.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:16 pm
by Gwenno
6.Jones wrote:Out of interest, 10^10^3 years is about the time to heat death, when the universe can no longer sustain processes that increase entropy.
Better buy in some oil.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:17 pm
by 6.Jones
More numbers:

Pope Benedict IX was eleven years old on his ascension to the throne of St Peter.
At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:19 pm
by penguin
Gwenno wrote:
6.Jones wrote:Out of interest, 10^10^3 years is about the time to heat death, when the universe can no longer sustain processes that increase entropy.
Better buy in some oil.
Buy some plankton - I mean, we're planning long term here right?

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:24 pm
by Lord Denning
6.Jones wrote:More numbers:

Pope Benedict IX was eleven years old on his ascension to the throne of St Peter.
At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
And there is, at least in classical physics, a calculable shortest distance - the Planck distance. No distance can be smaller. I find that particularly weird in a sea of weird and hard to imagine physics.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:31 pm
by Hellraiser
6.Jones wrote:At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.

The one hour figure is obviously nonsense, the 10 day figure somewhat more realistic, but ultimately most scholars agree that other than a massacre and sacking of the city occurring pretty much all the more colourful stories surrounding Nishapur are either gross exaggerations or total fabrications.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:41 pm
by 6.Jones
Hellraiser wrote:
6.Jones wrote:At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.

The one hour figure is obviously nonsense, the 10 day figure somewhat more realistic, but ultimately most scholars agree that other than a massacre and sacking of the city occurring pretty much all the more colourful stories surrounding Nishapur are either gross exaggerations or total fabrications.
I stand by none of my numbers.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:42 pm
by 6.Jones
Lord Denning wrote:
6.Jones wrote:More numbers:

Pope Benedict IX was eleven years old on his ascension to the throne of St Peter.
At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
And there is, at least in classical physics, a calculable shortest distance - the Planck distance. No distance can be smaller. I find that particularly weird in a sea of weird and hard to imagine physics.
Small physics is spooky as hell. Planck time as well. The ticking of the universe.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 3:57 pm
by troglodiet
6.Jones wrote: The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
During mating season, a male lion will shag a 100 times per day, for 5 days in a row.


Question is: quality over quantity?

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:00 pm
by FairWeather_Aussie
Gwenno wrote:https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... mber-dead/
I often think when we have thread discussions that I am in the minority - nothing wrong with that, it fits in with my delusions of grandeur- and while walking the dog, and mulling this over, I sardonically thought that at least when I die I will be in the majority, but then I remembered a 'fact' from younger days that those alive outnumber the dead, and I think could be proved mathematically - well thank God for Google, looks as if the question has been settled.
This is one of the strangest urban myths ever. Our deceased grand-parents, or great grand-parents, alone cover over half our population. Given we’ve been around for about 60,000 years, or around 3,000 generations, it’s not hard to deduce that we have a lot more ancestors than the current population.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:10 pm
by FairWeather_Aussie
6.Jones wrote:More numbers:

Pope Benedict IX was eleven years old on his ascension to the throne of St Peter.
At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
Genghis must have been a pretty quick motherfucker. Unlike those pigs.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:30 pm
by A5D5E5
If the living did outnumber the dead, then a bit of (mildly abused) Bayesian Inference would imply that the current generation may be the last one as the chance of being human number 12 billion (say) is pretty low if the total number of humans which will ever exist is (say) 1 trillion compared to if the total number is only going to be 20 billion.

(I'm shit at probability theory, so please don't ask me any questions about this, just google "The Doomsday argument")

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:32 pm
by A5D5E5
6.Jones wrote:
Lord Denning wrote:
6.Jones wrote:More numbers:

Pope Benedict IX was eleven years old on his ascension to the throne of St Peter.
At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
And there is, at least in classical physics, a calculable shortest distance - the Planck distance. No distance can be smaller. I find that particularly weird in a sea of weird and hard to imagine physics.
Small physics is spooky as hell. Planck time as well. The ticking of the universe.
It certainly is. For example nobody has any idea how gravity works at short scales as its effect is entirely swamped by the much stronger fundamental forces.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:35 pm
by A5D5E5
6.Jones wrote:Out of interest, 10^10^3 years is about the time to heat death, when the universe can no longer sustain processes that increase entropy.
Not a problem. Dark energy will rip spacetime to shreds way before then (perhaps as soon as 22 billion years). Which is comforting.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 6:55 pm
by Enzedder
Does this bugger up the reincarnation theory?

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:09 pm
by Dark
6.Jones wrote:More numbers:

Pope Benedict IX was eleven years old on his ascension to the throne of St Peter.
At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
What utter bollocks

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:21 pm
by Heron
But what form do the dead take? Do we measure by volume, weight, age or absence rather than number when comparing to the living?

I once irritated a living person trying to convert me to their cult by asking "if there are "old Souls" like your revered leader (who asks you to donate 10% of your salary) are there also young souls and if so how are they formed? How can you tell the difference?

Just as there is a finite resource of the building blocks for life on earth, is there a finite resource for souls and perhaps they are recycled and so not countable?

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:33 pm
by CrazyIslander
troglodiet wrote:
6.Jones wrote: The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
During mating season, a male lion will shag a 100 times per day, for 5 days in a row.


Question is: quality over quantity?
I'd take quantity.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:39 pm
by FairWeather_Aussie
Dark wrote:
6.Jones wrote:More numbers:

Pope Benedict IX was eleven years old on his ascension to the throne of St Peter.
At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
What utter bollocks
That would have had Nishapurs’ population being about 7% of the worlds population at the time! In the real world the population would have been a 10th to a 100th of that, and the massacre occurred over 10 days, not 1 hour.

Don’t trust Groucho with numbers.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:06 pm
by FairWeather_Aussie
Seneca of the Night wrote:When does Super rugby kick off?
Don’t pick depressing subjects for us. Let’s talk about the cricket.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:17 pm
by Bowens
6.Jones wrote:The orgasm of a pig lasts thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes. Can you believe it?
Explains why Weinstein couldn’t keep it in his pants.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:22 pm
by Jeff the Bear
6.Jones wrote: At Nishapur, in 1221, Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour.
Fake news. No city at that time had 1.75 million people...and certainly not Nishapur.

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:26 pm
by naki
I think Groucho has whooshed quite a sizeable population himself here

Re: Do the living outnumber the dead?

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 9:32 pm
by Jeff the Bear
naki wrote:I think Groucho has whooshed quite a sizeable population himself here
Actually, it's a repeated claim throughout history with some primary/secondary sources (i.e. he didn't just make it up himself). However, it's fairly obviously an inflated number as there simply wasn't that many people in that region.