Random Facts

[chappiepunk]

Here's one that has always astounded me:

There's more people alive today than have died throughout the entire span of known human history.

[Ed209]

That can't be true. Surely more than 6 billion people have died in the last half million years.

[worm]

It's got a lot to do with perception. As we look back at family generations it seems that we have a massive ancestory that gets bigger the further we go. In reality, the more each of us go back the more shared the ancestory becomes, vastly reducing the amount of people in each generation. Which brings me to another fact:

Something like 95% of people of western ethnicity share the same ancestor from six generations ago. Other potential ancenstoral lineages have died out.

It still astounds me though.

Edited February 11, 2011 by worm

[incident]

Here's one that has always astounded me:

There's more people alive today than have died throughout the entire span of known human history.

[TalkShow Bob]

Of the animal kingdom, Hippos are the biggest killers of humans (not including diseases passed on by Mosquitos and other carriers).

Shark attacks only took 6 lives in the last decade.

[worm]

Looking at the UN death estimates, that's certainly far from clear cut. The yearly amount of deaths would've had to suddenly and massively increase in the first half of the 20th Century for it to be likely.

Edited February 11, 2011 by worm

[gratedenini]

Malaria has killed over 50% of people that ever lived.

Thats not true apparently its a common miss conception.

[Greeny_Musicchild]

The twentieth century was the bloodiest century the world has ever seen and the closer you get to the present, the more deaths you're going to get. It decreases massively each generation.

It's common ancestor, as in everyone can be related when you go six generations back. I'm no genealogist though so can't possibly vouch for it. Stephen Fry explained it in an interview on Sky Arts once and it puzzled the f**k out of me.

Edited February 11, 2011 by Greeny_Musicchild

[brighteyes]

I find this very, very interesting. Do you remember at all what Mr Fry was being interviewed for?

A few search engine responses seem to estimate that around 100bn people have lived in human history. So I'm still very intrigued to see something to back it the idea.

Although i understand your idea of more people having common ancestors going back several generations it feels like it's avoiding the fact that 2 people can have several children who would all share ancestors in one generation. Six generations of my family might have spawned from 2 people, but it just doesn't take into account the sheer length of human history.

If Stephen Fry explained it too me in his dullset tones I might just believe it

[worm]

A few search engine responses seem to estimate that around 100bn people have lived in human history.

Edited February 11, 2011 by worm

[worm]

Are we considering evolution in this and what we consider human and non-human?

[incident]

The twentieth century was the bloodiest century the world has ever seen and the closer you get to the present, the more deaths you're going to get. It decreases massively each generation.

Edited February 11, 2011 by incident

[ampersand]

agreed, that's a bollocks 'fact'

[saratink]

When you blow into a hot mug of tea, your eyeballs steam up!!

[5co77ie]

Dreamt is the only word in the English language that ends in mt.

Edited February 12, 2011 by 5co77ie

[worm]

Premt doesn't exst then?

The (obviously) non-existent asteroid in question - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23924_Premt it's undreamt that you could have removed its existence

[worm]

Considering the length of human history (even if you don't go back any further than biblical times), it'd have to be _significantly_ more than a massive decrease each generation. And the amount of bloodshed doesn't really affect this - everyone dies sooner or later so it becomes little more than a blip on the numbers.

Regardless, approaching it from the other angle (total number of people that ever lived minus number of people alive today) is probably a better way of doing it than counting death rates - and according to the Population Reference Bureau, over 16.7 billion people have been born since 1750 (more than recent enough that any evolution / human / non-human question is irrelevant). Given that the worlds current population is estimated at just under 7 billion, I think it's fair to assume that significantly more of them have died than are still alive?

[gratedenini]

That's a name not a word.

[incident]

I've found a fairly impressive looking piece of maths that gives us a third way....

http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~ramsey/People.html

I think the key word in the fact is 'known' human history. I think it's designed to point to the fact that we know very little about human history, rather than say anything about how many people have died throughout it. It's that kind of thing that you get at Uni to keep you on you toes.

[worm]

The figures on that page don't really disagree with the totals reached by other sources - it says 96 billion people had ever lived as of 2000. Which is still several multiples of the current world population.

[rhysieg]

if there are 23 people in a room... there is 50percent chance that 2 of them will share a birthday.

slugs have 4 noses

women cannot be colour blind

dont know where i know this random junk from haha

[Leyser]

Here's one that has always astounded me:

There's more people alive today than have died throughout the entire span of known human history.

[saratink]

women cannot be colour blind

[SoLoCo]

The Playstation was originally an Nintendo SNES add-on which would of allowed the console to use CD-ROM, but due to legal + licensing problems with Sony, they decided to release the Playstation as there own console.

Always found that intresting.

[nightcrawler13]

I know a woman who claims to be colour blind!