A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
The world population has quadrupled in my lifetime, so I would be willing to believe the old bit about βmore people are alive now than have ever died.β But itβs bunk. Estimated count of all people ever is 100 billion. There werenβt that many people in the past but our species goes back 50,000 years and that makes it up.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead/
The book is over half a century old now, so the numbers may be a bit off, but this sort of conversation always reminds me of this quote
"Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth."
-Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
Kinda reminds me of this
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.
Whole generations lived and died just to find out which mushrooms can be eaten.
We're even older than that! There is compelling evidence that Homo Sapiens has existed for 400k years, and there's unprovocative evidence that we've been around for 250k years or so.
Yes. True. I was trying to be conservative.
More adults are alive now than adults who died.
Most of humanity didn't survive to adulthood.
Which is why the average life expectancy was in the 30s forever. If you made it past childhood you were likely to make it to old age, but the infant mortality rate was through the roof which brought the average down to less than half of what it is today. People regularly lived into their 70s-80s before, but the average of 30 years makes people think that's all the longer people normally lived.
Even if you look at monarchs (with relatively good living standards) who died of natural causes, those who make it to their 70s and certainly their 80s are pretty rare. Doesnβt mean the βeveryone died in their 30sβ thing is true, but Iβd say making it to your 50s and maybe 60s would be a more reasonable expectation
Although your general sentiment is right, even adult life expectancy has gone up dramatically. For instance, for 20 year olds' life expectancy was about 60 in 1850, but now is around 82.
If the population quadrupled in your lifetime you must be over 100 years old?
Yeah youβre right itβs more like doubled.
"The days get shorter in the winter."
Actually winter begins on the shortest day of the year so the days are getting longer in the winter.
Plus, I'm pretty sure that days are always about 24 hours long π
Ok you silly pedant
Depends a lot on your definition of winter. In Scandinavia, winter is defined as starting December first.
In Shrek 2 Pinocchio is trying to avoid lying by using double negatives. He knows where Shrek is. He says "I don't know where he's not." This is actually a lie (though his nose doesn't grow). If he knew where Shrek was he would know everywhere Shrek isn't. You can't just randomly throw negatives into a sentence and expect it to be a double negative.
Edit: It was Shrek the Third, not Shrek 2.
I guess it depends on if the nose grows with untrue information, or lies.
Because if it's lies all he needs to do is THINK it's the truth and his nose won't grow.
If his nose grows because the information is not true, then this is one hell of a power. You could get him to theorise on the meaning of life.
The intent of the scene was clear. He's just trying to say a lot of double negatives and be confusing. It's not a moment of world building for the mechanics of Pinocchio's nose lol
Pinochio the philosophical scholar.
So I guess in that case part of the trick is confusing himself.
If he's not sure what he said, it's tough to rule it as a lie.
That would make an interesting story about a superhero with that power.
I'll have it done by the end of the week
2 weeks!
Eskimos have a kabrillion words for snow.
Indigenous Alaskan/north Canadian languages have a few more words for snow than English, but it's not that that much more.
Oh this one for sure.
If an object isn't pushed by any force, it'll stop moving. (It'll actually keep moving at the same speed).
Earth is flat!
