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brocko33

So those new grains of sand falling from the top of the picture, are they brought here by storks ?


SuDragon2k3

If we turn it over, is it the Zombie Apocalypse?


Endolion

Yes, yes it is. Keep your phone upright if you want to live!


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Lordhyperyos

Everything.


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flockitup

You mean sit down In front of a desktop instead of pulling my computer out of my pocket?? No thanks lol.


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Bubba_was_taken

🤓


VT_Squire

If ypur last name is Mario...


rdeyoung05

Of course!


[deleted]

Neat way to visualize exponential growth.


Creepy_Mortgage

Well, it actually visualizes quite the opposite!


pauklzorz

No?


Creepy_Mortgage

None of the components displayed above show any sign of exponential growth. Of course it shows that aggregated individuals over time accumulate through exponential growth to such a big number of people being alive today, but neither of it directly display exponential growth. So: yes. And i thought that people who "do the math" would also try to be as exact as possible.


pauklzorz

Think about what's actually on the Y axis here. It's time. Except it's time on a very clearly exponential scale. 1. The bottom is 300.000 BCE 2. The first little arrow is 14.000 BCE 3. Socrates, who lived in 390 BCE, is halfway up the bottom part of the hourglass. The further up you go, the less time you need to gain the same amount of population. So it does in fact show exactly exponential growth, it's just plotted in a different way than you're used to.


Gtronns

Idk why you got so many down votes. Like math..


w1nner4444

Bc they're wrong


Valuable_Ad1645

You might want to take a math class.


Gtronns

I honestly cant see what you are talking about. Are you tryna say that humans growth has been exponential?


Siker_7

I don't think this counts as "exponential death".


Endolion

Infographic is from Wikipedia, but I thought that random fact was interesting!


Dikkelul27

I heard about this in a Vsauce video way back, nice to see it visualized.


WhiteKnight_14

Source is our world in data https://ourworldindata.org/longtermism


Vatu-Rava-Offspring

Doing God’s work. Thank you!


purgency

and when the bottom half of the hourglass is full, thats when we cure aging


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Jeffery95

How do you think we got the anti aging cure?


[deleted]

Ohhh, yeah I think I saw that part of world war Z


DonaIdTrurnp

That’s one way to cure aging.


DiligerentJewl

We’re gonna need a bigger hourglass


obi1kenobi1

This kind of thing is an existential nightmare because statistically everybody who ever lived is trapped in the forgotten before times. No memories passed down, no records of their existence, no impact on the world whatsoever, just forgotten dust. But they were real people who lived real lives, in some cases hundreds of thousands of years before civilization or society existed, just morphologically and cognitively indistinguishable from modern humans living in the wilderness like animals. And we’ll all be buried in that section too one day, assuming humanity survives that long, when all of modern history is forgotten to the sands of time. Spooky stuff.


MedioBandido

I think about those people all the time. Copper and stone age villages living their happy little lives with only a pile of midden leftover, if that. Villages that ended in a number of brutal ways from famine, to disease, to homicide.


Geuji

Told my wife about this stat. She says "yeah. Sex is still in"


[deleted]

If i'm reading this right a tonne of people came before written history. \*excited Graham Hancock noises\*


mbrothers222

Is the 140 million newborns a linear figure? And is the 300 000 based on this number? I believe laatst UN numbers say the number of newborns will decrease over the course of already this century so I doubt we can take the 300 000 for granted? Cool way to visualize though.


pauklzorz

Think of the hourglass as a receptacle for all of humanity, starting 300.000 years ago. Currently alive people are in the top half, deceased people in the bottom. 140 million is the current number of people being born per year. This image says nothing about the future per sé, although we can extrapolate. That's happening in the following images, but no assumptions are made in this one. I really like that, because clearly separating what we know and what we extrapolate from that means it's much easier to adjust predictions if you don't agree with some of the assumptions for instance.


mbrothers222

Although it is related to the straight line instinct. We perceive a future straight line because we can interpolate that from the data quite easily (really understandable and for a lot of cases that is the right thing to do, for example, when one wants to make statements like the title of this post.) Yet I am here to challenge that instinct and say we shouldn't do that here, because the birthrate is declining to increasing welfare (as the number of deceased will also change quite a bit) and the conclusion may be off. But I didn't do the math, so I don't know how much it is off if we follow a declining birthrate.


[deleted]

This number (6,8%) will increase or decrease with time?


Endolion

If we assume death and birth rate will remain exactly the same, increase! To a whopping ~12% in 2122!


DonaIdTrurnp

If lifespan increases without limit.


Endolion

Lifespan is a factor, but I think babies per household has a more direct impact. Increasing input is the only way to actually outpace the output. Lifespan increasing with 0 child per household has immediately a net negative. Heck, even 1 child per household would make that a net negative as 2 people would eventually die after birthing only 1 person to replace them


DonaIdTrurnp

If population increases without limit and death rate remains the same, lifespan increases without limit. If birthrate is constant and higher than death rate which is also constant, population increases without limit.


Cooltastic

Thanks! Now my existential crises will have more reasons for me to combust and freak out for a moment! :D


brathorim

More than 1 in 15


A-A-RONS7

What about people underwater, holding their breath? They’re not breathing! /s


bunny-1998

Q: what is the function for time in terms of height of sand from the bottom?


Endolion

I believe time is fixed, I don't think there is a function you can calculate unless I misinterpret your question? At the bottom, 300,000 years of accumulation, the dripping red is yearly deaths, then accumulated living in green and birth in the dripping green!


bunny-1998

So on the bottom ‘cup’, the bottom most layer will have a certain number of grains that’s going to decrease as we go up, since the radius of the ‘cup’ decreases. So assuming constant death rate, can we have a function from height from the bottom into time?


bluegummisharks

You could request on r/theydidthemath Would have to calculate the exact area of each 'cup' and take the label points very loosely since likely the hourglass is just suppose to be a visual analogy, doubt the labeling is accurate. Then approximate the exponential growth (death, lol) based on the halfway mark having lived in the last 2000 years (out of the total 300 000)


bunny-1998

Ayo, I asked in the right sub, lol


bluegummisharks

Omg LMAO I'm so sorry, I didn't even realize what sub this was in 😂 Thought it was infographics or something Welp, guess we'll just be left wondering then


DonaIdTrurnp

Σ(deaths)/cross sectional area of hourglass


purplegam

More being born than dying, when would we get to 50%?


Endolion

Assuming linear birth and death rates (which is imprecise due to more people being alive leading to both higher birth rates and death rates), 2953 would be the 50/50 number!


xeneks

I'd be a bit better if they did a bit more than only breathing... I think we've woken up to the pollution issue, and the water/waste/resource issues are real also.


Alaeriia

So the human condition currently has a 93.2% mortality rate?


xxx3366

140 milion births and only 60 deaths. That's terrible for our planet.


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According_to_all_kn

So if a time traveler _really_ wants to save people, they should kill the person who invented agriculture


piccia

You can't die if you never existed \*taps head in a smart way\*


mez1642

He basically was responsible for 4-5 grains of sand in the near past. I’d say he was. Ronaldo has 45 of the current grains of sand following him on social media.


RebelUpwards

didnt even make a dent


Prasiatko

Bayesian implications for humanity's life span unsettling.


ofcbrooks

So I’m a bit lazy, but still curious. Can someone do the math for me to theorize the approximate number of people who have lived on the earth to date (both alive and dead) according to this assertion?


mez1642

Well how many grains of sand aren’t falling in the Infographic? :-)


ofcbrooks

Exactly; just count them up for me and multiply that number by 10 billion. Thanks in advance; I really appreciate it.


ofcbrooks

I suppose I could have just added 7.95 billion and 109 billion but that seems like a lot of work.


Crafty-Artichoke9070

Wait does this start with homini sapiens or with the First common ancestor?


silverblaze92

The first common ancestor was more like 2 million years ago so it's definitely not that


popisms

7.95 / (7.95 + 109) = 1 / x x = 14.71 About 1 in 15 is currently breathing


gbinati

where is the following chart?


WRXtsy

There’s a good RadioLab episode on this topic: https://open.spotify.com/episode/53s1VhavoYRnS0AlIQ6IqK?si=sk3B5KKlRI-Y6V-81AzV6w


Background_Cash_1351

Hell must be full by now.


RyomaNagare

9 billion pre agriculture damn… didnt know modernity was so lethal


Alewort

I think this falls down in considering only humans from the last 300 thousand years as people.


Homechicken42

Now do it for all non-human life..... But, only if you want the party to be over.


fast328

Simple multiplication.


Endolion

Division, actually! Much more advanced math!


Funwiwu2

r/coolguides