How Many People Share Our World?

  • Thread starter Thread starter rootX
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
72 replies · 11K views
rootX
Messages
480
Reaction score
4
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

My results:
You were the 5,087,705,009th person
Your country's population is 34,016,593
Average life expectancy is 78.2 years

262 people (,I don't know what 262 means)
 
Physics news on Phys.org
rootX said:
262 people (,I don't know what 262 means)
It says "the amount the population has grown while you've been on this site"And you are a fellow Canuck.
 
The number of significant figures they provide is hilarious.
 
lisab said:
I feel like a number.

Me too!

.. and that made me bit sad :shy:
 
This video by National Geographic is very good. Overpopulation, it's not about the space. We can't economically/feasably sustain this many people. Think about it.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
lisab said:
I only had one. Can I sell my other share :biggrin:?

I had none*. Can I get a refund?

*biologically, anyway
 
DaveC426913 said:
I had none*. Can I get a refund?

*biologically, anyway
You make up for the sperm donor that has over 1,000 kids.
 
lisab said:
I only had one. Can I sell my other share :biggrin:?

Those who have 1 or no children get $20,000. Right now it's the other way around, the more babies you have, the more money you get (in the US).
 
Evo said:
You make up for the sperm donor that has over 1,000 kids.
Hrm. Not sure if that math works out.

Interesting problem...

As long as the mother has only one child by sperm donor, then the numbers work out.

With 1 man and 1000 women, you get 1000 children.
If he donates 1 million, you get 1 million children. But you never get more children than parents.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Hrm. Not sure if that math works out.

Interesting problem...

As long as the mother has only one child by sperm donor, then the numbers work out.

With 1 man and 1000 women, you get 1000 children.
If he donates 1 million, you get 1 million children. But you never get more children than parents.
A lot of these women, for some reason, already had kids, sometimes several. And no, I'm not going to go dig up everything I've read in the last few years on artificial insemination stats, I don't understand why a woman with children would need to artificially have more. Look at octomom. So consider it unreliable.
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
Those who have 1 or no children get $20,000. Right now it's the other way around, the more babies you have, the more money you get (in the US).
Yeah, this is something that needs to be fixed.
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
Those who have 1 or no children get $20,000. Right now it's the other way around, the more babies you have, the more money you get (in the US).

It's not the US but the third world countries that concern me. I doubt you can put any kind of caps on them.
 
rootX said:
It's not the US but the third world countries that concern me. I doubt you can put any kind of caps on them.
What do you think they'd do if you offered them $20,000?
 
DaveC426913 said:
What do you think they'd do if you offered them $20,000?

If some "government" had that much of free money, 7 billion population wouldn't have been a concern.
 
And no having triplets either.
 
How do they determine the order of birth on a specific day? It didn't ask for time of birth, and I wasn't the only male born in the US on 11/11/1983.

Edit: Nevermind, just found this; "It is one possible value based on global population figures and estimates of growth rates over time."
 
Last edited:
When you were born, you were the:
3,080,736,737th
person alive on Earth
76,771,155,855th
person to have lived since history began

The average life expectancy is about 13 years longer here in the U.S. since the last time I glanced at that statistic!
 
Greg Bernhardt said:
World cap of two children a family. Problem solved.
Not really. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/chinas-one-child-rule-turns-time-bomb-223258406.html"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dipungal said:
Not really. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/chinas-one-child-rule-turns-time-bomb-223258406.html"
When you cut back on new births, of course there is going to be basicaly a *one time* period where there will be a large elderly population, then things will normalize and be for the benefit of all.

In the US we are about to enter that phase as we had a *baby boom* after WWII, and then the population began to normalize, the baby boomers are now approaching retirement. After the baby boomers are gone, there will no longer be a disproportionate elderly population. Sometimes you have to suffer a bit to get better.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Evo said:
When you cut back on new births, of course there is going to be basicaly a *one time* period where there will be a large elderly population, then things will normalize and be for the benefit of all.

In the US we are about to enter that phase as we had a *baby boom* after WWII, and then the population began to normalize, the baby boomers are now approaching retirement. After the baby boomers are gone, there will no longer be a disproportionate elderly population. Sometimes you have to suffer a bit to get better.
But the problem is sometimes when we fix one thing, we break three more.
 
dipungal said:
But the problem is sometimes when we fix one thing, we break three more.
Once the elderly *hump* is over things will improve. But only if the laws are not abused.
 
rootX said:
It's not the US but the third world countries that concern me. I doubt you can put any kind of caps on them.

With the exception of sub-saharan africa all third world countries have declining birth rates. Brazil for example got smaller birth rates than the US.
Although third world is a terrible term since it includes both countries like Brazil and countries like Somalia.
 
Evo said:
When you cut back on new births, of course there is going to be basicaly a *one time* period where there will be a large elderly population, then things will normalize and be for the benefit of all.
Are you advocating abortion and mandatory birth control?
 
Evo said:
When you cut back on new births, of course there is going to be basicaly a *one time* period where there will be a large elderly population, then things will normalize and be for the benefit of all.

In the US we are about to enter that phase as we had a *baby boom* after WWII, and then the population began to normalize, the baby boomers are now approaching retirement. After the baby boomers are gone, there will no longer be a disproportionate elderly population. Sometimes you have to suffer a bit to get better.

dipungal said:
Are you advocating abortion and mandatory birth control?

"Cutting back on new births" through either "abortion-mandatory birth control" or "financial incentives" etc only work out theoretically but not in practice IMO.

I think it is too hard to control the world's population. Further that if something that can control the population is either nature or widespread education. It might be unacceptable or too harsh but I think cutting down on humanitarian missions and funding to poor nations might bring our global population to the level that we can sustain.
 
Last edited:
dipungal said:
Are you advocating abortion and mandatory birth control?

Her statement does not advocate that, no. Benefit of the doubt suggests she was simply speaking matter-of-factly.

However, that does not mean she won't subsequently offer her opinion explicitly.