The world population has quadrupled in my lifetime, so I would be willing to believe the old bit about “more people are alive now than have ever died.” But it’s bunk. Estimated count of all people ever is 100 billion. There weren’t that many people in the past but our species goes back 50,000 years and that makes it up.
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.”
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.
The world population has quadrupled in my lifetime, so I would be willing to believe the old bit about “more people are alive now than have ever died.” But it’s bunk. Estimated count of all people ever is 100 billion. There weren’t 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
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.
If the population quadrupled in your lifetime you must be over 100 years old?
Yeah you’re right it’s more like doubled.