Forum menu
Well, Stoner has blown my mind today.
I'm amazed by biological diversity - all the thousands of different types of bird that have ever evolved from thumb-sized hummingbirds to ostriches (not to mention extinct giants). All different shapes, sizes, colours. If we are the only place in our galaxy with life, it has at least taken the opportunity to go crazy. It makes me sad that the planet is becoming less diverse and wonderful year by year.
That we are made of elements created in the hearts of exploding stars.
Every time one of us takes a drink of water it is that very same water that has been on earth since it's first days, endlessly regurgitated.
So I could have drunk Hitler's piss.
How many ancestors we have:
Parents – 2
Grandparents – 4
Great Grandparents – 8
2nd Grandparents – 16
3rd Grandparents – 32
.
.
.
18th Grandparents – 1,048,576
Etc. Etc.
That does assume they're all unique and well, I've been to Blackpool, I think it's safe to assume that number is smaller for some people 😉
Global Population though, madness isn't it? We worry about a million things when it comes to climate change, cars, ships, fossil fuels, renewables etc, but those things pale in comparison to population growth.
The old "Pub Fact" that there are more people alive now than dead is nonsense (in 2012 there were 7bn people on earth and about 107bn deaths) but Population growth is still staggering. When Cleopatra was alive there were about 180 million People on the planet, By the time Victoria was on the Throne and Lincoln was in the White House the global population was about 1bn and most people ate food that was produced within walking distance of where they lived and life expectancy was about 60 (well if you survived birth).
By the time of the Great War we'd doubled to 2Bn.
By the time I was born in 77 we'd doubled again to 4Bn.
By the end of the Millennium we'd added another 2Bn to 6.
7Bn 8 years ago, we'll reach 8 in a few years, double what it was when I was born.
If you look at it on a Graph from the year 1AD it's a short ramp that quickly becomes a near vertical line.