So this topic is probably a little cerebral for the coli, but IMO it's pretty interesting and kind of 
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Doomsday argument - Wikipedia
It's basically a statistical argument about the likelihood of human civilization coming to an end. I'll start with a simple example. Suppose you're handed a bag of marbles, with each one labeled numerically, starting with 1. So the marbles would just be numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc for however many marbles are in the bag. Simple enough. You have absolutely no idea about how many marbles are in the bag. It could be 20, it could be 50 trillion (it's a big bag). But you have absolutely no way to know beforehand.
So you pull a random marble out of the bag, and you get the number 7. Here's the question: Do you think it's more likely that there are, say, 15 marbles, or that there are 15,000? If you said 15, then you might be inadvertently arguing that humanity is statistically likely to go extinct relatively soon. Just swap out "marbles" for "every human that will ever live" and the numbers for birth rank. So, for example, number 1 would be the first human to ever live, number 834,408 would be the 834,408th person that will ever live, etc.
Now, if you're alive today, then you're birth rank is likely somewhere around 100 billion (you could argue about the number, but it doesn't make a huge difference in the end result). So the question is, how many people do you think will ever live? Do you think it's more likely that, say, 200 billion people will ever live (putting you around the middle of the pack) or that 70 trillion will ever live (making you one of the earliest humans)?
Or to put it another way, you drew a marble and got the number 100 billion. Do you think it's more likely that there are 200 billion total, or many trillions? If you agree with the statistical argument that you would most likely be near the middle of the pack, then you can do statistical predictions (based on birth rates, current population trends, life expectancy, etc.) to estimate the probability of humanity going extinct within a given number of years.
That calculation has been done. The conclusion is that there's a 95% chance that the number of humans to ever live will be no more than 1.2 trillion, and that there's about a 95% chance that humanity will go extinct within the next 9,000 or so years.
Now this isn't a political or religious type of thing
just a very interesting statistical argument that says nothing in particular about what might happen in the future. Many people don't like it but there's no real agreement on why it would be wrong. Anyway just something I find kind of interesting. Video below probably explains it better than I did -
Dunno that I agree with it, maybe some of the assumptions are wrong, but it's interesting.
.Doomsday argument - Wikipedia
It's basically a statistical argument about the likelihood of human civilization coming to an end. I'll start with a simple example. Suppose you're handed a bag of marbles, with each one labeled numerically, starting with 1. So the marbles would just be numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc for however many marbles are in the bag. Simple enough. You have absolutely no idea about how many marbles are in the bag. It could be 20, it could be 50 trillion (it's a big bag). But you have absolutely no way to know beforehand.
So you pull a random marble out of the bag, and you get the number 7. Here's the question: Do you think it's more likely that there are, say, 15 marbles, or that there are 15,000? If you said 15, then you might be inadvertently arguing that humanity is statistically likely to go extinct relatively soon. Just swap out "marbles" for "every human that will ever live" and the numbers for birth rank. So, for example, number 1 would be the first human to ever live, number 834,408 would be the 834,408th person that will ever live, etc.
Now, if you're alive today, then you're birth rank is likely somewhere around 100 billion (you could argue about the number, but it doesn't make a huge difference in the end result). So the question is, how many people do you think will ever live? Do you think it's more likely that, say, 200 billion people will ever live (putting you around the middle of the pack) or that 70 trillion will ever live (making you one of the earliest humans)?
Or to put it another way, you drew a marble and got the number 100 billion. Do you think it's more likely that there are 200 billion total, or many trillions? If you agree with the statistical argument that you would most likely be near the middle of the pack, then you can do statistical predictions (based on birth rates, current population trends, life expectancy, etc.) to estimate the probability of humanity going extinct within a given number of years.
That calculation has been done. The conclusion is that there's a 95% chance that the number of humans to ever live will be no more than 1.2 trillion, and that there's about a 95% chance that humanity will go extinct within the next 9,000 or so years.
Now this isn't a political or religious type of thing
just a very interesting statistical argument that says nothing in particular about what might happen in the future. Many people don't like it but there's no real agreement on why it would be wrong. Anyway just something I find kind of interesting. Video below probably explains it better than I did -Dunno that I agree with it, maybe some of the assumptions are wrong, but it's interesting.
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I hope whatever comes after us does a better job.
so this begins with a guessing game
