People

[ivo]

Today I read jwz's post linking to an article that claims "Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive now."

That reminded me of a question I've had for a while: "How many people have every lived on Earth", so I finally googled it. Of course, first you have to define "what is a human", so I put the marker at

Comments

[eliset]

You have to wonder, if reincarnation were true, whether all those reincarnated souls started off just waiting millenia to be born, or maybe they doubled up for a while with the first few generations.

[ghewgill]

I think if you really believe in reincarnation, humans are a mere blip in the wider world of, say, insects. 10 quintillion is a current estimate of the number of insects alive right now.