How many people might ever exist, calculated

I made this video in partnership with the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research, where the author Will MacAskill serves as director. Their goal is to help the book reach more people, and I’m very aligned with that goal. The more we can work together to think about our future, the better!

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[sabiancoomber-nickerson]

Wow. I always liked the idea of leaving the world a better place than when you found it, but I never though about how that improves the lives of potentially quadrillions of people.

[peppermint_]

I'm glad Earth has almost reached 8 billion subscribers! this is such a huge milestone

[LordMarcus]

One point I think is important to make, when you mention the predicted time span over which a mammalian species might exist, that doesn't necessarily mean _people_ have stopped existing, just that _homo sapiens_ becomes a common ancestor for those species—and it could indeed be plural "species", especially without FTL travel—whose people will exist 1, 000, 000 years from now.

[LunarcomplexMain]

I was really hoping to notice the Sun model get bigger as the 1, 000s of years went by, but then thought, oh wait that wouldn't nearly be enough time, then you went ahead and covered it anyway lol, pretty awesome.

[everrettbreezewood]

Being so early in the history of humanity gives us a crazy amount of influence. As time goes on and the populations increase, your likelihood of becoming a legend decreases dramatically. Just think how Aristotle, Hannibal, David, and Ramses are viewed as great heroes, even though compared with today there are probably many with equal or greater skills/accomplishments. Compare this with the Bonapartes, Churchills, Washingtons, and Maos that pop up today. The heroes keep getting rarer and rarer, but also greater and greater as the competition for titles increases. Just how powerful with the "great men" of the future be?

Edit: 76 comments and counting; wow. Let this be a testament to how easily YouTube commenters can artificially insert motive into a mild academic preponderance.
Please note that I'm calling these people "great, " not "good." By "great" I mean significant/famous; the kind of person you can read a book about and 90% of literate people are familiar with. Very few people reading the comments actually had to Google who Mao was.
I'm also not insinuating anything about how people become "great." Whether this is by circumstances or by their own ability doesn't matter. Each of these people have had influences across centuries and will continue to influence as long as humanity remains in roughly its current state.
There are more famous people than ever, but most are forgotten within a decade. Will Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, and Pope Francis stand time? All I'm saying is that if they do, they will be statistically less impactful than someone living at the time of Newton, Ghengis Khan, or Columbus.

[rahko_i]

The final thoughts at the end reminded of a great insight someone thought: When in science fiction people travel to the past, they are always so worried that even the the most tiniest change there could drastically change the present, but why aren't we worried about the our most tiniest choices in the present having the same effect in the future?

[bobbob]

YESSS FINALLY. HE'S BACK TO SAVE ME FROM BOREDOM

[LordMarcus]

I remember when population approached 5b. Projections were wildly out-of-touch, they were saying something like 10b by 2000 and 15b by 2015.

EDIT: 5b instead of 6b.

[henaadlakha]

Thank you. It is thrilling to even try to find precise questions that are pertinent to the context even if we know that our answers might be not close to the truth because they are based on too many unproved assumptions--this beautiful video did it very well.

[laurencehtet]

I'm not sure if you'll see this but I just found about this channel. Thank you for the longevity and effort you put into the videos. I will be watching everything that have been uploaded so far and will be watching whatever's being uploaded. You're awesome!

[xelalex]

Always a great video man, appreciate the work you put into each video.

[martibuxeda]

I hope in the future there's people like you helping us understand such interesting thematics! Thanks so much!

[umerqureshi]

Amazing video! Always look forward to your videos. Don't stop making these

[Spinosaurus]

This is the earliest Primer video I've every been to!

[arturonotari]

This is literally the 3rd channel that make a video of this specific topic today.
And I'm suscribed to all of them.

[sixtenwidlund]

Yes a new primer video!!!!, it has been so long!!

[MasterNox]

Kurzgesagt, Rational Animations and yourself all made similar videos today! I love the differing viewpoints and ways to look into our future, very insightful. Keep up the good work!

[someoneelse]

Saw that book on the Kurzgezaght latest video too. Seems obvious that we have some very smart people trying to help steer our future. I hope they choose the right direction, and if it is correct that we follow along.

[MrScorpianwarrior]

As someone who, less than an hour before you uploaded this, watched "The Last Human" by Kurzgesagt, I am impressed by how similar your math it.
He actually used the exact same book to base his video on, which makes me wonder if this is in the book...

[NoUploadsOnThisChannel]

This is one of my favorite videos of all time. Keep it up, Primer!