4 ms·

How about rolling the dice now and ending up in a backwater of SE Asia or the DRC? I don't disagree that this is probably the best time to be alive on average,

• pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > How about rolling the dice now and ending up in a backwater of SE Asia or the DRC? Still statistically better than a random human being in 3,000 BC. And of course, we don't live in the best possible universe; but on average, a random human's odds of being eaten by a figurative grue monotonically increase as you go backwards in time.
  • chandler 10y ago
    >> ...a random human's odds of being eaten by a figurative grue monotonically increase as you go backwards in time. Humans don't live alone in the woods--not now, not 5,000 years ago (nor 45,000 years before that). They band together to modify, control, and tame their environment. Now, you might miss your devices, pastimes, and widespread sanitation...however, from my understanding, humans don't typically worry about malevolent grues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomically_modern_human#Modern_human_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomically_modern_human#Mode...
    • pavel_lishin 10y ago
      A grue doesn't have to be malevolent to kill you. A bobcat that bites your neck is hungry, a mis-step that breaks a knee is careless, a tooth infection that spreads into the blood is indifferent, the blood that pours out of a woman giving birth is just following the laws of pressure and gravity.