>> there are many unimaginable things that can happen in 5,000 years and I can think of a few You must use a different definition of 'unimaginable' than I'm fa

>> there are many unimaginable things that can happen in 5,000 years and I can think of a few You must use a different definition of 'unimaginable' than I'm familiar with. Sorry, just thought that was funny phrasing. First thing I thought of was that xkcd as well. It is interesting to talk about instantaneous population trends, which is what the extrapolation is based on. It's a shame they couldn't have just done that and stopped there without trying to extrapolate into something that can be viewed as 'prediction' by a casual reader. But hey, at least they admitted they used the backs of envelopes for the calculation.