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There's some misunderstanding probability going on here. For example, if the population stays at 8B between now and infinity, and we assume a uniform distribut
by jsharf 5y ago
There's some misunderstanding probability going on here.
For example, if the population stays at 8B between now and infinity, and we assume a uniform distribution of % chance you're born at any time, then it's just as equally likely that you'd be born at the beginning as at the end. There's no higher chance that you'd be born in the middle, whatsoever.
Now actually the population is likely to grow, so if anything it's much more likely that you'd be born towards the end. That begins said, some people have to be born first and of course if they thought this way, they might say things like "oh what a coincidence, this is highly unlikely" or "It's far more likely due to exponential growth that any one person exist towards the end of humanity, so therefore this must be the end", but of course, this thought could have been had by cavemen 1000's of years ago and they'd be wrong.
- magneticnorth 5y agoI think we agree - I wasn't meaning to imply that I'm surely in the middle, mostly trying to be more clear about how unlikely it is to be early. Another way to put it is to say that there's only 5% chance I'm in the first 5% of people, and 50% chance I'm in the last 50% (assuming uniform distribution, which, who knows). If I'm in the last 50%, then we don't have much time left. And yes, if everyone has these thoughts, then about 5% of people will be wrong when they think that surely they aren't in the first 5%. (And I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that "between now and infinity" is hyperbole - percentiles of a uniform distribution like this don't make sense if there will truly be a countably infinite number of people. )