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We all know that in a billion years or so, the sun will start its transformation
into a red giant. In other words, it will start getting bigger, and when
it does that, the extra solar energy that we receive on Earth will likely
dry up all the oceans and destroy most of life on Earth. If humanity
didn’t move to another planet, our numbers will probably start to
dwindle and, that will likely be the end.
But don’t worry, because we don’t have to wait 1 billion years for
death to happen. Consider the Doomsday Argument.
First proposed by Brandon Carter, the Doomsday argument is
basically an argument that claims to predict the number of
future members of the human species based on the total number
humans born so far. As of today, the argument says that the humans
alive right now are probably at the halfway point on the entire
human history timeline.
In other words, suppose that 10 trillion humans will have ever
lived, and we have given them all a number from 1 to 10 trillion.
If we randomly picked a human today, chances are that he or she
will not be among the first 10% of humans that ever have lived,
and that his or her number will not be a number from 1 to 1 trillion.
In other words, the person we picked will more likely have a number
from 7 to 10 trillion.
Applying Leslie’s figure and Copernican’s Principle, there is a
95% chance that the total number of humans that ever will live
is around 1.2 trillion. Assuming that the world population stabilizes
at 10 billion with a life expectancy of 80 years, it can be estimated
that the remaining 1,140 billion humans will be born in 9,120 years.
Anyways, the main point is that 1.2 trillion humans is likely the
maximum total number of humans that will exist. This is also saying
that humanity will likely end in 10,000 years. And if you don’t think
the human race will ever go extinct, just look at the dinosaurs. The
dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over around 150 million years. Then
they either died off or evolved into other species. Who’s to say that
a meteor won’t hit Earth and do the same
to us?