[The Lone Ranger]

By the by, just to clarify: you only have to go back about 200 years before the total number of people who have lived in that interval but are not presently alive exceeds half the world's current population. And that's when you're ultra-conservative in your estimates.

You don't have to go back much further before the total number of people who has lived in that interval -- but are not currently living -- exceeds the number of people alive today.

For example, it's estimated that there were over 600 million people alive in the year 1700. I think that we can safely assume that for practical purposes, none of them were alive in 1804 when the world's population is estimated to have reached 1.0 billion.

So let's add another 0.6 billion to that 4.0 billion who lived before today, but are not part of today's population. And again, that's being ultra-conservative -- after all, the median age today is less than 29 years, and it was surely less then. So the real number would have likely been at least 3 or 4 times higher.

The estimated world's [human] population in 1600 was 545 million. Again, we can safely assume that virtually no one who was alive in 1600 was still alive in 1700. And again, we'll be ultraconservative and ignore the fact that several generations came and went in that time span.

So we're up to more than 5.1 billion people who definitely lived before today who aren't still around.


The estimated world population in 1500 was 425 million. This brings us up to an ultraconservative estimate of more than 5.5 billion people who lived in the past 500 years but are not alive today.


The estimated world population in 1400 was 350 million. That brings us up to more than 5.8 billion people who have lived in the past 600 years but aren't around today.


The estimated world population in 1300 was actually a bit higher at 360 million than it was in 1400 (pesky plagues). That brings us up to 6.1 billion.


The estimated world population in 1200 was also about 360 million. (World population growth didn't really take off until the Industrial Revolution, several hundred years later.) This brings us up to ... let's say ... 6.4 billion people.


The estimated world population in 1100 was about 320 million. So we're up to about 6.7 billion people.


The estimated world population in the year 1000 was 265 million. Which brings us up to 7 billion, give or take a few million.



So, even if we use ultra-ultra-conservative estimates of human population sizes and longevities, we only have to go back 1,000 years or so before the total number of people who have lived handily exceeds the total number who're currently alive. And that's not counting all the people who lived before then who -- presumably -- are not still alive.