DuckskwakSep 1, 2023
Marius Gundersen - mdg ๐ŸŒป
It's wild to think about how short human history is. For example, the iron age started approximately 1200BC, which means that if you are 32 years old you have been alive for 1% of the time humans have used iron. If you are 54 years old then you have lived through 1% of horses being domesticated, the wheel being used for transport, written language and living in towns. ๐Ÿคฏ
Aug 29, 2023 at 10:58amTusky
Show threadHilaryAug 30, 2023

@gundersen

There is such a huge difference between the vertical and horizontal, which makes facts difficult to grasp
7 billion people? Obviously there's very little horizontal connection between most of them.

A thousand years? That's maybe 60 to 70 generations, probably fewer in most cases. Really quite close.

Show threadThamizh KudimaganSep 1, 2023
@regordane @gundersen
Then there is the connection between the vertical and horizontal when you visualize as a broad family tree
Show threadJohn LorimerAug 30, 2023
@gundersen 53 here, so that is confronting. ๐Ÿ™‚
Show threadAnna ThemaAug 31, 2023
@kuridala @gundersen
Couldn't agree more.
I'm still trying to get my head around being 53. Pretty sure my parents are lying.
After reading this I'm going for a little fetal rock and groan.
Show threadJohn LorimerAug 31, 2023

@Anna_Thema @gundersen
There is a very apt pet shop boys lyric for that

I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be

Show threadWm.sonAug 31, 2023

@Anna_Thema @kuridala @gundersen

It gets weirder, the older we get. There's a high risk if focusing on the "what's left" of our lives, vs. really making the most of it!

Show threadJohn LorimerAug 31, 2023
@Sfwmson @Anna_Thema @gundersen I can add to that the fact that we tend to look backwards a lot as we get older as well.
The only real important thing is right now.
Show threadErik AblesonAug 31, 2023

@gundersen @sgf itโ€™s pretty mindblowing to realize that my grandmother lived from horse and carriage to the nuclear age, the moon landing and used a computer to manage her stocks over a modem in her retirement.

Human history is a blip in the grand scheme of things

Show threadGiles GoatAug 31, 2023
@gundersen And if you are around 54 or so, as well, you been born in a time where "Personal Computer" was non-existent, there was NO ( not widespread ) Internet, TV was still analog and mostly BW, pocket calculators were still "a bit exotic", AI was a thing of Sci-Fi novels so flat screen and "personal communicator" was Star Trek ( no cell phones ), videogames were barely heard of ( Asteroids was 1979 ) there was NO "social" and books and magazines were the only "sources" of info.
Show threadbit101Aug 31, 2023
@gundersen
Amazing way of looking at things. If you consider that the US was "born' in 1776, I've experienced almost 25% of its lifetime. Mind blowing.
Show threadMarius Gundersen - mdg ๐ŸŒปAug 31, 2023
@bit101 And if you are 60 years old then you have lived through 3% of Christianity and if you are 70 then you have lived through 5% of Islam.
Show threadbit101Aug 31, 2023
@gundersen This would make a fun web app. Enter your birth date, get all kinds of interesting percentages.
Show threadSue ArcherAug 31, 2023

@bit101 @gundersen

That would be very interesting!

Show threadDragonblaze ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง #NAFOAug 31, 2023
@gundersen What most people also don't know is that if you went back some 2500 years, nobody would speak any language that you would understand.
Show threadMoshe ZadkaAug 31, 2023

@Dragonblaze @gundersen I call bullshit.

Pretty sure I can communicate in Biblical Hebrew. (They'd make hella fun of my accent, but, um, as a non-native English speaker, what else is new.)

Show threadDragonblaze ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง #NAFOAug 31, 2023
@moshez @gundersen I could do Akkadian myself. But most people wouldn't be able to speak any ancient language.
Show threadnotsoloudAug 31, 2023

@gundersen
And if you're 32, something like maybe 20-50% of all iron ever produced was in your lifetime (would be cool to find exact numbers here).

And 99.9+% of all transistors, windmills (by MW), solar panels and many other things.

Show thread@faktoiderSep 1, 2023
@notsoloud @gundersen The last two weeks Sweden produced as much steel as it produced iron during the 14th century.
Show threadThe Animal and the MachineAug 31, 2023

@gundersen @christianp For the entire length of the existence of Homo Sapiens, the continents basically havenโ€™t moved.

Sea levels have changed, but you can plot the movement of humans on a modern map!

๐Ÿคฏ

Aprox 300,000 years ago.

All the myths of the great flood, including Noah, trace back to the end of the last ice age 11,000 years ago. Most of our early coastal history is probably yet to be discovered by future technology, as itโ€™s underwater. We are bias to high-ground.

๐Ÿคฏ

Show threadDave Smith has movedAug 31, 2023
@gundersen I remember reading somewhere that if your arms outstretched represent the duration of life on earth, humanity represents the distance your fingernails grow in a day.
Show threadJesper Larsson has moved!Sep 1, 2023
@scudderfish Wow, that is the most far-fetched analogy I ever encountered. ๐Ÿ˜ƒ @gundersen
Show threadbor[x]a ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ธ ใƒœใƒซใ‚ทใƒฃ Sep 1, 2023
@gundersen yet if you are 100, you've only been alive for 0,03 % of the time Homo sapiens have existed @txerren
Show threadMarius Gundersen - mdg ๐ŸŒปSep 1, 2023
@protoeuskaldun @txerren that's the interesting thing, as humans left Africa to settle the world around 50 000 years ago, and all the interesting things (OK, what I find interesting) happened after the last ice age 12 000 years ago. That is, a 120 year old had been alive for 1% of modern humans forming agricultural civilizations.
Show threadtxerren ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ธSep 1, 2023
@gundersen @protoeuskaldun we are certainly accelerating the pace ^^