I remember that meme that started in the 1970s where allegedly "More people are now alive than the sum of all people who have lived and died in the planet's history."
I was looking for the actual figure of how many people have died (and of course evolution complicates things).
But most seem to agree that the number of those who populated the yesterdays that "lighted fools the dusty way to death" is somewhere on the order of 100 to 110 billion.
So that guy in the seventies was a "little bit off" with his memorable pronouncement.
That meme is a meme of misinformation.
Huh--thanks for this--I hadn't thought to question that one.
ReplyDeleteFile that alongside "we only use 10% of our brains," and "the five-second rule."
Hi Amy!
ReplyDeleteYeah, funny how those things slip through.
So one down.
I probably only have 3,874 other false ones still up there.