Andreas Gursky “Union Rave” (1995)
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke wrote “”Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.” That’s no longer true. These days, there are apparently 15 dead for every living person. Still, the living clearly do not outnumber the dead. Not even close, according to new research from the Population Reference Bureau. according to new research from the Population Reference Bureau. The TL;DR is that “There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived,” according to a BBC News article. Of course, the vast majority of history is based on educated guesses. The first homo sapiens weren’t too interested in acquiring census data. It wasn’t until the 18th century or so that the best ongoing data was collected about such things. “Do the dead outnumber the living?” (BBC News)