I'm from Moon

The year is 2154.  The school semester is just finishing up as students are finalizing their summer internship schedules down on Earth,  In another few lunar days The University of Moon (or The U) as students insist on calling it, will be as lonely as it was during the 1970's pioneering days.  It's been a pretty uneventful year overall, the one piece of news that did happen passed without much comment.  "The" was overwhelmingly voted to be dropped from the moniker "The Moon".       

"Moon" has consistently been preferred by locals ever since the initial settlements in 2115.  Much like our ancestors who would affectionately refer to Washington, District of Columbia, simply as DC (now the ruins known as CD Wash), today's Moonies and Terrestrials are carrying on the tradition of linguistic laziness.  It's hardly surprising tho.  While it is still possible to find star charts that have the "The", you'd be hard pressed to find anybody actually saying, "I'm from the Moon"; it sounds odd to the 22nd century ear. 

Now that the infrastructure is growing on Moon decade by decade, it would in fact be odd to have "The" attached to future schools, hospitals, and institutions.  It seems that the only role for "The" in regards to "The Moon", will be a vestige and reminder of the quaint days of life when it was only on Earth.

Princes and Paupers

Princes and Paupers world apart, similarities of desires so commonplace.

Both feel yearnings deep within heart, at seeing their love's congenial grace.                                               One with diamonds and rubies to give, the other with modesty in bountiful array.

But both have their respective lives to live, from morning dawn till dusk of day.                                         Owner of this key stroke here, is neither prince nor pauper, but whether riches or penury,

I think of her.

One Universal Language in the Future

I think that sometime in the distant future, current languages will funnel down into one (possibly a handful of) main language/s.  This language will resemble English.

Languages have been going extinct since as long as language itself; but I think with the influence of social networking and the world being as connected as it's ever been that extinction of languages will be accelerated.

Languages borrow phrases, words, and other structure from OTHER languages.  Sometimes another language captures a feeling or meaning better.  English has canibalized languages left and right over the centuries.  E.g.  The German word "schadenfreude" seems to have worked itself into the English lexicon (happiness in other people's failures).  Now English has an adequate word for that feeling.

I think that this universal language will resemble English only because it is the current lingua Franca.  The #1 export of the United States is culture.  American culture is emulated world wide.  People across the globe are able to see and listen to Beyoncé, watch Dicaprio and just see an absolute flood of other English language material.  Of course the US is not the sole source of art, but Americans are certainly prolific artists, coming from the most populous English speaking country. The borrowing of language goes both ways too.  Other languages borrow words and terms from English. 

As time goes on, and the world becomes even more connected, English will be so ubiquitous that languages will start to become more like English because of this borrowing between them. Eventually there will be a single unified language 2,000 years from now.  Let's call it Pangealish.

Unfortunately it's doubtful I'll be able to see if I'm right or terrifically wrong on this.

What is the Number of Potential Humans?

I recently posed this question on a forum, and the answer was worth sharing. (Credit to Raheem Chaudhry)

Take every sperm cell; past, present and future (world ends in 3000 CE) and multiply that number by every egg cell; past, present and future (world ends in 3000 CE) What is that number?

There have been 107 billion people to walk the planet up until now. Roughly. That is according to this article by BBC News. That article was written in 2012, so that also needs to be taken into consideration.

The birth rate for the world is 255 births per minute according to The World Factbook. I'm assuming that the birth rate will be constant, to make the sums a bit easier.

So the total number of humans to exist up until 3000 CE is 107,000,000,000 + (255 * 525949 * 988) = 239,507,591,060 people.
Let's put that to an appropriate number of sig figs.
240 billion people. And that estimate is just for the number of people who have or will ever live up until 3000 CE.

According to Live Science 525 billion sperm are produced by each man in his lifetime. Assuming half of those 240 billion are men, the number of sperm possibly released is
120,000,000,000 * 525,000,000,000 = 6.3e+22 sperm.

However, each sperm needs one egg to fertilise to count as a potential person, right?

But then things get complicated. According to Cleaveland Clinic:
 

During fetal life, there are about 6 million to 7 million eggs. From this time, no new eggs are produced. At birth, there are approximately 1 million eggs; and by the time of puberty, only about 300,000 remain. Of these, only 300 to 400 will be ovulated during a woman's reproductive lifetime.

Which figure to use? Only ovulated eggs really have the chance to become people. So if half of those people were women then the number of possible eggs is
120,000,000,000 * 400 = 4.8e+13 eggs

For each of those eggs there will inevitably be a sperm to go with it. So there is your answer:

4.8e+13 potential people - in the sense of if every egg that was ever produced and wasn't fertilised, was.
2.4e+11 people - the number of people to exist up until the world's theoretical end of 3000 CE.

Together, they add up to produce 4.824e+13 people and potential people.
Fully written out:


Of course, you could also be asking how many different ways these eggs and sperms can be fused together to form a 'different' person each time. This can be found by multiplying the number of eggs by the number of sperm.

 So:
6.3e+22 * 4.8e+13 = 3.024e+36 potential people - in the sense of different combinations of sperm and egg cells to produce new 'potential people'.
Fully written out:

3 024 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000

or

3 duodecillion 24 undecillion

 

Why We Eat Chickens, But Not Dogs.

Even tho it's not explicitly listed anywhere, there is a moral calculus that goes on in everybody's head when weighing the value of a life.  Why do most people say that if forced to choose they would save the life of a 7 year old over a 97 year old? Because we judge that the potential is much greater for the 7 year old.  If given the same choice between that 97 year old and a 1 year old dog, most people probably choose the 97 year old.  The age is irrelevant in this scenario because we value human life over canine life.

If you follow this chain down, we value dog lives more then chickens.  Dogs have lived with us as domestic companions for millennia.  Dogs have an almost unique ability to read human emotions, and infer what we want.  They are loved as pets we indulge and they can be put to work as herders, guide dogs and police dogs.  Chickens on the other hand do not enjoy such a lucky existence.  We eat chickens and exploit them in several ways, but we certainly don't kill them for no reason.  The reason for their existence (at least from our perspective) is food.  So in this moral judgement that we do, the dog's life is valuable, whereas the chicken's life is not.

                                                                                  "Fair's fair, Larry.  We drew straws and you lost."