Monkeys chasing butterflies
If the world’s population lived in one city…
Of all the people in human history who ever reached the age of 65, half are alive now.

That’s a fun and on the surface scary statistics from a population standpoint. Luckily population growth is in decline, which according to one Hacker News comment peaked in the 1960s for percent growth and in 1980s for absolute growth.

There was a related talk back in 2009 by Pete Alcorn given at TED. He speaks about the world in 2200 and how a declining population brings prosperity with it, making parallels with Europe’s in the black plague aftermath. The black plague killed 30-60% of Europe’s entire population.