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There’s been at most about 450-500 generations since the dawn of civilization

humans existed before civilization bro

I guess it was a misunderstanding of human

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Anatomically modern humans are about 200k yrs old. About 20 years per generation --> ~10k generations.

That’s still not tens of thousands

One ten(s) of thousands

That’s fair I guess

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Yeah i remember working this out when i was trying to argue to someone that youre not that unrelated to most living things on this planet. Even a banana is basically a distant cousin if you think about it

Yep. All of us living things are the great (xN) grandchildren of bacteria.

Well let’s see, if we consider a generation in terms of family, like my generation, my parents, grandparents etc, that means we have typically 3 generations per century. My sister and I born in the 1990s, my parents 60s & 70s, grandparents 40s, great grandparents 20s, etc. That there is 3 generations already remembered, and assuming you take interest in your family history, then it goes further back and from there branches off to people outside one’s family.

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I was thinking parents are one generation back, grandparents are two generations back, then beyond that most people know very little. If you interpret it differently, then just read my title as 4 generations back instead of 3.

Gotcha, my first thought reading was you were referring to generation like one century vs another. Thanks for clarifying.

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Yep, you'll be dust and no one will remember you soon enough. So do what you like cause no one will remember soon

That’s why it really doesn’t matter when it comes to legacy. Sure, If you founded a country or saved a lot of people (or killed a lot of people) you’ll be talked about, but I doubt George Washington cares he’s in history books. He’s dead.

To me the most important thing is having as much fun while you are here on this earth. To love as much as possible. Enjoy your family. Fuck work. It’s just a means to make the fun part happen.

Someday in the future, grad students will be researching reddit profiles to understand what life was like in the 21st century, lol.

You're right about that. It is just kind of sad to think about sometimes though, all the people who used to walk this Earth that are basically just wiped from history, and how quickly that will happen to everyone who is currently here. & not just people, there's been so many good pups who have come & gone, etc. I guess that's why it's a showerthought, cuz it's pointless to think about in day to day life even though it's true & somewhat disturbing.

What, in between sifting through nuclear ash?

Embrace it with positivity - since we know it is certain, inevitable, you can focus on the good stuff: do things you enjoy instead of running after pointless things. Spend time eith people who you care for, like friends, and cut time on other activities. Be less fitting in - do things as you like them.

Live more kn the moment than for legacy. Only thing to add: while we will be wiped from the minds of future generations, we also lay the very foundation for their success or demise. So dont think what you are doing should only matter to you. It is also important to think of others

Too many humans to realistically pay attention to. You could say almost no one living currently is even known by >50% of the population alive right now

Well put. Words to live by. Wishing you many years of happiness fren

Well ya I have not a thought or was told about my grandparents parents

True, but my name is attached to different items hosted in a few different museums, one of which being the Hungarian national museum.

So while nobody will know who I was as a person, they will at least have to look at my name every now and again.

Yeah I know, you're right, but I still think it's sad when you think about it.

My great grandparents were already dead when I was born and the only thing I know about them is that one of my great grandmothers said that she's seeing devils on the wall( first time when she saw a TV). So yeah, literally live your life to the fullest and stop fucking caring about what others say, in 100 years from now you will barely be a distant memory in your descendants mind.

Well another showerthought, we don't even know like 99% of the people who live within a couple block radius of us, unless you're in a particularly friendly village or suburb. There could be amazing people living one street over from you for years that you will never meet.

Perhaps if you made a fortune and it becomes a family inheritance across generations. Then you definitely be remembered.

The only thing I know of my great grandparents are their names and what country they were born in, that's as far as my knowledge of them goes.

True! Why I just want to be cremated and my ashes spread somewhere. I find caskets, graveyards and tombstones pointless when in a few decades no one will ever visit it or remember that I or anyone else there ever existed.

For how long though? At some point, surely the money will run out. Fortunes change. Plus, they won’t really remember ‘you,’ they’ll have just a faint idea of a person who got wealthy enough to set up a fund. They likely won’t know almost anything about you other than your name, if that.

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Yeah, ultimately no one will be remembered, no matter how significant their contribution to humanity.

The reality is that humans are not evolution's endgame, just a midpoint towards some unfathomable future.

Cosmic insignificance can be terrifying, but the bright side is that nothing really matters. We are not beholden to anyone or anything. No one is watching.

Figure out what is important to you and follow that. You can't save the world, and no one can save humanity, but we can all do our best to make our time here as pleasant and peaceful as possible.

They are pointless in that sense, but they are nice places to walk around in & have some green space, especially in urban environments.

Yeah I know, when I made my post I guess I was thinking less about myself & the people currently around & more about all the millions of people who used to exist, have lives, family, friends, interests, senses of humor, etc etc, but are just erased to basically nothing in the collective memory of humanity. It's just overwhelming & sad to think about at times.

Then I’d much rather see a park or a children’s playground built. Then a place with hundreds of tombstones of people long forgotten that know one even cares about anymore

There are examples:royalties that basically had a strong founder that could muscle out others, wealthy European families spanning centuries (eg Rothschild), wealthy families such as the Kennedys, old school wealth from Spanish families in central and South America, royalties and chieftains in Africa, wealthy families in Asia.

Outside of royalties, these generally keep a low profile. It’s not to their advantage to bring attention.

I guess. Idk, I do photography & really enjoy shooting in cemeteries. I don't think a playground would really set the same tone.

I read somewhere that there is a tribe in Africa that maintains there are two deaths a person undergoes; first is the physical death, followed by the death of everyone who ever knew the deceased. When that last person who actually knew them dies, they have had their inevitable second death. I find that concept rather comforting, somehow. A well known historical figure may have volumes written about them, but that is not firsthand experience; it is only the recollections of a third party, shaded by their perceptions, biases, and prejudices.

I don't know if I find that concept comforting as well, but it does make sense.

It’s kind of hard to remember people you’ve never meant. The oldest people alive may only remember a few people born in the mid 1800s, if that. Nobody personally knew anyone from before that and they’ll be forgotten if they weren’t written down in history.

Idk if you ever go to antique or secondhand stores, but there will often be photographs or even paintings of people who are long gone. That's when I start thinking about stuff like this, just knowing that aside from me looking at their old picture, no one even recognizes their prior existence at this point. Then multiply that out by the millions of people who once walked this Earth, it's a lot to think about.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. I think it's always been the way that the "younger" generations think that they know better, thus we keep doing the same mistake all over again.

It sounds cliche, but thinking about how many people have lived full lives, struggled, fallen in love, fought desperately for something they cared about only to inevitably die and quickly fade away as if none it mattered in the slightest, it's very humbling; somehow its also so freeing. There's nothing you can do that will prevent you from one day being forgotten, so now the question is, what do you do with your moment of awareness? Do you find happiness and live in it, or do you fight to constantly to better yourself, whatever the cost?

I realised a few years ago I knew how to be happy, and that's what I wanted to be, even if others thought I was wasting potential, or if it meant I'd never be wealthy. I've been happy since then. Sometimes I'll be confronted with a life choice, and I'll ask myself if I'm happy, if the answer is "yes" I let the opportunity go.

Maybe the repetition is nature keeping some sort of equilibrium.

>It sounds cliche, but thinking about how many people have lived full lives, struggled, fallen in love, fought desperately for something they cared about only to inevitably die and quickly fade away as if none it mattered in the slightest, it's very humbling; somehow its also so freeing.

maybe it's cliche, but the way you expressed it was quite nice.

Never thought how much my grave would make people happy.

I like to make hot tea and think back to our ancestors pushing through that ice age. Good on you, chaps.

ooouch.... hopefully not man.

That goes for most people these days. For most of us they are names on a tree. If your parents didn't talk about them.... then all that was known about who they really were is lost forever...

This was exactly the feeling I got when I first visited the Paris catacombs and saw aaaaalll those skulls and knew every single one once housed a whole person and their entire unique perspective.

Strangely uplifting.

That’s a fantastic way to look at things. In the grand scheme of the universe, all of us, even the rich and powerful ones, are hopelessly insignificant. Making the most of each day is the way to go.

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can you tell me more about what are you doing that makes you happy?

You should read The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. He writes to himself about this very thought.

Only around 10,000 generations.

Anatomically modern humans are only 300,000 years old. Behaviorally modern humans are younger than that, anywhere between 50,000 years old to 150,000 years old.

Well, someday you'll be not even a faint memory

No, at most a ghost or fallen leaf from your family tree

Your legacy's not yours to see nor is your eulogy

And you'll never know what it all means

No you'll be at peace before you sleep if you just keep this in mind;

That everything, and everyone goes with the passage of time

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legit. my work takes me to Hollywood often, and half the names on the Walk of Fame are forgotten people who lots don't even consider worthy of googling to learn about.

alcohol

Unless you have a family that actively maintains genealogy records, then yeah.

This will probably change with modern tech and modern databases.

There is a word for that realization, that every one else has a million thoughts per day, and if that friend didn't remember you don't like banana they probably sat in the bakery isle arguing aloud with themselves and just ended up making the wrong decision because they have 30 friends and it's hard to remember what they each like, but they still went out of their way to do something to make your day better and that's what really matters, plus you didn't really need pie anyways you've been doing good eating healthier

Also the word is sonder

Your true love could live next door but you work night shift and their moving away in a few weeks

That was a beautiful way of expressing the way of life. Thank you.

Hm, maybe I will check it out.

Evolutionarily modern humans have existed for 180,000-200,000 years. So, for the absolute minimum value of 'tens' (20, 2 tens) that would require each generation to be 9-10 years.

So many redditor pedants missing the actual point of this post. Also, if you look it up, there's been at least 10,000 generations of humans.

Okay, but at least 10,000 and tens of thousands are very different things.

Not super sure it includes lives already lived, but the thought of the complexity of every individual living their own life is called "sonder"

My cousins from both sides of my family and my dad and I have been working on a deep ancestry.com family tree. You can upload pics, news articles, obituaries, bios etc. With some time and teamwork, it's been a great experience learning about the people that you only ever met a few times at weddings and funerals. They all had a story and it's great to put that all together.

It's basically irrelevant though. You focused on a minute detail that you could feel right about vs the actual meaning of the post.

That sounds really fun. I guess I feel a bit too private to do something like that online, but it might be a cool project for offline.

Welcome to Reddit

You have a lot of control over who can see your stuff.

unless you do something very, very noble, something very, very deplorable, or something very, very bizarre

then you are immortalized in legacy, in infamy, or in those "wtf true facts" in tabloids and magazines and internet memes

Which doesn't mean you'll be forgotten by people 3 generations ahead unless you know all about those 3 generations back that you'd like people to know about you

You're wrong OP, current science outs it around 300-400 generations, nowhere close to 10k nevermind tens of thousands.

This is all true, but only a few people will be remembered from the past couple hundred years while the rest will be forgotten, and that’s the way it’ll always be. For me, I can only easily name around 30 people from before the year 1000, and those are some of the most famous ever. So unless you do something to leave a huge mark on the world, you can expect to be completely forgotten in around 200 years.

I’d be more digging than sifting

That's not true at all, that's possibly the amount of generations since the dawn of human civilization, but humans existed before civilization.

did you just dunk on yourself? lol

There have been a number of evidences recently that the human race is very young. For example, a recent issue of Science (Collins, F., M. Guyer, and A. Chakravarti, "Variations on a Theme: Human DNA Sequence Variation," Science 278:1580-1581, 28 November 1997, page 1581) said that the age of the human race is roughly 1,000 to 10,000 generations: ... 1000 to 10,000 generations old, which is roughly the age of the human population, ...

We review some of this evidence for the youth of the human race, including recent findings concerning mitochondrial DNA mutation rates which give even a much younger age than 1,000 generations. Age estimates are obtained by observing differences between the DNA of different individuals, and are calculated using estimates of mutation rates. Mitochondrial DNA is often used for this; it is separate from the bulk of the human DNA, which is found in the cell nucleus. Mitochondrial DNA has about 16,000 base pairs and mutates, apparently, much faster than the nuclear DNA. Human mitochondrial DNA has been completely mapped, and all the coding regions are known, and the proteins or RNA for which they code. Some of the mitochondrial DNA does not code for anything, and is known as a control region. This region appears to mutate faster than any other region, because the variation among humans is greatest here.

Recently, mitochondrial DNA mutation rates were measured directly (Parsons, Thomas J., et al., A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region, Nature Genetics vol. 15, April 1997, pp. 363-367). The mutation rate in a segment of the control region of mitochondrial DNA was directly measured by comparing mitochondrial DNA from siblings and from parents and their offspring. Mitochondrial DNA was found to mutate about 20 times faster than previously thought, at a rate of one mutation (substitution) every 33 generations, approximately. In this section of the control region, which has about 610 base pairs, humans typically differ from one another by about 18 mutations. By simple mathematics, it follows that the human race is about 300 generations old. If one assumes a typical generation is about 20 years, this gives an age of about 6000 years.

I guess your opinion discredits DNA science all together...

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I just find this wholescale erasure of so many unique individuals into a vast cosmic nothingness to be a bit sad.

Your random unsourced comment doesn't mean anything to me. Either way, you've missed the entire point of the post.

My comment contains sources lol. I didn't miss the point, I just argue because you assume with your post that people are as ignorant as you are.