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Not Everyone Can Have a Legacy


According to the Worldometer website, the human population exceeded 8 billion in 2023 and continues to rise. The World Economic Forum suggests that a mere 7% of the current human population accounts for the total number of humans that have ever lived. This equates to an estimated 109 billion people having lived over the span of 192,000 years. Some sources propose that human history – referring specifically to our species, Homo sapiens – commenced approximately 300,000 years ago. Consequently, the calculation of the total number of humans that have ever lived is likely significantly higher. This estimate does not take into account the various hominid species that have existed and subsequently become extinct throughout history.

Given the data mentioned above, how many of those 109+ billion people do you recall? We frequently reference individuals from antiquity through to modern history, such as Tutankhamun, Socrates, Julius Caesar, Boudicca, William the Conqueror, Genghis Khan, Christopher Columbus, Da Vinci, Henry VIII, Shakespeare, Newton, Washington, Bonaparte, Lincoln, Darwin, Churchill, Einstein, Kennedy, MLK, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. However, all of the people who have made a mark in history are remembered as part of a very small minority of the people that currently exist and have ever existed. In fact, many of the names mentioned are not recognised by the majority of the public. I encourage you to verify this for yourself.

The realisation that only a small number of individuals are remembered might dent many egos, as it compels people to accept that their lives might not be remembered beyond a few generations. With the advent of the internet and its storage of digitised history through photos, videos, social media, and so forth, people may be remembered for a little longer than most in history. But still, will anyone care? Many people don’t seem to take an interest in their own genealogy.

Unless you are a figure who has made a groundbreaking invention, made a groundbreaking scientific discovery, or gained significant public exposure as a politician, musician, or celebrity, your actions might not enable you to be remembered and revered like a small minority. But I will go a step further. Even for the minority of revered individuals in human history, unless scientists find a way for us to escape, colonise, and inhabit beyond our home planet, Earth, even those individuals will succumb to the forces of nature; the deterioration of habitability on Earth, the death of the Sun, the death of the solar system.

From the book, Denial of Human Nature.

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