Recent comments in /f/Showerthoughts

Yelloms t1_ja6hosk wrote

Reply to There's been tens of thousands of generations of humans, yet even those just 3 generations back are already forgotten by most living humans. by batsofburden

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.

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czl t1_ja6hi8s wrote

Reply to you are the sum of 2 parents 4 grandparents.. 8 great grandparents... and so on... so your DNA is composed from millions of people by anirudhsky

Cellular DNA wise you get 50% half from each parent, quarter from each grand parent and so on. Lots of scope for your ancestors to be different and not at all affect you.

Inside your cells you also have mitochondria with their own DNA and those you get 100% from your mother and she 100% from hers and so on.

Lastly the 50% and 100% above are approximate since there are always a few of "errors" (yes "errors"!) that make you you.

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nachiketajoshi t1_ja6g03s wrote

Reply to you are the sum of 2 parents 4 grandparents.. 8 great grandparents... and so on... so your DNA is composed from millions of people by anirudhsky

True, the basic idea remains but please keep in mind that the number is not always straightforward exponential due to pedigree collapse.

"This paradox is explained by shared ancestors, referred to as pedigree collapse. Instead of consisting of all different individuals, a tree may have multiple places occupied by a single individual. This typically happens when the parents of an ancestor are related to each other (sometimes unbeknownst to themselves). For example, the offspring of two first cousins has at most only six great-grandparents instead of the usual eight. This reduction in the number of ancestors is pedigree collapse. It collapses the ancestor tree into a directed acyclic graph."

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batsofburden OP t1_ja6eews wrote

Reply to comment by Sad_Philly_Fan in There's been tens of thousands of generations of humans, yet even those just 3 generations back are already forgotten by most living humans. by batsofburden

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.

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Sad_Philly_Fan t1_ja6e1lq wrote

Reply to There's been tens of thousands of generations of humans, yet even those just 3 generations back are already forgotten by most living humans. by batsofburden

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.

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