When will the last human be born? Not as soon as you think

8 July 2022

When will the last human be born and how many people will there ever be?

With the way things are in the world at the moment, who can help but think the last human might be born sooner rather than later. But in taking on the question, Kurzgesagt argues we may be among the first humans born, especially if our species goes on to survive and flourish over the next billion years. A whole lot depends on that eventuality, but what’s wrong with some optimism?

The future of humanity seems insecure. Rapid climate change, political division, our greed and failings make it hard to look at our species with a lot of optimism and so many people think our end is in sight. But humans always thought they lived in the end times. Every generation assumes they’re important enough to witness the apocalypse and then life just goes on. This is a problem because it leads to short term thinking and prevents us from creating the best world for ourselves and our descendants. What makes this worse is that we actually may live at an extremely critical moment in human history.