The dead outnumber the living

The dead outnumber the living. Simple fact. You may be surrounded by more disembodied people right now than living. You may be sharing your house with several dead people, in fact.

Even with the world’s population approaching seven billion — living — people, more than 100 billion people have ever lived, although that number will vary depending on your definition of people (ie do we draw the line at homo sapiens? Do Neanderthals count?).

There have been beliefs that due to population explosions, there might be times when the living outnumber the dead, which theoretically could happen as populations and life expectancy increase. And of course disembodied scientists have contributed breakthroughs in medical science that may extend the human lifespan.

Fortunately, the percentage of the dead population that now access the Internet through AfterNet terminals is extremely low, only about 86,000,000 disembodied people, with obviously the bulk of that number in the developed countries. The reason being that Internet access, let alone AfterNet access, remains low in the developing world, as does literacy rates. If you already know how to read and used the Internet while alive, it’s more likely you will use and have access to the AfterNet when dead.

Butt that number is climbing exponentially. Most people who die today will probably have some knowledge of the AfterNet or at least know of the afterlife as it is now defined. Those people will want to have access to the Internet, which means that bandwidth problems will only increase. And it’s not just the dead who want to bolster the structure of the Internet. Anyone living now will want to ensure that their access to the Internet will remain unfettered when they die.

The dead outnumber the living. And we will all die.