We will be 8 gigasapiens

8 

In November we will be eight. Eight what? Eight billion human beings, that is, eight thousand million: an eight followed by nine zeros. Eight to the nine. In the International System of Units, a billion is equivalent to the prefix giga, so it is fair to say that before the end of 2022 -on November 15 according to the UN- there will be eight gigasapiens. 

 

1 

More than 200 thousand years after our species first emerged from the evolutionary chain, the first gigasapines was reached at the beginning of the 19th century, just 218 years ago. In 1804, in France, after a plebiscite, Napoleon was declared emperor, a democratically elected emperor. The nation called Mexico did not yet exist; its territory was occupied by the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In England, Richard Trevithick built the first railroad locomotive, and Friedrich Sertürner, in Germany, managed to isolate morphine from Papaver somniferum (opium).

From all these people who made up the first billion human beings, no one is alive today. 

 

2 

A little more than a century later, the world's population doubled: in 1927, two billion men and women inhabited the globe. Humanity had already gone through its First World War. That year, 95 years ago, Lindbergh landed in Paris after having made the first transatlantic flight in history. 

From the two billion humans that lived on the planet in 1927, today there are still a few hundred thousand left to count - the UN estimated that in 2021 the number of long- lived centenarians around the world reached 573,000. 

 

3 

The next gigasapiens, the third one, was collected 33 years later. Sixty-two years ago, humanity had already gone through the painful experience of Second World War. In Cuba, Fidel Castro nationalized all the island's companies. The Tanzanian Laurean Rugambwa became the first black cardinal in the Catholic Church. In May, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik IV into orbit —the first artificial satellite in history, Sputnik I, had been launched in 1957—. Personal computers did not yet exist. The British band The Quarrymen was renamed; half of its members are still alive today, both in their 80s: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. 

A little more than 10% of the total population living on Earth today was already around in 1960, when there were only 3 billion people. 

 

4 

It took only 14 years to reach four gigasapiens. In 1974, the world was bipolar. Germany was split in two, and the Western world played in the tenth Soccer World Cup. India detonated its first atomic bomb to become the sixth nation with the potential to destroy mankind. That year two Swedes, Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes finished Terra Nostra, a novel that is well worth a Nobel Prize. Neither the Swedes, nor the Mexican, nor anyone else wrote on a personal computer —Apple's first computer would not go on the market until 1976—. 

Those born in 1974 are 48 years old today. 

 

5 

The UN Population Fund named July 11, 1987 as the day on which the world population reached five billion. Since then it has been considered World Population Day. The newborn Matej Gašpar from Zagreb, Croatia, was elected the five billionth sapien. At that time the Soviet Union still existed, Reagan was in power for the Americans, Margaret Thatcher for the British. 

It is estimated that the current median age of those of us who have the privilege of being alive in this world is 30.4 years, so that those born in 1987 are older than most of their peers. 

 

6 

Just 23 years ago, we were six gigasapiens. That means that all those born before 1960 - when the world was carrying three billion humans on its back - and was still alive in 1999 witnessed how the planet's population had doubled in less than forty years. In 1999, the euro was introduced, U.S. President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for allegedly denying a fellatio during working hours, and Günter Grass was given the Nobel Prize for Literature. Boris Yeltsin resigned the presidency of Russia and was replaced by Vladimir Putin. 

Before the end of the 20th century, according tothe Western hegemonic common sense, we had arrived to the end of history. 

 

7 

... twelve years have gone by and in 2011, on October 31 according to UN estimates, we reached the number of seven billion human beings. Even then, there was plenty of evidence to show that we could say a lot about history, except that it had come to an end: New York had lost both Twin Towers and the 2008 financial crash kept the main stock markets trembling. It was not so long ago: Barack Obama was in the White House and Messi was celebrating his third Ballon d'Or. 

The children who were born in 2011 to join the enormous human mass of seven gigasapiens will still be underage when we hit another billion. 

 

¿8? 

Something apocalyptic, a disastrous event could indeed happen... A cataclysmic eventuality could happen whose elements are already on the table and visible to all: for example, no one would be too shocked if, one of these days, someone decides to use an atomic bomb or even some other weapon that we do not even know by name and start a crisis from which civilization could not survive. And of course, as the covid-19 pandemic has just reminded us, we are not vaccinated against a global misfortune for which no one is prepared. But, oh well, let's stay optimistic and think that nothing is going to happen to drastically change the demographic trends and that, indeed, on November 15 we will reach eight gigasapiens.