There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in

Family trees and creationism

When I was a kid my mum made a family tree. 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents and so on. Very quickly it gets very big. Going back only 6 generations to around the year 1800 and you already have 64 great-great-great-great grand parents. 

But then I thought. Just how many great.. grandparents did I have say, 1,000 years ago when King Harold had to pull an arrow out of his eye at the battle of Hastings? 

Well, 1000 years ago is - roughly speaking - about 40 generations. And I’m sure you’ve noticed the series above expands exponentially as you go back in time. Okay then, so we have 2^40, which is… …1099511627776 or 1099,511,627,776 or 1099 billion great grandparents!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 WTF - there are only 6 billion people living on the planet at the moment! I asked my mother for an explanation, but she didn’t have one. And as I couldn’t find the answer anywhere else I didn’t think about it again until many years later on Sunday night, when I read the answer in Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”: 

 “The reason, of course, is incest. If you look around you on a bus or in a park or cafĂ© or any crowded place, most of the people you see are very probably relatives.” 

 Ah of course: your line is not pure and there will have been many occasions when a relative from your mother’s side has procreated with one on your father’s side! 

And Bryson goes on to say: “Indeed, if you are in a partnership now with someone from your own race and country, the chances are excellent that you are at some level related.” 

Probably relatives?!!! Isn’t that incest? Yucks! No wonder foreigners find Indonesian women attractive!

Comments

  1. Wow i never quite thought about that 1099 billion great grandparents..no shit.

    It does sound rather creepy thinking we're all related at some point.But we can take comfort in the fact that most of us are Very Very distant relatives.hehe...okay i feel sick.Thanks a lot man.

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