7% of all people who have ever lived are alive today. That’s too many.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful for modern medicine and the general concept of “not dying,” but maybe we’ve overdone it. Seven per cent might not *sound* like a lot, but when you realise that the other 93% includes every caveman, every medieval peasant, every Victorian factory worker, every bloke who fought in a war *without shoes*, that’s a rather staggering number of people. And yet, despite this, I still can’t find someone who can fix my boiler for less than £500.
It also means that if ghosts were real, we’d be in serious trouble. You think your flat is haunted? Statistically speaking, every single square inch of Earth has been occupied by *at least* one person at some point. Your kitchen? Someone definitely died there. Your bed? Someone was probably born there,and not in a nice, sanitary hospital way, but in a “quick, boil some water and get the neighbour, the baby’s coming” way. Even your local Tesco? Once a field. Before that, probably a battlefield. Before that, some bloke’s house.
Yet, despite being outnumbered 13 to 1 by the dead, we don’t hear from them. Either they’ve got better things to do, or they took one look at the state of the world and went, “Nah, you lot can crack on without us.” Which, honestly, fair enough. If I’d lived through the Black Death only to return and find that people now willingly drink oat milk (I prefer soya myself), I’d probably stay quiet too.
Where are all the ghosts, then?
Now, I know some people believe in ghosts, but let’s be honest: most hauntings involve a single sad Victorian in a nightgown. That’s it. Just one. In a world where the dead outnumber the living thirteenfold, you’d expect at *least* one angry Neanderthal. Where are the caveman ghosts? The medieval knights still clanking around? The ancient Romans yelling “AVE!” at the top of their lungs in the middle of Greggs?
No, it’s always a Victorian child called Emily. And somehow, despite dying at age seven, she’s *fluent* in Latin and capable of writing “GET OUT” on a steamed-up mirror.
If ghosts were real, there’d be so many of them we’d have to introduce a queuing system. The London Underground would be even more unbearable, packed to the rafters with living commuters and thousands of lost spirits still trying to get to work on time. Your broadband wouldn’t just drop out randomly; it’d be haunted by a medieval monk trying to reconnect from the afterlife. And every single pub in Britain would be filled with the collective spirits of everyone who’s ever muttered, “just one more pint, then I’ll head home,” and never quite made it.
Maybe we’re the problem
Perhaps the reason we don’t hear from the 93% is that, from their perspective, we’re the annoying ones. We’re here making noise, paving over their old stomping grounds, and worst of all, bringing back mullets as a fashion choice. Maybe they’re watching us, shaking their heads, thinking, “We survived the Great Fire of London for this?”
And the 7% that are alive? Well, let’s be honest, we’re not exactly making a great impression. There have been thousands of generations before us, and yet, here we are in 2025, still unable to agree on how to pronounce “scone.”
We’ve had *all of human history* to get our act together, and what have we done with it? Invented social media algorithms that turn family members into conspiracy theorists, re-released Shrek in 4K, and collectively decided that the best way to eat crisps is to put them in a sandwich. If the 93% could come back, they’d probably refuse on principle.
And yet… here we are
Still, I suppose we should be grateful we’re in the 7% rather than the 93%. The living have one major advantage over the dead. We can still complain about it. We can still write sarcastic rants about ghosts, make bad decisions, and, crucially, spend an entire evening watching terrible TV before muttering, “I really should go to bed,” and continuing to scroll for another two hours.
When you think about it, that’s the real miracle of human progress. Not the pyramids, not space travel, not antibiotics. No, the fact that billions of people have come before us, and yet we get to be the ones here, alive, arguing online about whether Jaffa Cakes are biscuits or cakes?
Well, that’s got to count for something.