Blog ideas.

I have a list of blog ideas. I make little notes to remind me of blog topics. It keeps me organized. For instance, a note that says "4 Horsemen of Entropy" reminds me to blog about Broken Dark and Dirty.

So what the hell did I want to write about when I wrote "Breakfast is coming?"

Age and population.

Givens:
Anyone older than me is old.
Anyone younger than me is young.
I am neither old nor young.

When I was born, the entire world was old. As I age, there can never
be any more people that are old than there were when I was born.

However, as I age, there is an ever increasing number of young
persons. If population stays the same, I slide across aging like a
steel slide over guitar strings, with a steadily growing proportion of
the world that is younger than me.

However, population is not constant, right? The population is
steadily growing, so rather than a gentle slide, I am more like a
finger on a string. Between the moment of my birth and my current
age, there is a geometrically growing chord of youth.

I have a responsibility to people who are young. From the birth of my
little sister, when I was instructed to be nice to her, to the
mentoring I do at work to students, to the inevitable grand patenting
I will have to do, that responsibility is not only present, but
increasing logarithmically. The world is getting younger all the
time.

By extension of this, when I reach the end of my life, when there will
be the fewest old people (not the most), that responsibility will be
the sum of my existence, and the world will be the youngest it has
ever been!