What If You Were the Last Two People on Earth?

Overnight, eight billion people vanish. Except you... and one stranger on a bridge. If you and Maya really are the last two people alive, could you bring back the human race? The math says yes. Genetics says something very different. In this video: the 400-year math of repopulating Earth, the hidden "spare tire" flaws everyone carries, how inbreeding ended Spain's Habsburg kings, why scientists say a starship would need at least 98 people, the black robin that saved her entire species, and the moment our own ancestors nearly disappeared. Chapters: 0:00 Everyone is gone 0:25 The silent morning 0:45 Maya on the bridge 1:10 The lighthouse 2:06 Could it actually work? The math 2:45 The sibling problem 3:01 Your genes come in pairs 4:00 The Habsburg warning 4:56 How many people would you need? 5:59 Old Blue and our own bottleneck 6:54 Years of searching 7:26 The static breaks Sources: • Gao, Waggoner et al. (2015), Genetics: "An estimate of the average number of recessive lethal mutations carried by humans" (University of Chicago) • Alvarez, Ceballos & Quinteiro (2009), PLoS ONE: "The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty" • Marin & Beluffi (2018), Journal of the British Interplanetary Society: minimum crew for a multi-generational space journey (98 people) • New Zealand Department of Conservation: Chatham Island black robin • Hu et al. (2023), Science: "Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle Pleistocene transition" This is a fictional animated story told in the second person; the science in it is real. So what would you have done? Started over with one stranger, or kept searching? Tell me in the comments. #whatif #animation #science #storytime #supposeyou