• Elliot Temple
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I am an American, atheist, classical liberal, and philosopher. I like William Godwin, Karl Popper, David Deutsch, Ayn Rand, and Edmund Burke.

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Broken Hearts Per Day

Assume:

- there are 6 billion people.
- people average 5 broken hearts per lifetime due to a breakup.
- people worldwide live 60 years on average.

Then the number of broken hearts due to breakups per day is:

>> (6 * (10**9) * 5) / (60*365.25)
=> 1368925.39356605

That's 1.37 million broken hearts happening every day.

That is a lot of pain. :(

Perhaps there is a better way.
Elliot Temple at 10:38 PM on August 5, 2009 | Permalink

Comments

Well, presumably there are about as many people falling in love, too.
Lee Kelly at 10:55 AM on August 6, 2009 | Permalink
Yes. What's your point?
Elliot at 10:58 AM on August 6, 2009 | Permalink
People also get broken hearts from discovering that the rock star they really wanted to see has cancelled his gig, or that the dream they'd always wanted to fulfil is not as good as they'd hoped.

Instead of focusing on the problems associated with getting emotionally attached to another person, shouldn't we be focusing on the problems associated with getting emotionally attached to anything at all?
Richard at 4:50 PM on August 6, 2009 | Permalink
A better way of?
Anonymous at 2:01 AM on August 8, 2009 | Permalink
A better way of life, or of approaching relationships, meaning one with less pain.
Elliot at 2:02 AM on August 8, 2009 | Permalink
Pain helps one to dwell on what went wrong. Some choose partners and behaviors within relationships based on a good amount of reasoning. Those who don't just delay their reasoning until afterwards.

Also breakups have external costs, and personal pain is a natural deterrent for those who otherwise might selfishly impose those costs on others more frequently.
Steve Clay at 8:24 AM on November 6, 2009 | Permalink
Do you mean pain is natural in the sense that it evolved for that purpose (i.e. the genes for the pain have knowledge about the logic of relationships), or do you mean it genetically evolved for some other reason and just, by pure chance, happens to be triggered in this regard, which happens to be a good thing?
Elliot at 10:48 AM on November 6, 2009 | Permalink

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