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floor 29 if there's something that
everybody watching this video can agree
upon it's probably that we've all felt a
pretty big feeling of loneliness at some
point or another or even all the time
loneliness is a big part of 21st century
society but who among all of the
billions of humans that have ever
existed was the absolute loneliest first
of all I need to define loneliness in
the context of this video I'm going to
be looking at the furthest away any
single human being has been from any
other humans so you or I might feel
lonely right now while you're watching
this video but the odds are pretty good
that you're within a relatively close
distance
to another human somewhere loneliness in
this video is going to be defined as
similar to isolation so in that sense
what is the most isolated a single human
being has ever been from the rest of the
human species
there's quite a few good candidates but
the ones that immediately jump to mind
are the six astronauts during the Apollo
program who each stayed behind aboard
the command module while the two other
astronauts descended to the surface of
the Moon at one point after the two
other astronauts landed each of the six
other astronauts traveled alone aboard
the command module to the other side of
the moon away from them meaning that
they were each at separate times located
approximately 3585 kilometers away from
the nearest other humans which were just
two dudes on the complete other side of
the moon this would be like standing in
New York City without a single other
human being around you except for a
couple of guys hanging out in Las Vegas
and besides those two humans on the
other side of the Moon Earth itself and
the rest of humanity with everyone they
ever knew was well over three hundred
and eighty four thousand kilometers away
that is so far that even light takes
over a second to cover the distance and
to further the sense of isolation radio
contact with earth would cut off when
the astronauts entered over to the far
side of the Moon
each of these six astronauts were
left alone with nothing but their own
thoughts thousands of kilometers away
from the nearest other human where it
was impossible to contact anybody for
any reason as far as we know this is the
most isolated that any human being has
ever been in history from the rest of
humanity but there's a few candidates
that likely came very close in the
modern world it's probably impossible to
beat the three thousand five hundred and
eighty five kilometer distance away from
any other humans anywhere on the Earth's
surface even if you sailed on a boat
alone out to point Nemo in the Pacific
the point of the ocean that's the
furthest away from any land you'd still
be within two thousand nine hundred and
sixty-three kilometers away from Easter
Island which is home to eight thousand
people and since Antarctica now has a
permanent population of over 1,000
scientists year-round it's impossible to
be anywhere on earth that's more than
three thousand five hundred and
eighty-five kilometers away from
somebody else but it hasn't always been
like this earth used to be a pretty
unexplored place after all
during the European Age of Discovery a
French captain named pierre francois
peron became marooned on the tiny island
of ill Amsterdam in the Indian Ocean for
three years but he was still 2,700
kilometers away from the island of
Mauritius and three thousand three
hundred and seventy kilometers away from
Australia which were both inhabited at
the time and both were closer than the
three thousand five hundred and eighty
five kilometer distance of our lonely
astronauts but his isolation lasted for
far longer being stranded on one of the
most remote islands in the world
thousands of kilometers away from
anybody else with only a handful of
other men for three years is peak
isolation but other explorers hold
similar stories during the age of
Antarctic exploration in the early 20th
century a British expedition led by
Robert Falcon Scott set out with five
men to become the first humans to reach
the South Pole in 1911 when they arrived
in January 1912 however their spirits
were crushed when they discovered that
the rival Norwegian team had just beaten
them there
33 days previously after settling for
second place they had to begin the long
trek back across the uninhabited
continent to their ship at Cape Evans
but horrible weather and colder than
expected temperatures caused them to
become stranded around these coordinates
here one of the men named Lawrence Oates
had gotten frostbite on his toes and
feeling like he was becoming a burden to
the rest of the group he voluntarily
walked outside of his tent into the
white blizzard
never to be seen again the party
steadily began dying off until only one
remained likely Scott himself and so for
a brief period
Scott was probably one of the most
isolated humans in history before he
died as well the Norwegian team had
already left Antarctica and the only
other humans remaining on the continent
at the time were the auxiliary
components of his crew waiting for him
at Cape Evans approximately 540
kilometers away and a team of stranded
Germans that were located about 2,000
kilometers away besides those scattered
humans the closest actual civilization
would have been in New Zealand
3850 seven kilometers away from Scott's
position but perhaps the people who are
most likely to have beaten the Apollo
astronauts record are unknown and
unnamed Polynesian explorers of the
Pacific until very recently historically
speaking most of the islands of the
Pacific were completely uninhabited and
untouched by humanity beginning from
Taiwan and Southeast Asia
the Polynesians were the first humans to
explore this vast and untouched region
the Cook Islands were reached around 700
AD with Hawaii and Easter Island
discovered around 900 and in New Zealand
around 1200 since the Pacific was mostly
uninhabited during this time and sailors
set out into the vast ocean not knowing
what they would end up discovering it's
likely that at some point some guy may
have gotten lost or blown adrift by a
storm and gotten badly separated by the
rest of polynesian society with most of
the islands uninhabited it's very
possible that somebody got lost and got
more than the 3585 kilometer record
distance of the Apollo astronauts away
from any other humans exploring the vast
uninhabited Pacific back then was a
similar struggle to exploring the vast
uninhabited depths of space today
whoever the loneliest person in history
was they probably never even realized it
and will probably never know about them
I spend quite a lot of time alone in my
room and when I'm not writing or
animating videos it's often pretty
tempting to just spend hours browsing
reddit's endlessly for memes and I know
that a lot of you watching this probably
struggle with the same thing whenever
you're alone so if you'd rather spend
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it's still early on into the new year so
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two entire months and as always thank
you so much for watching
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