assertion about themselves. It is also possible to handle the Mediocrity Principle as a statistical problem, a case of a single data point statistics, also present in the German tank problem. Longevity estimation The mediocrity principle can also be used to estimate the future life expectancy of presently observable objects, and is especially useful when no hard data is available. Richard Gott extended the mediocrity principle to argue that if there is nothing special about observing an object in the present moment (Tnow), then one can expect the present moment to occur randomly between the start (Tstart) and the end (Tend) of the observed object's longevity. Therefore, the total longevity of an observable object can be expected (with 50% confidence) to lie in the interval 1/3 ⋅ Tstart < Tnow < 3 ⋅ Tend. This estimation technique was derived after a 1969 visit to the Berlin Wall, which was constructed eight years prior. Gott reasoned that there was nothing special about the timing of his visit, so the above equation (with T = 8) estimates that the Berlin Wall would last for at least 2.67 years but would last no longer than 24 years (the Berlin Wall fell 22 years later, in 1991). Longevity estimation reflects the maxim "old things tend to last and new things tend to disappear." Most applications of longevity estimation use a 95% confidence interval, which decreases the precision of the estimate by drastically increasing the interval of estimation. One useful estimation made on this confidence interval is the survival of homo sapiens, which are thought to have emerged around 200,000 years ago. If there is nothing special about our observation of species now, in the 21st century, then longevity estimation (with T = 200,000 and a confidence interval of 95%) yields a projected timespan of between 5,100 and 7.8 million years during which the human species will be extant. Some other projected lifespans (with 95% confidence) include industrial technology (estimated to last somewhere between 7 years and 10,000 years), the internet (between 7 months and 975 years), and Wikipedia (between 6 months and 772 years). Jim Holt analyzed longevity estimation and concluded that our understanding of humor and number will survive for at least one million years. Humans share these traits with other species, which implies we share these traits with some common ancestor that lived millions of years ago. Other uses David Deutsch argues