I’m a tech interested guy. I’ve touched SQL once or twice, but wasn’t able to really make sense of it. That combined with not having a practical use leaves SQL as largely a black box in my mind (though I am somewhat familiar with technical concepts in databasing).

With that, I keep seeing [pic related] as proof that Elon Musk doesn’t understand SQL.

Can someone give me a technical explanation for how one would come to that conclusion? I’d love if you could pass technical documentation for that.

  • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    23 hours ago

    We have over 300 million people in the US right now. Social security started in the US in 1935 with just over 127 million people then.

    Yeah, we probably have gone through 999 million options by now.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      23 hours ago

      I don’t think we’ve gone through 999 million options yet. Only about 350 million people have been born since 1933, so even if we add all 127 million US citizens alive in 1935, that’s just over half of the possible social security numbers.

      The reason we’ve likely reused numbers is because they weren’t randomly assigned until like 2011. Knowing that I was born in 1995 in Wichita, KS, you could make an educated guess at the first three digits of my SSN

      • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        22 hours ago

        We have 335 million people in this country literally right now. I don’t think “350 million born since 1933” makes sense. There gotta be a lot of churn just from early deaths alone.

        Edit: number fixin

        • tempest@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          22 hours ago

          Not every person in the United States was born in the United States and even temporary workers can get a SSN

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          21 hours ago

          I mean you can check my math, I just added up all the births per year in this article

          https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/06/12/how-many-people-were-born-the-year-you-were-born/111928356/

          Rounding to one significant figure, it’s 311.9 million people born in the US between 1933 and 2018. Adding an average of 4 million births per year since then, it’s 335.9. I rounded up to 350 to bring it to a nice round number

          A bit of research tells me that around 44.8 million of us are first generation immigrants, so 291.1 million were born here. Is it reasonable to assume that 291.1 out of the 335.9 million people born since 1933 have survived so far? I have absolutely no idea, I’m not a professional census taker

      • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        22 hours ago

        Just read that, and it says they’ve only issued 453 million numbers so far. Huh. I really thought it would’ve been a lot more than that.