A photo of a cake with 8 candles in a row. The first and fifth candle from the right are lit. The caption reads "Happy 17th Birthday"
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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Because of the Hayflick limit, 7 candles should be enough... but only for now, hopefully.
That's because humanity dates back to the teletype era, before bytes. It was decided that saving candles was more important than having the extra century of lifespan.
Now, by convention, the leftmost candle being unlit indicates it's a standard human and not a member of another species-alphabet, possibly requiring multiple cakes.
(On a serious note, aging is not necessarily thought to be as simple as just the Hayflick limit)