All of Humanity
About 117 billion people have been born since the first humans. You become one of them, drawn at random, and live that one life to its end. Most were born long before writing, and few had their names written down. When and where you are born, you don’t get to choose. Just as you didn’t.
Lives kept in the memorial
If you were anyone ever born
About these numbers
Who you are is drawn from everyone ever born: about 117 billion people since 190,000 BCE, as estimated by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB, 2022). Within each period, births follow each country’s population in HYDE 3.3, using today’s borders. Lives that begin in 1950 or later use the UN World Population Prospects 2024, like the rest of the game.
These are estimates, and some are very uncertain. PRB assumes a high birth rate before the year 1 (80 per 1,000 people a year), which implies a life expectancy at birth of only about 12 years. The death rates used here, from studies of hunter-gatherers (Gurven & Kaplan 2007) and of past populations (Volk & Atkinson 2013), are lower. With a birth rate of 50 per 1,000, the total would be about 96 billion, and the share born between 3000 BCE and the year 1 would fall from 30% to about 23%. We keep PRB’s figure because it is the one most widely used. Before 8000 BCE we keep PRB’s total for that time (about 9 billion births) but spread it with a single birth rate: PRB’s own split between 190,000–50,000 BCE and 50,000–8000 BCE would mean about 390 births per 1,000 people a year in the first period and 8 in the second, and neither is possible.
HYDE’s estimates for the Americas before 1500 are higher than older ones (McEvedy & Jones, Maddison). With the lower estimates, the Americas’ share of everyone ever born would drop from about 10% to about 4%. There is no agreement; we use HYDE.
Most people in history left no written trace. Where many names survive from a time and place (Chinese names from the Han dynasty on, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Prakrit, Arabic and Persian, and European Christian names), your name is drawn from them; otherwise it is shown as not recorded. Years are rounded, and places are given as today’s countries. In some societies infanticide was part of infant death and of the balance between boys and girls; it is not shown here as a cause of death or as a choice.
Shared lives
People share the lives they lived here and what they felt. No names, no contact details. Only the lives remain.
Hard things such as death, violence and suicide happen here at their real rates. No scene is shown, and where to find help comes with them.
Memorials
Lives that someone lived to the end and wanted to keep. Anyone can stop by, light a candle and leave a word.
Past lives
For your 10 most recent lives, press 'See again' to reopen the death record and the share card.
Your lives are kept in this browser only.
A deleted life cannot be brought back. A life placed in a memorial stays in the memorial.
Past lives here are simulated lives lived in this browser. They do not tell you about a real past life, fate or your future.
People in this simulation
Where they live now
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How it works
Born in the same second
In the same second you are born, other babies are born all over the world. Four of them live out their lives by the same statistics, shown alongside yours. No one chose where to be born.
A pause
At 5, 15, 30, 50 and 70, time stops and asks you one question. Think about this person’s life and your own together, and leave a line if you like. At the end, you can say a few words to this person.
What comes from real data
For 172 countries and territories: births, life expectancy by sex, infant and under-5 mortality, GDP per person (PPP), income inequality, years of schooling, university enrollment, employment in agriculture, fertility rate, maternal mortality, HIV, homicide rate, smoking rate, out-of-pocket health costs, child marriage rate and life satisfaction. The age at death comes from the life tables of each country and territory by sex, and causes of death follow the patterns of the WHO Global Health Estimates by region and age.
If making decisions feels like too much, start a life and turn on 'Auto mode' in the bar at the top (the ⋯ menu on phones) to simply watch. You pick a focus for each year and make choices when decisions come up about school, work, love, moving abroad or medical care. Choices change a life, but it is hard to fully escape the statistics of the place you were born. Today’s world is calculated with today’s statistics, a past world with that year’s, and the coming world with UN and other projections. Income comes from the country’s income distribution (based on the Gini index), and amounts are shown in purchasing-power (PPP) dollars and in US terms, as they would feel at US prices. Suicide also happens from the teenage years on, as often as the real statistics say, without showing how or why.
Death, illness, war, poverty, drinking and gambling, drug dependence, violence at home, sexual violence and suicide happen here as often as the real statistics say, never shown in detail and always with where to find help, and a past world tells of real history such as wars and mass killings. It is made for ages 15 and up.
A life simulation the operator makes with AI (Claude); the numbers are public statistics from the UN, the World Bank and others.
Official site lifelot.nategu.com · About 1 in 8 Billion · Privacy policy · Terms and refunds · Ideas and feedback: · Other questions developer@nateguco.com ·
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Status0–100
What do these mean?
- Health Affects the risk of dying and whether you can keep working. Exercise, checkups and looking after yourself raise it; age lowers it.
- Happiness How satisfied you are with life. Income, family and friends, health and debt all affect it.
- Knowledge Affects entrance exams, job offers and your starting pay. Your family's means and the schools where you live matter more, and above about 70 more of it makes little difference.
- Relationships Your bonds with family and friends. They affect marriage and its crises, talks with your children, the chance of being bullied at school, and loneliness in old age.
Higher numbers raise the odds; they never decide the outcome. As in real life, luck and circumstances play their part too.