v0.4.71 beta · Life simulation · Real statistics from 141 countries

1 in 8 Billion

Right now, about four babies are born every second. You become one of them and live that one life all the way to its end. Where you are born, and to whom, you don’t get to choose. Just as you didn’t.

0Babies born since you opened this page
0People who passed away in that time

If you were a baby born right now

See the statistics for all 141 countries
How your country is drawn
The first picks a country by its number of births each year, the second by its population. Either way, life starts at age 0.
Length of one life
The time it takes to live to that country’s life expectancy. At 1 hour, a year passes in about 40–60 seconds. You can pause or speed up during the game.
Where you were actually born (optional) If you choose one, this life is shown side by side with your own. It’s saved only on this device.

Heavy moments such as child death, child marriage, conflict and illness happen here as often as the real statistics say.

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 141 countries: 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 each country’s life tables by sex, and causes of death follow WHO and GBD patterns by region and age.

If making decisions feels like too much, start a life and turn on 'Auto mode' at the top 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. Everything is calculated with today’s statistics; future changes are not included. 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. In reality, suicide is a major cause of death, but this game does not include it.

Death, illness, war and poverty happen here as often as the real statistics say. Children and teenagers may want to play with a parent or another adult they trust.

The game is still in beta. If something seems off or you have an idea, let us know and we’ll keep fixing and improving it. 한국어

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