[HN Gopher] What are people doing? Live-ish estimates based on g...
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What are people doing? Live-ish estimates based on global
population dynamics
Author : willbc
Score : 260 points
Date : 2025-05-20 01:36 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (humans.maxcomperatore.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (humans.maxcomperatore.com)
| musicale wrote:
| That does it, I'm going back to sleep.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I'm not even mad, I'm impressed.
| Willingham wrote:
| Your design of this page and your whole website is beautiful. How
| many years experience do you have with front end development?
| Sn0wCoder wrote:
| Agreed. The world map showing evening, night and morning is a
| great visual to have updated in real time.
| siavosh wrote:
| Wonderful. I always found the idea of billions of people
| particularly famous people doing something (anything)
| simultaneously as me, unbelievable for some reason. This somehow
| brings this issue front and center on a global scale. Well done.
| wanderingstan wrote:
| There is something sobering and humbling at "seeing" 2 people die
| every second.
|
| To realize that entire lifetimes of memory and experiences are
| disappearing so quickly.
|
| Though I've probably seen that stat before, the site does a good
| job of making it feel "live" with the updating population count
| and live stats on everything else.
| jpk wrote:
| For sure, but on balance, during that second: - A smart little
| girl aced her math test. - A loving father smiled at his kid. -
| A grandma blew out her 80th birthday candles.
|
| Lifetimes in progress, building their own memories and
| experiences. So, two people may have died in that second, but 8
| billion people lived.
| userbinator wrote:
| And every second, another 4 are born.
| bvirb wrote:
| Accurate, saw restroom use tick up 1
| alwa wrote:
| The changelog indicates:
|
| > * _Fixed "Intimacy" count to always be an even number._
|
| The FTX polycule would like a word...
|
| Beautiful work!
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Heck, Betty Dodson would like a word. I don't need anyone's
| help to be intimate!
| netsharc wrote:
| "What would you do if you had a million dollars Lawrence?"
| ed_mercer wrote:
| Can one not be intimate with oneself?
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| Or with more than one other person
| bikamonki wrote:
| Wonderful work! If 0.13% are in jail, how many do you estimate
| are positively changing the world?
| danihh wrote:
| Am I the only one surprised & perplexed about a phone
| representing "leisure"?
| gertlex wrote:
| What single emoji would you choose instead?
|
| It seems reasonable to me.
| jagaerglad wrote:
| the dancing or partying ones, although admittedly we all
| scroll the phone more
| danihh wrote:
| Beach umbrella, couch, person in lotus position, a book...
|
| Nothing outrageous, but it's an interesting shift of
| perspective.
| gertlex wrote:
| The couch emoji I'd agree with! I suspect the others are
| far less common activities than browsing phone or lounging
| :)
| fredski42 wrote:
| Seeing the population still increase, this must be completely
| attributed to Africa:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate
| saagarjha wrote:
| There are still some parts of Asia that are below replacement
| birth rates.
| thomasanders0n wrote:
| I think you meant to say above
| ggm wrote:
| I'm surprised at the surface difference between birth and death
| rate because we're told the aggregate rate of increase is
| declining. The difference between the two suggests birth outruns
| death by 2:1 which feels steep for something which will max out
| in 2050.
|
| I realise sub-saharan Africa continues to be high birthrate and
| is a huge component of world population, but the trend of
| increased economic activity to lower birth rate is really high
| worldwide, and most western economies in the OECD would be in
| decline, were it not for migration.
| tonmoy wrote:
| That could be because most people in the world currently are
| young. Hypothetically even if birth rate remains constant but
| suddenly a huge portion of the population start dying due to
| age then it could flip suddenly
| decimalenough wrote:
| Wikipedia: " _It may take several generations for a change in
| the total fertility rate to be reflected in birth rate, because
| the age distribution must reach equilibrium. For example, a
| population that has recently dropped below replacement-level
| fertility will continue to grow, because the recent high
| fertility produced large numbers of young couples, who would
| now be in their childbearing years._ "
|
| See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_momentum
| jonahx wrote:
| Love it.
|
| If you plan on adding to it, would be cool see (maybe via
| heatmap) where the births/deaths are happening.
| lanewinfield wrote:
| cool idea and nice execution! one thought: maybe make the time
| scale on your mini graphs a little longer so you can see larger
| changes?
| jen729w wrote:
| Just the other day, walking through a sleepy country town (Hawks
| Nest, NSW, AU), I was explaining to my partner how I'd love to
| have an AR overlay of the town that told me, statistically, what
| each person in each house was doing.
|
| Ideally it'd consider an estimate of the house's value and use
| vision to assess the real-time appearance of the property to
| further hone its model.
|
| If you could do that next, please. Oh and buy me a Vision Pro.
| Cheers.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Thankfully, ABS has those stats for you.
| https://dbr.abs.gov.au/region.html?lyr=sa2&rgn=106031124
| nishRC wrote:
| 16% are doing paid work? I always assumed that would be higher
| jader201 wrote:
| Full time people spend roughly 24% of their week working.
|
| Factoring in PTO/holidays, roughly 20 years of education and 20
| years retirement, part time and unemployment, that number drops
| quite a bit (I'd guess roughly half, to 12%).
|
| Of course, some people start work earlier and retire later, and
| some work more than 40 hours per week.
|
| So to me, 16% seems about right.
| 93po wrote:
| was only 9% when i looked but then i realized its bc i live
| in opposite time of most of the world's population
| adt wrote:
| >The initial concept was explored with the help of AI
| (specifically, Gemini), iterating through prompts to develop the
| core logic for a dynamic simulation. The goal was to create
| something engaging, all within a single HTML file - a testament
| to what can be achieved with focused iteration and modern web
| technologies.
|
| https://humans.maxcomperatore.com/why.html
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Compared to my parents, I spent 20x the time parenting (the new
| normal) and I'm not sure these stats reflect that.
|
| Our global birthrate is a unconcerning 2.3 and worldwide restroom
| use continues apace.
|
| Sex is edging out smoking but not by much.
| jl6 wrote:
| A net positive birth rate is still concerning. 8.2 billion
| people is a _lot_. All of the world's problems, from energy
| sourcing to food production to climate change become harder and
| harder as the population continues to grow.
|
| It's easy to be complacent in developed countries because birth
| rates have come way down, probably because of increased wealth
| and better education/opportunity for women and girls - but this
| is not yet the case in developing countries, and the nature of
| exponential growth is that if it exists anywhere locally, then
| it will eventually come to exist globally.
|
| It really doesn't help to cut aid programmes to places that are
| most in need of development.
| derektank wrote:
| The Club for Rome estimates that global population will peak
| at just below 9 billion by the middle of the century and then
| begin a sharp decline, ending at under 7 billion by 2100.
|
| This is really bad if your country's pension and welfare
| system assumes a certain ratio of people will be in the labor
| force, relative to the number of old and retired people, as
| most developed countries do. A declining birth rate is much
| worse than a slightly positive birth rate.
| jl6 wrote:
| Maybe time to fix the ponzi approach to pensions and
| welfare instead of continuing to assume unlimited
| population growth on a finite planet.
|
| Edit: it's not that I don't believe the population
| projections showing a peak later in the century (although I
| think the Club of Rome one in particular is inaccurate),
| it's that these projections are based on there being
| continued effort to bring birth rates down, hence now not
| being the time for complacency or defunding these efforts.
| oytis wrote:
| What approach would you take without getting rid of the
| concept of retirement entirely? If people live longer
| than they can work, they have to rely on the support of
| those who work in the old age - and the worse the radio
| of working people to retired people, the harder it is for
| the society.
| jl6 wrote:
| The only thing that can work (which is also what is
| happening in practice) is to continually adjust the
| "pension & welfare" age upwards to achieve the necessary
| balance between working years and retirement years.
|
| The upshot is that everyone will need to save more for
| retirement than they do currently, whether privately or
| via taxation.
| oytis wrote:
| Well, that's what seems to be happening at least in
| Germany where I am. Retirement age goes up, retirement
| benefits (inflation-adjustment) go down, contributions to
| pension system go up.
|
| It's always a bit of political struggle of course with
| back and forth, but the general trend is just that.
| jl6 wrote:
| Nobody likes paying more and getting less, and it's
| perceived as some kind of societal decline, but it's more
| like a correction. I don't think it's a coincidence that
| the high birth rates in developed nations declined,
| roughly, in conjunction with the rise of welfare states.
| Both are ways, roughly, of providing for yourself in the
| future. Both are unsustainable in their current forms.
|
| We are living in the age of peak entitlement, where we
| draw down on the finite fossil fuel reserves of the past
| while simultaneously drawing down on the earnings of our
| children in the future.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This is the same thing. Human lifespan can't extend
| indefinitely, so if you continually adjust retirement age
| upward, eventually you adjust it to a point that nobody
| ever lives long enough to retire.
| triceratops wrote:
| Shouldn't AI and more efficient production handle it?
| Maybe the problem is we don't distribute returns so well
| right now.
| elric wrote:
| Not sure about you, but most smokers I'm aware of smoke way
| more frequently than anyone can reasonably have sex. There
| would probably be significant benefits to swapping the
| frequency of those habbits, but I'm afraid there might be some
| practical concerns.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| > 20x
|
| What do you think the actual number is in terms of dedicated
| hours per day?
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| Related:
|
| I find the simulation and visualization of the same topic (albeit
| for US only) by DataFlow much more engaging and comprehensible.
| The project is based on data of a US survey.
|
| https://flowingdata.com/2015/12/15/a-day-in-the-life-of-amer...
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Pretty entertaining to watch the bubbles change color/activity
| but be unable to go to their designated area because they're
| unable to break away from the bulk of their neighbors.
|
| Like peer pressure, but really just an artifact of the chosen
| technology for the visualization
| yard2010 wrote:
| Isn't rl peer pressure also an artifact of the chosen "tech",
| or in other words - an artifact of perspective
| pona-a wrote:
| I think something similar can be done on the world-wide scale
| with MTUS (Multinational Time Use Study) data [0], with some
| creative interpolation. From what I gathered, OP's simulation
| is more of a live Fermi estimate, so it would be interesting to
| see the same done with greater precision.
|
| [0] https://www.timeuse.org/mtus
| jrussino wrote:
| I find it neat that the simulation appears to "pulse" almost
| like a heartbeat, because so many of our activities are tied to
| the clock and state changes disproportionately occur on the
| hour or half-hour. It's especially noticeable when using the
| "fast" playback option.
|
| How different this would have looked before the invention of
| mechanized timekeeping!
| OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
| Is anyone else shocked by how low the Paid Work and Education
| bars are? Is there a way to see this for specific countries?
| Turskarama wrote:
| Combined they make up about 33% of all activity, which is what
| you would expect if 100% of people spent every single day doing
| one of those things for ~8 hours. It's pretty much right in
| line with what I'd expect, possibly even a bit higher
| considering small children and retirees.
| montag wrote:
| Could easily extend the idea to zoom in on the map, constraining
| to various region sizes... The information gets a little "washed
| out" when you combine all the timezones into one blob.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Reassuring to know there are 129 million bottoms joining me in
| bathrooms about now.
| saagarjha wrote:
| There are presumably some more bottoms joining in for the other
| categories too.
| fedeb95 wrote:
| the declining number of people engaged in warfare is the saddest
| statistic.
| saagarjha wrote:
| One would hope that it's because they've decided to resolve
| their differences and lay down arms?
| fedeb95 wrote:
| yes, I would hope too
| satellite2 wrote:
| Intimacy being almost the exact same number as warfare is pretty
| sad.
|
| On a more joyous note, it's really neat projet, thanks.
| ithkuil wrote:
| make love not war!
| the_arun wrote:
| make love at war is also a great option
| ssm008 wrote:
| Yeah made me wonder. But then again warfare is 24/7 while
| intimacy once every now and then.
| ides_dev wrote:
| I thought the same thing. I also found it surprising that the
| number of people on a smoking break was quite a bit higher than
| either of those - I wonder how many transition from intimacy to
| smoke break :D
| mrweasel wrote:
| Also sad that 7-8 times more a on a smoking break. Let's
| normalise taking a sex break.
| rightbyte wrote:
| One of the benefits of WFH.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| As I watch it right now (18:38 CEST), it's about twice as much
| intimacy than war, so I guess it takes active war zones into
| account.
|
| Make love, not war.
| barraponto wrote:
| Sadder, the count in warfare is not included in paid work.
| avvt4avaw wrote:
| Why do the estimated births/deaths per second counters have so
| much flicker? Surely you don't actually believe that the expected
| number of births/deaths per second fluctuates at 1dp precision
| multiple times per second?
| avvt4avaw wrote:
| > The continuously updating global population counter is based
| on current aggregate birth and death rates (approximating
| values such as those from the U.S. Census Bureau International
| Database or UN DESA). The "live" births and deaths per second
| are statistically generated fluctuations around these averages
| to enhance the dynamic feel.
|
| Ok, so you added high-frequency random noise to the estimated
| averages to make it feel more realistic. To me, this makes it
| feel less realistic.
|
| Anyway, don't mean to gripe, this is a cool project!
| ides_dev wrote:
| It would be interesting if it could fluctuate depending on
| birth rates at different times of day in different countries.
| That way, it could at least have a bit of dynamism if, for
| example, India had the highest global birthrate and most
| births there occured during daylight hours.
| oshkar0 wrote:
| You'd have to add much more fluctuation to be realistic, it's
| a poisson process, about 25% of the seconds should be with
| zero births.
| OskarS wrote:
| Presumably time of day matters? I'm guessing more people give
| birth or have c-sections during the day (not sure if that's
| true of fully natural births, but for induced and c-sections,
| seems very likely).
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Might be due to sneezing.
| whyage wrote:
| Roughly the same number of people who make love, make war. That's
| sad.
| davedx wrote:
| Pretty interesting project. A dynamic snapshot of human activity
| bspammer wrote:
| Fun suggestion: move the "Live Viewers" counter to be a real
| entry on the site at the bottom.
|
| Viewing this site: 40 (0.0000005%)
| io84 wrote:
| Great execution. Interesting to think about the peaks and troughs
| of global activity.
|
| The Sleep numbers make a big claim: Right after Europe and West
| Africa have woken up (i.e. now) it says only 350 million people
| (4.25%) are sleeping. It's 01:08 in Anchorage and 06:08 in
| Recife. Over 1 billion people live in the Americas between these
| two time zones. Seems implausible that only a third of them are
| sleeping?
| theelous3 wrote:
| I think this is just going off sunrise and set +- some
| estimate. Which does not work as well the farther from the
| equator you get. It's light for hours up here before you wake,
| and we sleep like 2-4 hours after sunset.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Missed opportunity to add a "viewing this dashboard
| (0.00000125%)" stat since it already has the live viewers counter
| :)
| hnaccountme wrote:
| Funny how intimacy and warfare have the same numbers
| tokai wrote:
| Not really when both numbers are made up.
| luke-stanley wrote:
| Cool idea but for the actual results I have no confidence in it
| because it has grounding shown like pop sizes, locations /
| timezones etc, it's just vibe coded with stuff like this: "//
| Approx 7.68 hours - fundamental physiological need.", "label:
| 'Nutrition', // User's concise label". I don't see any real
| population dynamics.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| 6 million intimate? Wonder how much this tracks stats by country,
| so as day/night moves along, can see bigger/lesser swings in the
| trend.
|
| Or is it just a flat ratio to population.
| tokai wrote:
| That number is half of any serious estimation of the worlds
| prison population. I don't think most of the numbers are
| tracked.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Only 6-7% of people are sleeping? Wouldn't you expect that to be
| more like 30%?
| aaomidi wrote:
| Depends on the time, no?
|
| Population not being evenly distributed etc
| oharapj wrote:
| If half the earth's population lived in the pacific ocean,
| sure!
| randomstate wrote:
| Not sure how I should understand `Warfare` and `Intimacy` having
| the exact same numbers ;-)
| api wrote:
| There's the problem.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Means whatever the weapon, it's fucking all the same
| diggan wrote:
| Right now at 14:54:05 UTC, it seems like Intimacy is at 0.16%
| and Warfare at 0.10%, so we got that going for us at least.
| Moving in the right direction at least.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Intimacy 20,580,717 (0.25%) Warfare 8,582,378 (0.10%)
|
| Glad to see "Make Love Not War" still works.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Is it plausible that the order of magnitude of those going to the
| restroom and those being intimate would be the same?
|
| My life is very different if so!
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(page generated 2025-05-20 23:01 UTC)