Averaging those figures puts the total persons ever born at about 85 billion. By these moderate figures, the dead outnumber us (by now we have swelled to 5.9 billion) by about 14 to 1. None of these figures is certain, and Keyfitz wrote that the ratio "could be as high as 20 to 1." The dead will always outnumber the living.
— Annie Dillard, For the Time Being