As openers go, that's got to be a pretty controversial statement, but there it is. I sat agast last night as I watched a BBC 4 programme
It's Only A Theory , a bearded and erudite Cambridge don, Dr Aubrey De Grey expounded the above theory.
He explained that at the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancy for someone in the UK was around mid-40s, and with medical advances, by the end of the century, a person could expect to live to their mid 70s. Now, hold onto your chair. Dr De Grey then explained how, given the exponentially increasing pace of development in technology, we could to expect to see a similar gain, in a
shorter amount of time, he guessed around 30 years. The clever bit here was that he believed this ongoing process of technological discovery would mean that those being born, and upto around 30 today would ride the wave of innovation, so by the time they reached the maximum life expectancy for their age, advances would have pushed back their terminal age even further, virtually into perpetuity - he called this "longevity escape velocity".
He also said there would be a shift in the way we increase the maximum age of your average human. The gains made in the past century were the result of resolving issues that were killing the very young, infant mortality, and childbirth mortality. This time however, the gains will be made by actual, bone-fide rejuvenation, restoring the ageing human body at the cellular level, as far back as young adulthood (around 20, he suggested). All of a sudden, the prospect of living over 100 seems far more attractive.....
The panel on the TV show obviously toyed with his idea, before rejecting it as a possibility. I for one however, agreed, on the basis of the evidence he put forward - after all, he was only suggesting one such person might exist, not millions.
Of course, even if he's only a fraction right, which as a professor who studies ageing, he must be, a hugely ageing does raise a great number of moral, philosopical and practical questions. This is the fun bit for me, the bit where I can geek out, and extrapolate the various ramifications of the red pill on offer. Let us make some predictions:
- The pension age will one day probably be 75 0r 80 for those, like myself, currently in their 30s, let alone the UK government's tentative plans to raise it to 66.
- Society will become more risk-averse. With human beings living for extraordinary amounts of time, death will become more and more unusual, and unexpected, something to be avoided at all costs. So there'll be less nutters base jumping and climbing buildings.
- Birth rates will drop massively. It's people in their teens and twenties that tend to have risky, unprotected sex leading to pregnancy, whereas older people tend to plan.
- The doctor on the show also said it would be possible to conceive at much older ages, so children would grow up with parents that are more socially conservative, responsible, experienced etc., as older people tend to be. This might in turn lead to a drop in crime rates and other social problems related to inexperienced parenting.
- Lots of people would go on Saga holidays, and Carol Vorderman would carry on being in Channel 5 adverts for stairlifts and life insurance in perpetuity.
- The definition of youth and youth culture will continue to shift as it has done in the post war years, with people deferring responsibility and family into their 40s and 50s in the coming decades.
- Those who can afford anti-ageing technologies and scientifically advanced medical care will be tend to be wealthy, many of the older people in society will be the rich, whereas poorer people will tend to die at a much younger age, progressing and pronouncing the current age/wealth gap to a much greater level.
Anyway, if you have any suggestions, feel free to add them. Enjoy......
Lost In Manchester. with it's curiosity for the little details that put the "Greater" before Manchester (see for example, the picture opposite). Judges said "Quirky, original and focussed, with an eye for detail. Putting the extra into extraordinary.”
