It may seem that these posts are meandering, but I promise we're getting somewhere. Today I'd like to discuss amortality and the possible economic impacts of people no longer dying with any regularity.
What do I mean by "amortality"? Essentially that humans will be impervious to disease and disorder in the near future, and will become very difficult to kill. So it's not immortality; you can still step in front of a bus and get zeroed out. It's amortality, where dying will take a good deal more effort.
That we are approaching amortality is not a matter of debate. I wouldn't be surprised to see Western economies taking a serious run at 100-year average life expectancies in the next generation. That's not amortal, that's just the average. I don't know when actual amortality will be achieved, but for the purposes of this post let's assume we're getting pretty close.
Here are just a few of the ways technology is helping us to solve death:
The list goes on and on. So again, let's assume they get the bugs ironed out and humanity suddenly becomes antifragile. What are the economic implications of that?
First and foremost, I think it has to create a new economic class altogether. It's no secret that the best advances will go to those who can afford them before anyone else. So in the early days, we'll probably see the life expectancies of the ultra-wealthy skyrocket while that of those further down the economic ladder improve at a much slower pace.
And what about public policy as it pertains to the elderly? If we see average life expectancies jump by 20 years in the next 20 years, how do we cope with the strains that will put on Social Security and Medicare? Think about that for a minute. How does the economic picture change when someone can work for 40 years and then expect 40 years of subsidized retirement?
We haven't even touched on whether or not amortality is an objectively "good" thing. We all know that science isn't given to those sorts of value judgments; if something can be done it probably will.
Add to that there's no shortage of people who would turn over their life savings to extend their own life or that of a loved one, so the profit motive is there. The companies that crack the code on indefinite life extension are going to be wealthy far beyond today's concept of the word.
Would you even want to be amortal? Plenty of people do. Ray Kurzweil takes 100 pills a day to stave off the reaper long enough to see the Singularity. I'm personally not sold, though. Living forever sounds awful to me, and I'll bet it does to a lot of other people as well.
The world population is already projected to swell to 9.7 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100. What happens when you throw amortality into that mix and people are no longer dying off at a predictable rate? When you consider the likely outcome of amortality being distributed along economic lines, then the lives of those at the bottom get a whole lot darker than they are even today.
I realize this was pretty stream-of-consciousness, so let's see if I can wrap it up in a neat bow that actually leads to a productive conversation.
- Does amortality appeal to you? Would you want to live indefinitely?
- Before we achieve amortality, it's likely that we'll see life expectancy extended well beyond where it is today. How does society address the impact of retirees receiving benefits for so much longer?
- What are the resource implications of amortality? Factoring in projected population growth over the next century, are we looking at resource wars?
- What are the societal implications of an ostensibly immortal ultra-wealthy class?
I would definitely want to live forever if you assume you are doing so in a healthy state. If, however, you are living forever like a 90 year old debilitated man in constant pain, then probably not. I only say probably because the will to live is incredibly strong.
If something like this happens, the first thing that will need to be done is a ban on having children.
As far as the economic implications, I hardly think it would matter since we would have robots doing everything for us anyway. That seems much closer to reality than living virtually forever at this point.
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+1
Fucking gold. hahaha
First, sorry for my poor English skills I'm currently working on fixing them.
Well this thread reminds me a recent speech of Angela Merkel in which she said that it might possible that the new retirement age will be 69 by 2040 in Germany.
First in my opinion we have to keep in mind that there are in the world two systems of retirement to address the issue of the economic impact of Amortality. I'll raise some issues about the retirement system of my home country, France. Well our retirement system is the result of many social fights which occured during the past century. It is a real symbol of our welfare state. However for young people this system seems broken. In fact when the past generation began to work, they all were pretty sure that they could be retired around 58. But now you can expect to live 30 years as a retire (and even longer) and the state won't be able to pay for that. The first reform was several years ago with a new retirement age around 62. This reform lead to many strikes and there were many high school students in the Streets to claim their right to an early retirement.
Here is the sticking point, many young people don't understand why they should work longer than their parents and pay for people who didn't work for the past 20 years while they will have to work until 70.
The first social implication is a real gap between generations and the economic implication is really simple: who will pay? Here is the limit of our system: youngs no longer want to pay for this and one of the solution would be immigration (but we all know that this is a different issue...).
The easy answer would be to say: if you can live until 100 you can work until 70 but is it really possible? I can't give an answer as a student but maybe more experienced people can.
To finish with, I want to address the issue of spirituality. I think that this race to immortality can be the result of the lack of spirituality in our countries and in our everyday life. Death is no longer consider as the beginning of a new journey but as the end of everything. Maybe finding new sources of spiritually would help us to consider life as a journey that should come to an end someday. I personally don’t want to live forever as an old man in an hospital.
Just my 2 cents.
Amortality would, in my mind, create indentured servitude. Imagine a corporation that owns (or can afford to pay for) the ability to extend your life 20 years. They can now say, we will extend your life 20 years but you must work here for minimum wage for 15 years.
Sounds like a raw deal - but as dick fuld mentioned the will to live is high. That's not even taking in to account trying to tell your family that you would rather leave this earth and never see them again than to have to work. It would be "selfish".
Suicide is an absolutely necessary component of amortality. I'd like to think the stigma would disappear eventually and people would view it as a rational choice.
Started mentally reading your post with a German accent. Then switched to a French accent.
Amortality would likely lead to a spike in parricide and intergenerational killing.
We have civilisations built on millennia of the older generations dying and leaving land and other resources to the next generation. Once that intergenerational flow of wealth seizes up, you're going to have a whole load of people denied what society has previously promised them. Wealth inequality will spike and you'll see far worse and more widespread unrest than Occupy Wall Street. Anarchy, chaos, madness.
How about this scenario? The human race cannot produce enough food to meet rising demands from a growing young populace. A food crisis ensues, and the weak are soon preyed upon via cannibalism - which inevitably means the old, sickly and disabled. Since the old will by then form the major share first, they are targeted by an agitated young populace. Chain continues, human race ensures survival, and cannibalism becomes an evolutionary trait.
Watch out, the zombies are coming!
this reminds me of a comedian who was talking about modern medicine, saying "yeah, you live 5 years longer, but you get 5 more years at the END. you don't get 5 more years in your 20s and 30s, so what's the point?
pretty much sums up how I feel. if you're telling me we'll still be vibrant at age 100, I'm game. but if you're just telling me I'll have a slightly better experience than parents/grandparents, fuck that.
To this point, this is why I'm committed to 1) never retiring and 2) lifting weights and getting other regular exercise for the rest of my life. Who knows what the future will bring (will I live up to this ideal?)? But I'm convinced that this is the key to quality of life in old age.
This is spot on. The problem is less mortality and more aging
Quality of life always pops up when the issue of longevity is discussed since extending the life of bed ridden elderly seems to have small value ; In health economics perspective, a quality-adjusted life year or quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) is calculated as years lived multiplied by utility. where utility is seen as quality of life ranging between 0 to 1.
No matter what technology in place or in progress it will take time to reach its full potential and more time to reach all mankind and until then Climate change/Mother Nature will take its course in keeping a healthy balance.
Overpopulation is a true environmental diseases and there are no enough resources to keep up with this.
One thing for sure though, the super rich will be the first to have access to such benefits and will become super duper rich . The odds are always in favor of the riches.
... obviously that's why Samuel L. Jackson will create Valentine industries and assist the world with this precarious situation.
Nature has a way of balancing the scales. We can only reach a certain population size until some new virus, disease, natural disaster, war brings some large extinction event.
Hopefully not during our or our kids lifetime.
Actually, I think there's a chance that's already happening with the Zika virus, as it attacks future generations and not the present one. If it's able to spread widely and people don't know whether or not they're infected, I could see that putting a damper on reproduction.
Just saw this. The cost of raising a child affected by Zika will be $4 million. Sure to give some potential parents pause.
http://www.wired.com/2016/08/price-zika-4-million-per-child/
Yeah... screw the grandkids..
Certainly life insurance companies would be a great investment
Always thinking about how to make another buck :)
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+1 for making good points and being the devil's advocate
The purge. That's what happens
Kinda reminds me of a book from high school. I think it was a Vonnegut book... If I remember right, people were able to live forever, and the book ended with some sort of disaster.
That was really insightful!
Slaughterhouse-Five?
I was too anxious and asked an old high school friend. He said it was Cat's Cradle.
The only way we could live forever and not have nature kill us off is some sort of bicentennial man (really under-rated Robin Williams film) where the vast majority of human body parts are bionic- where we wouldn't need resources like food or water to survive.
Can you imagine Bicentennial Man having sex? It'd sound like a bunch of pots and pans clashing together.
The sound fat people make having sex is not pretty either.
It would be irresponsible to use this technology/science until we are economically and environmentally sustainable and preferably interplanetary
What up Eddie?
Where y'at, brother? Doing well?
Careful with generalizations on life expectancy and economic impact. It's always a surprise.
If you ask the younger generation about the biggest achievements in science and technology, they'll likely answer "the Internet! or smartphones or something..." Go back another generation and you'll hear something about computers or automobiles, or space... Continue backwards.
Penicillin and antibiotics.
Truth is most of us never would have made it into adult life had it not been for antibiotics. Most of the elderly in the first world countries come from a generation that survived into adulthood before the widespread use of antibiotics. It was natural selection that allowed them longer lifespans. Additionally, scientists can't really agree on whether these long lifespans can be even maintained, since the antibiotic spectrum is clearly weakening against more and more resistant bacteria.
Good opportunities in bio-med if government regulations would ease up a bit.
As for the economic impact, I'd say look at the mess Europe is in right now. Actuarial practices, state pension schemes falling apart, and overburdened universal healthcare are creating a social and generational conflict, and a reactionary form of rigidity and intolerance in the European economic system (high taxes, judicial gridlock, ridiculous bureaucracy)... Old people don't like change.
I think most political systems will need to adapt, but not over-react to doomsday predictions. Child limits in China turned out to be quite a disaster, so lets hope that mandatory sterilization is not around the corner.....
I would attach my mortality to something arbitrary like smoking my 10,000th pack of fags, or drinking my 5,000th bottle of cognac, or my 100,000th one-night stand. Why not go out with a bang?
off topic, kind of, but hoping you do a post soon on your thoughts regarding whether we're living in a matrix. heard an interview with Klosterman and he makes a pretty good case for it in his new book.
It's in the pipeline. There is compelling evidence that we are in some sort of simulation. Best comment I've read thus far on the subject:
"If this is all a video game, whoever is playing my life is on the free version."
I believe the social/moral impact of improving healthcare technologies is the key issue. As @Eddie Braverman mentioned, in a free market society the rich would have access to the best and most advanced technologies and the greatest potential for amortality. However, it can be easily argued medicines/technologies powerful enough to increase healthspan (better term than lifespan, notes quality of life) to such an extent should be a public good with application and distribution heavily regulated by the government to ensure everyone has access. Opponents will argue that the smartest, most talented, most capable, exc. should have preference because it would "benefit" society but I would view that as a modern, phased-in form of positive eugenics. Who determines who can/should access these technologies? What are the qualifications? Who get's left out?
Basically, there will be class-based conflict in the future over the implementation of advanced healthcare technologies and the ultimate macro decisions will be based on moral/social rather than economical factors.
Personally, I do not think humans will ever reach a point of amortality but healthspan will be greatly increased from today's level. Gains in lifespan through most of the 20th century were largely due to breakthroughs that allowed more children to reach adulthood (prenatal care reducing infant mortality and polio vaccine in particular) and modern medical research now largely focuses on diseases/treatments that extend health gains at the back end of life. Yet our environment evolves just as rapidly if not more rapidly than we do so I'm doubtful that amortality can be reached...
People more knowledgeable than me have discussed this, but aging populations will be a huge burden in the relatively near future. Most developed nations have fertility rates at or below replacement level and a large portion of populations are at retirement age. The working population will simply provide too small of a tax base to support the 25-30% of populations that will be retired and could take decades to balance out the age curve.
I've seen Transcendent Man and thought Kurzweil was both unconvincing and narcissistic. Screw that guy.
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