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What Happens When the Average Lifespan is 150 Years?
First time accepted submitter Macgrrl writes "It was reported today in The Age newspaper that scientists believe they will have a drug within the next 5-10 years that will extend the average human lifespan to 150 years. Given the retirement age is 65, that would give you an extra 85 years, meaning you would probably have to extend the average working life to 100 or 120 years to prevent the economy becoming totally unbalanced and pensions running out. That assumes that the life extension is all 'good years', and not a prolonged period of dementia and physical decline. Would you want to live to 150? What do you see as being the most likely issues and what do you think you would do with all the extra years?"
I'd spend all my time hitting those 80 year old cheerleaders!
I think I would spend the next 165 years practising addition
While life expectancy has been consistently increasing in the modern era from 30 to almost 70 now, maximum life span has really not changed at all and stays at about 120 years. This true both for humans and laboratory rats, scientist are having difficulty increasing the maximum life span.
We are going to need a medical break-through in order to push 150 years, but it is a good thought experiment, I just don't see it changing dramatically this century.
A lot of these issues can already be addressed with treatments and replacements. Which raises interesting questions. Even if this medicine turns out to be affordable, the treatments to keep the body going beyond its designed lifespan most likely will be very expensive. So on what basis will this life-extending drug be given out? Will it only be issued in cases where it will help a person reach a natural age with a decent quality of life? Or will anyone able to pay for it be able to obtain it?
There's already growing resentment against the fabled 1% who own almost everything... just imagine what will happen when people find out that "the rich" also get to live about 70 years longer than the rest of us. On the other hand, how fair is it to withhold life saving/extending treatment from someone willing and able to pay for it? (Assuming that one rich guy extending his life isn't going to affect the amount of healthcare available to the rest of us)
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I would do my best to stay healthy and hope for medicine and robotics to improve so any organ that fails can be replaced.
Then 100 years from now, in the year 2111 someone will come up with a way to get our lifespan up to 250.
Why die at all when we can continue to live in a robot-body that for all practical purposes is indistinguishable from our current body ?
European Linux user, living in Antwerp
But what would those people be doing?
We already have a problem in the US where older workers aren't retiring because the economy is so bad. This means fewer jobs being opened up for young workers fresh out of college. And given that the unemployment rate is high and the labor force participation rate has declined, I think we're looking at a future with fewer jobs per capita than we have now. Combine the effects of increased productivity gains, advances in automation, and the offshoring of both industrial and knowledge jobs, and you have a recipe for massive unemployment. Extend the human lifespan by several decades and you've made the problem worse, not better. We're talking about a massive oversupply of labor, which will drive wages down, harm living standards, and take a labor market that's already cutthroat competitive and make it even worse.
It's not that extending human lifespans is a bad goal--it could be a great thing, and for me it could mean that I still have 80% of my lifespan left! It's certainly staggering to think about. But without any kind of long-term plan to repair our economic situation, I don't see this being a boon to anyone except the wealthy who can both afford the treatment and have the financial resources to live comfortably for that long. So the average lifespan will increase dramatically but it will be distorted by those who can afford the longevity treatments. Life expectancy among the poor has remained stagnant for decades and even decreased among some minorities, I might add. This, at the same time some are talking about raising the retirement age. In effect, poor minorities would never be able to retire.
All this may seem tangential to the issue of greatly extended lifespans but we absolutely have to consider the wider socioeconomic implications of such advances. That isn't the job of science, per se, but it's definitely within the purview of sociologists, economists, and politicians. If we're about to have an even bigger retirement boom than expected (we've already got the Baby Boomers starting to retire), we should work to prepare for it now before it has consequences we haven't considered.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Currently, a lot of people need to continue working until age 71 in order to receive their full Social Security. That includes most Boomers who are hitting sixty right about now. You can retire with diminished benefits starting at 62. You can begin manipulating and using your 401.k at age 58.
As for me, I'd like to get to hold a grandchild or two, and then I'd be happy to move along. I was widowed (suddenly and too young) this past summer. It's gotten an interesting reaction from neighbors who are here from China to study. They're absolutely incensed that I didn't leave off working immediately and move in with one or the other of my two grown sons. Apparently my daughters in law are supposed to be taking care of me in addition to working at their regular jobs. The fact that I still have a meaningful job that brings in an income is incomprehensible to them. It's been a fascinating cultural discussion.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Unless we find a way to truly slow aging so you're like a 30yo @ 60, 50yo @ 100 and 75yo @ 150, I doubt we'll ever reach 150.
We already have. I'm old enough, and I have a lifetime of experience of looking at women, or at least enough to know:
1) The girls that smoke, drank, suntanned until they looked African despite Swedish ancestry, and eat tons of junk food currently look like AARP poster models. Like 20 years older than chronological. Some of its rather heartbreaking, I remember this one goddess, like Aphrodite walking the earth when she was about 20, who now has wrinkly motorcycle leathers for skin, starter emphysema, some cataract vision problems...
2) The girls that lived a pretty granola lifestyle of non-smoking, not drinking too much, pale untanned skin, lots of organic food / farmers markets / salads, spend time indoors mostly, watch their weight, could almost pass for playboy models despite their age.
When I was young I saw this in my girlfriend's moms. Some were pretty hot and young looking and frankly I'd date them, some looked more like grannies, and it had a lot more to do with lifestyle and diet than chronological age or genetics. My advice to the young men of /. is all chicks look hot when they're 19, so don't pay attention to that when wife shopping; examine how their moms look, because that's what you're gonna be waking up to in 20 years, assuming the marriage lasts, and depending mostly on the lifestyle they were brought up in, some 40ish women still look like goddesses and some like grannies.
Trust me dude, we know how to make women look like they're 20 when they're 40, and how to make them look like 60 when they're 40.
I have one non-smoking non-drinking sorta healthy eating female relative who's more active and "youthful" at 70 than my smoking drinking junk food eating relative at 50.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Yep, except you have to throw out the fact that the average worker is several times, in some cases, orders of magnitude more efficient and productive than they were when SS was originally created. The gains came about through better technology, longer working hours for many, less vacations, doubling the workforce by adding women, etc. So, where did all the productivity go? It certainly wasn't shared, that's for sure. It's gone to support billionaires rich enough to buy entire islands and form their own countries. It's part of why unemployment keeps rising (if people are more productive, and you are over-producing, why keep them on the payroll when you aren't paying them enough to buy their own products?).
So, no, we won't HAVE TO raise the retirement age to 150. What we really need is to remodel the economic system in a way such that gains in efficiency are returned to workers, not owners. But, that means throwing out capitalism. Once that happens, things will become even MORE efficient, by leaps and bounds. Who would stay at work 4 hours if they could get it done in two? Right now, we incentivize people to be inefficient and many of them oblige us by dragging out a couple of hours of work into an 8 hour day. No one dares to do anything about it on a large scale, because people in power love capitalism, and a 50% unemployment rate would cause massive riots. So, they allow the rabble to keep themselves busy for 8-10 hours a day, so that they are too exhausted to get into trouble. Even with all that artificial inflation of work hours we still have problems finding enough "work" for everyone.