What happens to society if we live to 150?: Longevists

Thirty-seven million

That is the number of human beings who died in 2023 from causes directly attributable to aging. A bridge that killed thirty-seven million per year would be called an engineering failure. Aging does both — structural failure and disease — and the species decided to call it inevitable because calling it a problem would require doing something about it.

We consider aging the largest source of suffering in human history. The argument against us always arrives wearing the same costume: wisdom. Mortality gives life meaning. These are the sentiments of every generation that could not cure the disease it was dying of. Tuberculosis was poetic until antibiotics made it optional.

The biology is not speculative. Cellular reprogramming has demonstrated measurable age reversal in mammalian tissue. Senolytics clear senescent cells that drive chronic inflammation. Rapamycin extends lifespan in every organism tested. The pieces are assembling.

The deployment curve

The equity critics say the rich will get it first. Of course. The rich got antibiotics first, clean water first, vaccines first. A smartphone cost $2,000 in 1996. There are now more mobile phones than toilets in sub-Saharan Africa.

The philosophical objectors say mortality gives life meaning. Depression and suicide do not decrease as people approach death. They increase. A painter who lives to 300 paints more, because she has time to develop mastery that an 80-year lifespan makes impossible. Michelangelo at 88 was still carving. He would have carved at 200.

Where we concede ground: We have not solved the inequality problem and our rhetoric sometimes pretends it does not exist.

What would change our mind: If people living past 150 reported persistent, treatment-resistant diminishment of the felt quality of being alive.

Read the full synthesis: What happens to society if we live to 150?