Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful; for thou art not so….
And Death shall be no more: Death,
thou shalt die!
—John Donne (1573-1631)
The consequences to ourselves and our society of greatly extended human life span are sure to be far reaching. An extended life span does not mean that we simply go on living as we have except that we go on a lot longer. The quality of our life changes as well as its length.
As with all rapid technological change, some people will
find the pace or the type of change not to their liking. Many
people do not want to live an indefinite life span. Some people may want to but lack the courage to try it and resent those who do. Other people want the power to determine when and by what means other people extend their lives. This includes power seekers within government and in the medical profession. For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Congress have been retarding some applications of life extension research by greatly hindering the introduction of new drugs into the marketplace. The FDA and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) have prevented vitamin, nutrient, and pharmaceutical manufacturers from making scientifically valid health claims for their products.
We surmise that the government’s concern about where they will get funds to cover their welfare and funds-transfer programs for
the aged underlies some of their reluctance to fund biological
aging research. Dr. Alexander Leaf, former head of the President’s Commission on Aging, has said that it would be irresponsible to spend resources on extending human life span until after funding is found to support the increased number of older people. As we mentioned before, only about 10 per- cent of the funds dispensed by the National Institute of Aging actually goes into basic research on biological aging. (And none of these funds are specifically aimed at extending human life span.) An extended human life span, if it happens “too fast,” will create serious problems for the government’s
vast income-transfer schemes (from young to old) that include
Social Security.
The Social Security system is in trouble, life extension or no life extension. Life extension didn’t create Social Security’s problems, but it may accelerate Social Security’s collapse. If people live 20 percent longer, for example, they might collect Social Security for twenty-two years instead of the present average of about eight years. This could require Social Security taxes to increase from 14 percent of pre-tax income to 40 per-cent, severely reducing your take-home pay.
Such problems, however, will not happen overnight. At present, only a relatively small percentage of the population is seriously involved in personal life extension, perhaps because most people do not feel adequate to decide how to go about it. We hope to help remedy this situation.
How will your life change? The most important change
you will notice as you become more confident of your ability
to extend your life span is a realization of how much more
time there is to do the things you want to do. You can afford
to spend more time learning new skills or enjoying leisure activities because there is more time available. At any moment in your life, you can expect that more time remains than you would have had in the absence of intervention. The reproductive period will take up a smaller percentage of most people’s extended lifetimes, thus leaving more of their lives available for other activities. People will have time available as never before to explore different ways to enjoy life.
The promise of increased time does not, of course, guarantee happiness. The use of the extra time is up to each person. Some will use it wisely, others won’t. Because of the potential for a greatly increased life span, the planning that most people do today for their post-retirement life (assuming retirement at sixty-five and living for about an additional ten years) will be inadequate. With life extension, planning should consider the possibility of living at least twenty or thirty years beyond retirement at age sixty-five.
Society will have to deal with the existence of a new class
of persons—the life extenders—and reconcile this with the
non-life extenders who (as in many science-fiction stories)
may oppose or resent extended life spans for others as well as
for themselves.
Are you interested in life extension products?
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