If you’re interested in longevity for yourself, or if you are interested in the future of longevity as a field of study, you should watch this video of Aubrey de Grey. He discusses the intriguing concept of Longevity Escape Velocity. LEV is the idea that continued advances in life extension therapies have already reached a pace that may allow those of us now with at least 30 years of life expectancy remaining, to benefit from moderate amounts of life extension through medical therapies. This moderate life extension may in turn then allow us to survive into an era where wholesale rejuvenation and indefinite life spans are possible. The question is, will Gen-X be the first to explore their 130’s?
Something that he doesn’t discuss is how life extension will effect the economy of the world. As a result of compounding interest, these super-old Gen-Xer’s are going to be incredibly wealthy. This isn’t neccisarily as good as it might first seem. They will be far wealthier than any other generation has ever been and will grow exponentially richer each year they survive. Of course wealth creation manifests inflation eventually. What would be the ramification to the world’s economy and culture as this class imbalance between the super-old super-wealthy, and the younger poor begins to play out?
