A Slowly Spreading Realization that Radical Change in Human Longevity Lies Ahead
The author of this piece appears quite disgruntled about the prospect of living longer in good health, given an expectation of severe upheaval in government programs of entitlements relating to medical services, pensions, and other wealth transfers that are currently (poorly) structured around the reality of a population expensively and painfully aging to death. Nonetheless, it is an example of the point that a realization is spreading regarding the plausibility of sizable near future changes in human longevity: as that occurs there will be - and must be - large changes in the flows of money associated with aging, from life insurance and annuities to the structure of public funds.
Many of these changes will be disruptive, and those who relied upon government planners and politicians to help them will be let down, as is always the case. A distant and largely unaccountable bureaucrat never has your best interests in mind. There are plenty of examples to survey from just the past decade of large-scale financial issues around the world. So prepare accordingly when considering the future - but why be disgruntled? Being alive and in good health, as opposed to the alternative, is a prize worthy of considerable effort. And if you are alive and in good health for decades longer than expected, then why think of retirement? Why not continue to participate in an active life and a career?
Is the rise in life expectancy in the West coming to an end? This year the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced something depressing: a slight fall in life expectancy for pensioners - six months for women and four for men. Overall, life expectancy is still rising but at a much slower rate than everyone thought it would. There is no shortage of experts out there prepared to explain why life expectancy has stalled. Maybe it's a result of the financial crisis, a failure of elderly care linked to austerity? Maybe it's obesity, something that could even make today's young the first generation to live shorter lives than their parents? Or maybe it is just that we are already close to the outer limits of possibility when it comes to life expectancy?
Yet look a little closer and talk to longevity experts and healthcare investors and a different picture emerges. The slowdown in life expectancy actually comes at a time when the science of ageing is getting very exciting. Much of the rise in life expectancy of the past 50 years has been down to environmental effects: the near eradication of real poverty in the West; the rise of universal medical treatment; antibiotics; better air quality; improved working conditions. All these things should keep adding a little more to the numbers. They are also just the beginning. Next will come an enhanced understanding of what actually causes ageing and how it can be stalled, alongside the start of mass molecular fiddling.
The new book Juvenesence: Investing in the Age of Longevity forecasts that within the next 20 years average life expectancy in the developed world will rise to between 110 and 120. This makes the authors happy. Their book is full of soothing thoughts. That's going to sound lovely to most people. But you can bet there is a large group who find it totally terrifying: policymakers. Ageing populations are very expensive. Our systems aren't yet in any way equipped to cope with the odd half a million 90-year-olds the UK has already, let alone millions of 100-year olds. Our health and welfare systems were designed for a different era, and the unfunded liabilities of public and private pension funds are the kind of thing that never get addressed.
This should make individuals worry, too. Very few people have planned properly for their own retirements - and even if they have, extended longevity will mean that the assumptions on which they have based their calculations are entirely wrong. On top of this, almost no one will have planned for the fact that this will make governments that don't seriously reform - my guess is that's all of them - increasingly broke. Nor will they have planned for the obvious next step: that cash-strapped governments look to other people's capital for help. If we do enter a new age of the long-lived, it will probably be less an age of the happy rentier than the very heavily taxed rentier. If you don't want to spend your 11th decade wishing that longevity science had never become a thing, think of what you once thought you should save for your retirement and triple it. Golden years? Working years.
Link: https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-news/work-longer-100420172
I read this one a couple of days ago on the Financial Times, and this week, its especially biting. This week, I'm 'Fighting Aging' in a very real sense.
Everything we have been taking about in regard to aging as a society became VERY real for me. Unlike the above article, what happened raised the urgency and alarm of this to a very real level. Its also giving me hope.
Warning: Bit of a story ahead it is however relevant...
I'm on vacation right now. My mom is 84 and because of her advanced age, I wanted to come home and see her. At 84, every day could be her last. I live FAR from home, so this was an event for her.
She's very frail, but fiercely independent. Still lives alone, uses a walker but is quite functional with it.
She was in the kitchen putting away some leftovers and she fell. Luckily I was in the next room when it happened. She split her head open and we called 911. Once the paramedics were there, we figured out she was further injured as she could not put weight on one of her legs. We loaded her up on a gurney, and they took her to the hospital.
We were in Emergency for 7.5 hours before a doc could see her. She was in AGONY and because my home is a part of the Canadian Rust belt, its a very economically poor area. 40% of my home town lives on social assistance. There are no jobs. Mom had to WAIT to see a doc because there were so many young punks all under the age of 30 overdosing. The opiate crisis is REAL. Yup, their hearts can stop so they got preferred treatment. There was one doctor on staff and until they see a patient, no pain killers until the doc sees you. So mom was there, an 84 year old woman with a broken bone... and could not get pain killers because these young men were stoned out of their gourds. Asking for some pain killers made me and my mom look like junkies to the entire nursing staff.
Turns out in her fall, she broke her pelvis. She lucked out. She's going to spend some time in physio and in about 6-12 weeks she can go back to living on her own. My wife and I thought for sure this was the end and we would have to put her into long term care.
Once the drama settled down, I told my wife I'm sending a few more bucks to Aubrey. No way in hell I want to go through that. She heartily agreed!
And now finally to my point (Thanks for staying with me this long).
The myths are still there. This one is a bit of a mix of "How will we pay for the pensions?" and has a hint of the Tithonus story here. This is NOT about "Healthy Aging". This is about rejuvenation!
She is completely right about public policy and how we have to start getting louder about this. If we don't get behind this technology, the medical system is going to be overwhelmed in short order. a couple nights ago, I saw it being squeezed from all sides. Youth and Gen X are dropping like flies due to despair, and the old are dropping due to age. What's left?
Policy is key here. And right now the policy is promoting death at all sides. Especially economic policy. I'm not sure if this is a feature and not a bug. I wouldn't put it past them.
We have to start changing the conversation.
I need to get a copy of Juvinesence soon. Sounds like Jim and crew have a playbook in there. I'm going to start parroting the talking points as soon as I can get my hands on it.
We have to do this guys, or our futures are going to be hellish.
@Mark Borbely: "She was in AGONY and because my home is a part of the Canadian Rust belt, its a very economically poor area. 40% of my home town lives on social assistance. There are no jobs. Mom had to WAIT to see a doc because there were so many young punks all under the age of 30 overdosing."
I've always tried to get young people to be something. In Norway 1/3 of the governments budget goes to social security. Its a sort of UBI.
"youth and Gen X are dropping like flies due to despair, and the old are dropping due to age. What's left?"
gOOD Question. If we were 5 generations instead of 3 there would be more people solving problems.
"Policy is key here. And right now the policy is promoting death at all sides. Especially economic policy."
You are correct and we have to figure out how to chance that. I think lifespan.io will be to good help here.
@Mark Borbely: Where in Canada is the rust belt - where do you live?
Thanks Norse!
I was born and raised in a small town near Niagara Falls. From the 1950's thru the 1980s it was a really great place to grow up! Prosperous , safe, interesting... How many places have a world class tourist attraction plus some of the best wineries in the world? When a couple of your friends have vineyards... You get a taste for Resveratrol early if you know what I mean ;)
But yes, policy needs to change yesterday. And we should be setting specific goals of drug trials and policy changes to happen in relation to each other. Progressive approval would work, but also looking at improved bio markers and making relative policy changes based on the results. We should be able to estimate what the elderly of the future will be capable of , and adjust society to move in tandem.
This is doable. We just need to break the lock that established interests have over policy, increase taxes on the wealthy, impliment basic income and put universal health care in place.
Piece of cake /s
Many rejuvenation research projects will have to have FDA or other approvals to effectively go forward with age reversal products. Perhaps the best rejuvenation research project to have early success on a wide swath of the population is thymus gland rejuvenation, which should not really have any policy obstacles to implementation. Full implementation of this should increase life expectancy 5 to 10 years alone if fully implemented. In ongoing research projects, the thymus gland has been fully rejuvenated in the patients undergoing the treatment.
My personal political opinion I take from all parties both left and right.
@Borberly: " increase taxes on the wealthy, impliment basic income and put universal health care in place."
Especially I think in US this is urgent. Im from Norway and there we have these 3 things in place except for UBI. However our system has room fro improvement. And I take one from the socialist left party which proposes that real estate should be taxed so high that it uneconomical to expand your own property and it should be illegal to own a second home. Home are to live in not speculate in! They propose that these money should be canalised/channelled to investments in the private sector to create jobs there. Because norwegians tends to place all their money in their estate. Compared to OECD to many norwegians work in public sector compared to private. I had these ideas as a young boy 8 years. I wanted far more to R%D to extend life.
Mark: Jesus, that's scary. Your Mom's story reminds me very much of my own grandmother.
Good for her for fighting to live and remain independent. People who think that after flipping over the calendar a certain number of times they're going to somehow be "ready to die" are delusional. Here is your Mom, needing a walker to get around, so frail she breaks a pelvis from falling from a standing position, waiting in agony in the ER with her head split open ... and still, the fierce drive to live.
Sure, we'll have to deal with the pensions, and the rest of it. But right now, today, people need to wake up and start fighting for all of our mothers, and grandmothers, and our own future selves.
Bit disappointing to see the Timotheus Error is this news article when Rejvenescence probably specifically mentions the concept. I guess it is also more exciting to write an article predicting doom rather than one where predicted spending on increased elderly actually falls as they are still healthy and working.
And what I dont understand about americans is the person who shot all those persons a few days. How cant you understand that owning arms should be illegal? No one in the Nordic countries understand this policy. It hits random it could have been you. No worry dying of aging if you are killed by shooting. I think for a life extensionist all things that could shorten life should be a personal concern. In Norway 1-2 people dies every year by gunshot and its often drug users. In US 30.000! No one here understands it.
@Biotechy, alone it will not add more than a few years because it only one cause. Main cause of death is cardiovascular diseases, mostly by glucosepane. And to achieve real rejuvenation we need to solve all 7.
@Mark: Where in canada you live? i searched for canada rust belt and us rust belt appeared.
Ariel: FGFR21 is a protein that is necessary to activate T-cells and to keep the Thymus gland from involution and degenerative shrinking. In mice deficient in FGFR21, it was shown to extend the lifespan 40%, which would be about 30 years in humans. Of course, that is speculative and excessive as you say there are several other aging problems to solve. Yet, 5-10 years life extension by thymus gland rejuvenation may not be excessive for those taking the treatment.
Why not just keep on working? Well, I'd like 10-20 years off to vacation, travel, spend time with my loved ones and generally take a break from our capitalist h*llscape.
I'd also like to reinvent and re-educate myself to a new career on my terms. Just keep on working forever without a break would be worse than death, I think.
@Bmack500: But if you can expect to be healthy and able to work until, say, you're 100, you could take 10 years off at age 60, rest, retrain, and then still have another 30 years to put away "retirement" savings.
This also means you'd only need to save (or pay into a social security that provides) 10 years of income by age 60, instead of trying to save for 50 years of retirement on 30-40 years of career.
That's probably what will happen to current pension systems - you'll get a break, a chance to retrain, but for a limited time. If robust rejuvenation happens, then these cycles will continue indefinitely. If not, the system could pay for a 10-year break in mid-life, and then the last decade or two in "retirement".
In any case, basic income is likely to arrive before RHR, which will change the equation.
@Bmack500- Whose to say there will be many jobs what with AI and robots coming on line over the next few decades.
@TheDude- Yea, I was going to mention the Universal Basic Income. BTW, I had thought about that concept before it was publicize recently. Along those lines, I think companies that replace people with robots should be required to give government additional tax and that tax would be used for the UBI. If people don't have money because they have no jobs, who will buy the products from the companies that replaced the people with robots?
Next few decades should be quite interesting, indeed.
@ Norse: I was born and raised near Niagara Falls. A small manufacturing town back in the day called Welland Ontario. It was really nice back in the day. Now, we have rampant drug problems, people have to stitch together 2-3 part time jobs to make ends meet and it skews higher for an older population as many of them come to retire here.
The Rust Belt is fairly parallel in Canada to the USA. So if you look at places like Ohio, Philly, Erie PA, Buffalo, Detroit etc, most of the time right across the border is a Canadian city. For example, right across from Detroit is Windsor Canada. Right here in Niagara Falls, we cross over to Buffalo and New York State. That whole area around the Great Lakes has been in decline for 30+ years and hasn't hit bottom yet.
Municipalities like this are going to be hit hard with the age wave more than others. Its already depressed, and because housing is relatively cheap, the elderly come here to retire. A lot of them are from the Toronto area because Toronto is only an hour and a half away.
Guys, I've seen the horrors of aging since I was a kid. Mom was a church goer, and she was always there to lend a hand to the aged. My father died at the age of 56 when I was 11 years old from cancer. I've seen it up close for a long time, and its constantly put the fear in me. I get that part. I'm no stranger to it, I know it well. I've seen my Grandmother waste away with dementia from a kind lovely woman who made amazing home-made caramel-corn to a wasted husk. She was awesome. She was also old-school Mennonite. I saw aging on a daily basis. It was in our homes, it was all it took for us to take care of them. It wore her down, it wore my mom down, and now its my turn.
This week however, its hitting me full in the face in sheer MAGNITUDE of what is coming.
I've been in the hospital a lot the last couple of days taking care of mom.
I've been on the phone talking to her friends/family in the area. She's got a strong social network and because we kids had to move away to find work, they built a nice little support network for each-other. They call each other, they help each other, its worked well so far, but the system is breaking down because THEY are breaking down.
I picked up the phone today several times to tell moms friends and family about what happened . Lets go over some of the terror that's coming down the pipe in short order...This is who I talked to today alone.
One of moms friends is 89. She has bone cancer. Want to talk about agony? She's just begging to die. I really don't blame her.
My uncle who is very dear to me had face cancer. When I was a kid, he was one of my role models. In his day, he was staggeringly handsome. He was a mech-eng. When he found out I was going into IT, he was thrilled. He has face cancer. Half of his face had to be removed. Well, his lower jaw. They did their best with the technology we have, and went thru 12 surgeries to build some kind of abomination he can use to try to feed himself. They cannibalized his hip to build a make-shift "Jaw". It doesn't really work. He has to wear a mask so when he goes for a walk, the kids don't run away screaming. Its recently spread to his upper jaw and they had to remove part of it. When he tries to eat, it fills his sinus cavity and he chokes on it and it comes out of the blob of flesh they sewed on to make a 'nose'. Whats more, he was and still is fairly active and was riding his bike when he fell and broke his femur. That will heal, but its about 18 months he's going to be in a wheelchair. Fun fact! His wife is another cancer survivor. Lymph node. She's alive and a survivor, but the treatment took a hellish toll on her.
I can go on.. But I called about 12 people today to let them know about mom. EVERY ONE was effectively "Death Warmed Over". Most of them have been suffering terribly for over a decade. for my uncle, its going on 20 years. He's 78. This all started when he was in his late 50's and the disease has been slowly eating him alive ever since. We have the technology to prolong suffering.
None of these people I talked to today were baby boomers. They are all The Greatest Generation. We haven't seen anything yet. Boomers are just hitting 70 now. in 10 years, this is going to be a nightmare.
The hospital is FULL tonight. To the BRIM with the elderly. Her room-mate is 89, full of dementia, vomiting all over herself. The nurses are in there every 10 minutes.
Addled people wandering all over the hospital. Some get out wearing their open hospital gowns and go for a walk... in the middle of February and freeze to death by a dumpster. I consider those the lucky ones.
Scores of cancer, heart disease, strokes... Those are the big ones. What about the smaller ones?
Mom has BAD ostioarthritis. Daily unmanageable pain. She can afford the cheap drugs that make her sick, but the good NSAID drugs are WAY to expensive, even in Canada. She can't afford them.
How are we going to care for these people when the REAL wave hits?
The kids don't have jobs to carry this burden. They are in the hospital as well having a lovely overdose. One kid last night was puking his lungs out for 8 hours.
This is scary stuff. We don't have enough docs and nurses and even more, we don't have the money to pay them.
Where does that leave us?
If you haven't already, find a few bucks for Aubrey this month. No way in hell I wan't to go thru that.
Hi ! Just a 2 cent,
I believe we should not plan ahead too ahead/very in advance because I am realizing with time that whatever plans we made have a great possibililty of not materializing/concretizing/ unfolding as we thought. I kind of see it like SENS, it has plans and it is on its way; but many of the things it planned to do will be different 'by then' and will have certain different results; not exactly what was planned or new things. It is only normal that things 'change' and (also at the same time, they don't; ''the more it changes the more it's the same'') transform/mutate into Something else that was not 'planned' at the start. Unforeseen things happen during time passing. I think making plans is important but if you are Young and so 'ahead' like yeah at 60 I'm doing this, at 70 I'm retired, at 80 I'm in a home for elder, at 90 I'm...well still alive (???)...I'm actually surprising myself in my own predictions and plans. Ok...so by 90, I'm doing this and that, and by a 100 well I celebrate a 100................
You can talk about 50 years ahead but there is a great chance that in those 50 years many unforeseen 'Changes' will happen that you could Never predict. As such, anything Can happen, you could become sick...you could become ill, poor,.. who know...the worst.
You could die.
Much earlier you ever thought. I have come to understand that, many people that are healthy should strive for longevity and should they wish so to make plans/keep busy 'living'...true..but don'T dupe yourself; sh*t happens and much quicker than you think.
It is why people can gofrom 'good' to 'bad' to 'real bad' in the space of a year or couple of months.
Health is very fluctuating and Nothing can prepare you from the inevitable of life. You can make actions to slow your demise but many factors are beyong our control (So far (like inherited genetics and mutations), until SENS arrives but that is all conjecture and it will take a long time we know that but time is short for humans (especialy, sick humans or old ones)).
As Norse, mentioned, that mass Killing in Las Vegas...it could happen anywhere...and your time is up because you were at the 'wrong place wrong time'...so much for 'planning' ahead.
Plann but plan 'enough' (short-to-mid term...don't extreme long term; pointless mostly, high probably of not reaching that because too much time to pass before reaching goal of plan/events will happen and modifiy that). Life is a gamble and anything goes, like that mass Killing person who was a gambler himself; gambling with life is bad, that is why you must reduce high odds/stake of danger to your life (avoid places where you know you could die and change habits (eat well, exercice, blabla the granola life we know)) The rest well you take risks everyday when you step outside your doorstep and somebody can be murdere at your doorstep; or from 32nd floor mandalay bay sniper on unsuspecting crowd. Tomorrow we may get hit by a car or ran over my a van-driving maniac in a crowd. Life is so fragile and a 'number's game'. Lucky or Unlucky, I think in terms of calculated lessered-risks and I count life in breaths rather than hours/minute or seconds. I betting that in 10 years, we still do not have a solid SENS therapy, because of FDA/Health Canada and other ultraslowmo barriers, all we will have are promises and 'planns' (sorry I was a bit denseMoody). I kind of liken it to films that are 'development hell'...they can stay in limbo for 15 years (rights/'the go'/securing funds/rights...) before anything happens and get 'produced'...SENS is in development hell and must come to development Heaven where things happen and go quicker too (this is mostly capitalistic Heaven it seems where big funders are aka billionaires (Go quick to heaven')). Seriously, I am thinking more and more, that we have to act 'in the now/the present' now too much/too far in the future/the 'planning'. Because, SO much stuff changes (even if it really seems like Nothing does and all is just repetition), it is Not the same; in 20 years, it is in 20 years and it will not be the same (time). We will be 20 years older, that is why it is not the same (and 20y closer to death)). I think would cry if in 20 years, figthaging.org is stil there and it is not more Advanced that present state (I secretly feear that greatly.); we all think it will be but so far; years accumulate and it is just 'tiny' baby steps that come (which are described as 'HUGE' steps' but between me and you, they are not; what scientits sometimes describe as Huge is oftenly hyperbole and sometimes I Wonder if it is done on purpose (to boost moral/showboat) or oblivious to the fact it is not/exaggeration to sound bigger than it is - tiny baby step (hoorah); but they like to impress/themselves - LOOK WE MADE SOMETHING BIG GGGGG...somebody in the room - ''uh...cough not. cough...''). I think when scientists remain calm and not sensational, like AdG is, it is better and not to deceive anyone; if Nothing (tangible) comes out of it later. You don'T want to be pessimistic but have to be realistic too, which means subding glee oblivious/innocent like optimism. Well; I guess I am entering the Fall blues (or here, the fall reds for maple red leaves).
(kidding)
Just a 2 cent.
Oh and Norse, i currently live in Calgary Alberta.
Its got its own issues, but for now, its FAR more prosperous than Niagara :)
@ CANanonymity: Hey, I'm all about Carpe Diem, don't get me wrong here. Big difference between personal philosophy and government policy.
You are correct that a lot can and will change over 20/30/50 years. But you have to understand, as a fellow Canadian, our health care system is going to snap if we don't get a hold on this FAST. Like.. 10 years fast. We can use statistics to illustrate the issue. Lets have a go and do some math :)
I always like to use dementia as an example mainly because we have nothing in the cupboard to treat it. Nada. Not even put the smallest dent in it. 1 in 3 get it after 65. 1 in 2 after 85. Greater numbers of us are living longer.
I'm kinda ashamed to admit this, but this is my wallpaper at work :)
https://sites.google.com/a/ocsb.ca/https-sites-google-com-a-ocsb-ca/maps/population-pyramids-canada
So, lets have a look at the magical year of 2050. A short 33 years from now. Scroll down to that bottom chart.... that's where the meat is. That's how this is going to play out if we don't make plans.
See the top bar? The one showing ages 80+? See how BIG it is compared to every other demographic? Yeah.. that one... that's big trouble. That means, we have 1 old person for every 3 working people. Oh, BTW.. those working people have to provide for their families too... Right now its about 7-8 workers for every old person. Its going down to 1 old person for every 3... The tax base is being butchered to less than HALF of what it is now.
Canada has a population of about 30 million people now. About 40 million in 2050. 10% of that will be over 80. That doesn't sound too bad until you figure out the rest of our craptastic human life cycle. 8 % of the population is under 18, so they really can't be contributing to the workforce. Another 12 million ish people at that time will be over retirement age of 65. So, lets do some math...
40 million - 8 million younglings and 12 million seniors. That leaves... 20 million? Half the population? To support the other half of the population? How are they going to pay for that? How will the pensions be covered?
So, 1 in 3 over 65 have dementia. 1 in 2 over 85. So, in a country of 40 million people about 10% will be stark raving mad and need 24/7 care.
We have no cure.
We have no prevention yet.
We have ZERO treatment options that can even put a dent in it.
EVERY SINGLE DRUG HAS FAILED. And the dominant theory that was going to 'save us all' is a complete and total failure wasting billions of dollars over the last decade and a half.
If we go the normal way of FDA/NHS/Health Canada approval, the next chance we have to crack this nut will be in 15 years. The bomb will have gone off by then, and we have already missed our window to do something about this.
This does not even include atherosclerosis cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, hypertension etc etc etc etc.
Everwhere you go it will look like The Walking Dead, because that's exactly what we will be.
We can't afford it. Especially now when the people who will need to support this pyramid can't find work and they themselves are dying off because THEY have no future.
An aging population is slow death for all in it.
This is why we need policy to move society in the direction WE WANT IT TO GO IN. If we don't, the whole thing will collapse.
Right now we are starting to see the cracks.
10 years from now? Ugly.
30 years from now living in a world like The Walking Dead or Mad Max will look good in comparison.
Worried about dementia guys? Play chess - no chess master ever suffered from dementia. Also take up a musical instrument. Personally I play chess at expert level and also piano and guitar, so I figure I'm ultra safe :) The brain is like a muscle - use it or lose it!
@Mark Borbely
Hi Mark ! Thanks for that.
Your statistics graph is quite revealing. I too wonder about that, health care. How will this go down; it seems from these stats, not well. I think we already underestimating the fact that the health care systems are at 'break point' (already); but it seems they will be even more and then, it will truly be a Breaking point/explosion/implosion, the whole destruction of it.
I think that it is analogical to the 'offer' and 'demand'...there is already more demand than offer; later it will be worse as offer is completely drowned by demand. So many people will require health cares, and the health care system will not be able to give them to them. Especially, as you said and on your graph, the elder 80+ years old brackets. On the bright side we are living longer - but to maintain this long-lasting health (in the 80s+), health care system functionning is needed. I think it is both USA and Canada's banes, the health care systems just can't cope anymore and as you said; later they will be almost useless because only but 'a few' will be care for (many rich ones/priviliged ones will get private health).
That's what I read as a negative about SENS, like some doctors saying that SENS is all great but 'unapplicable'-like, that like you can't apply it/make it happen in the health care society we have. It doesn't work. That's their beef, not so much the therapies themselves. Also, that, apparently, these therapies only benefit companies/private/pharma companies; thus, they are in it for the money not for 'saving lives'. Big pharma is a money-business meant to keep ill 'enough' (aka Not Solving the Problem At The Source = AKA Aging/Damage Cumul), so that you come back for one more pill = $ profit. Why would a doctor prescribe SENS and 'save' the world; when he/she came prescribe a couple pills (pharma-backed) and give a big paycheck; because those patients are coming back to that hospital.
Hospital/Pharma bullsh*t = 'care' for you health. Rather ironic and hypocritic. That someone saves your life, is a great deed, but behind it lies much deeper = smokes and Mirror. IT's a 'silent vessel' that makes money; kind of like the film 'Cube', it's a machine and 'it works' (so far, but soon not so much anymore), nobody really knows what it is or not; just that it exists somehow 'in the background'; it's a 'headless blunder beneath a master plan'.
2 cents.
@ CANanonymity
Glad you like the graphs! As I said.. my wallpaper.
In a for-profit system like the USA, what you describe is correct, to a point.
In a socialized health care system, not so much.
Every dollar we put into health care, we can't put into anything else. Education, infrastructure, military, R&D, etc.
As those graphs show, the cost for health care is going to go up. Not just up, but increase by a factor of 3. So we will need 3.5 -4x the money for health care we do right now.
Question. Where will we get it?
-Do we tax the young? They can't afford it.
-Do we ration health care and cap benefits? Theresa May tried this in the UK and it was a major issue that cost her party to lose a majority. Trust me, all the Western Politicians were watching, and they will be very wary to try something like that again.
-Do we kill off the old people. Nobody wants to see granny put into a woodchipper.
-Do we move to a for-profit health care system. The world is watching the USA as if they are a bunch of barbarians right now. Making that move is political suicide.
SENS drops the health care cost LOWER than it is right now.
Those are all good reasons. But its not the best reason.
The best reason is, if they don't prescribe SENS, they will themselves die. Every doctor, every politician, every bureaucrat, and every one they care about and love. If they prescribe SENS for themselves and not others, if you think the rage against the 1% is bad now? Wait until they start making themselves ageless. The riots will make Detroit in the 60's look pretty tame.
With SENS, everyone wins or nobody wins.
Lets make sure we all win.
Hello all. Some brief thoughts:
I think some of you are falling to the Tithonus error. People living longer means people living healthier for longer. There are several studies about that referenced here at FA!. That means retirement age can be increased (even without SENS).
Thus, the real problem is not the current small increases in longevity but the lack of jobs. And that will be worse whathever the gerontology community does. Probably at some time some kind of UBI will be stablished.
The US healthcare system is not private, is mixed public-private:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/us-healthcare-expenditure
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