<div class="header-image"></div> <table class="table-header"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="2"></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2025-11-02</td> <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="About.md" class="internal-link">About</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> # Immortality and Visions of the Future ![immortalitySerum](../Blog/Assets/immortalitySerum.jpg) In the 90s, I remember reading about an advancement in longevity research in Life Magazine. The article really made it seem that a 500 year human lifespan was right around the corner. The article itself contained information of the discovery, and while that was interesting, 17 year old me was more interested in a fictional tale that was also included in that issue about what life <img src="../Blog/Assets/lifeOct1992.webp" width="300" style="float: right; margin: 1em;"> might become when the world had access to a procedure that could extend life to that extent. I've since searched for that issue, and my best guess is it was from 1992, titled "Can we stop aging?" The issue is available on Ebay, but I haven't had any luck finding a digital copy. I did find [this article from the Guardian](https://web.archive.org/web/20240914153448/https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/mar/17/cynthia-kenyon-rational-heroes-interview), which I think talks about the advancement that lead to the tale in Life Magazine. A more recent advancement [reported by the scientific journal "Cell"](https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(25)00571-9), showed that Chinese scientists were able to successfully reverse aging in primates with no adverse reactions. [ZeroHedge has a decent summery of the trials](https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/immortal-monkeys-not-quite-scientists-just-reversed-aging-super-stem-cells). I, of course, love the idea that I might be among those who will first get a taste of immortality--if not actual immortality, then having life extended by decades, perhaps centuries. It would feel like being able to start over--a second chance to do everything I should have done the first time 'round but didn't. Imagine knowing that, say, you could have 200 more years. No stressing over money any more. In my 30s I became obsessed with making sure I would be prepared for life after 60. But if I can be healthy for *four times that long*, then I can afford to take many monetary risks and fail! There would be plenty of time to try again. I would be young. Getting old would be just some abstract fact, just like it was when I was 18. One idea I've always had is that synthetic organs cannot be too far away, especially now with the advent of AI. We've already replaced hearts with synthetic inventions, not to mention animal hearts. These replacements have been to bridge a waiting period for a human donation, but can a permanent synthetic heart be that far away? Why not synthetic lungs, liver, kidneys, etc? Either via synthetic inventions, or organs grown--cloned from our own stem cells and/or dna? Can this really only be science fiction? I feel like this procedure is inevitable, with enough time and research. If this is possible, replacing body parts as they age and "wear out" as it were, couldn't this also be a form of immortality? I'm probably just being wistful here, imagining possibilities just as other figures in history: Alexander the Great searching for the "Water of Life" in the east, Qin Shi Huang employing alchemists to produce elixirs of immortality, or Juan Ponce de León searching for the Fountain of Youth. Seeking medical procedures now could very well just be like Qin Shi Huang killing himself with mercury in his elixirs. But is it though? The medical breakthroughs we've had in the last century are astounding. In 1825, global LEB (Life Expectancy at Birth) hovered around 30–32 years. This was largely due to a high rate of infant mortality, and antibiotics and vaccines were a huge reason for the eventual mitigation of this. Isn't it inevitable that future medical breakthroughs will provide mitigation to aging itself? Getting a shot, or regular treatment of SRC injections (as per the recent Chinese experiments) may sound very similar to the age-defying elixers of old, but surely prosthetics and organ replacements can't be too far into science fiction territory at this point? We're basically doing it now. So what does it mean to extend life to even 200 years? What does that look like? I remember the Life article saying that, initially, overpopulation would become a massive problem to overcome, and that seemed obvious, but with birthrates declining all over the developed world, I'm not sure that will be an issue. People will just have less kids. If everyone can be expected to live for 200 years, that doesn't mean that everyone will start over at 100 with a new family. I think it more likely that people would still have only one family, and that would just be a single, 20 year chapter in a lifetime of other experiences. An entire life would not need to be dedicated to this one decision (Though if overpopulation *does* become a problem, there might have to be laws introduced to stem the tide in the bargain to extend one's life). With the recent Chinese discovery, I've seen some people predict that only a few will actually have access to this technology. The rich will be able to extend their lives, but others will not be able to afford it. I don't see this happening either. I can't really speak for what happens in the US, but elsewhere in the developed world, free healthcare is a standard. The procedures available to the most privileged among us are also available to the most lowly. Be that cancer treatment, diabetes, or other ailments. I don't see why this wouldn't be available too. Even if it is prohibitively expensive, with a longer lifespan to pay it off, I can't see how there wouldn't be a standard type of financing specifically for this; even a predatory loan (like student loans are now), in combination with a mandatory life insurance policy that would pay off the remainder in the event of accidental death. In this scenario, would you be willing to work mostly to pay off this "immortality loan" with your additional years? To be honest, I would. And if [AI and robotics soon shorten the work week](../Blog/2025-10-26%20AI%20Robotics%20and%20Visions%20of%20the%20Future.md), this might not even be as dystopian as it first seems. Another aspect to this is the ability to take advantage of tech that doesn't yet exist. What I mean is that any difficulties that may arise now (such as expense issues) could be eliminated in a fraction of an extended lifespan. Perhaps technology in the future will be such that all essentials are provided by machines--AI and robotics--and so money will have less use in future. So while a looming debt might be how this journey starts, perhaps technological advances will eliminate that too, when money simply becomes less valuable. This seems difficult to envision now, but with most of the world slowly becoming automated, what use will money have 1 or 2 hundred years into the future, when essential jobs are all done by machines? If all this seems like fantasy, I would point out that technology will keep progressing. The world will keep changing with it, as it has for the last 200 years. If what I'm describing isn't in the future, I ask you: What is? Time will continue to roll on. Inventions of tomorrow will become obsolete as newer technologies become available. Things *will change*. It's inevitable. If the changes I'm describing are impossible, then I put it to you: What does the future actually look like?