.
If I said, "should we invest
in the science of aging to help people
live healthier, longer lives?"
Maybe some people would "yes,"
and some people would say "no."
But if I said should we invest
in fighting cancer or dementia
or heart disease,
probably everybody would say "yes."
But all three of those
and so many other diseases
are correlating with aging,
and fighting each manifestation of aging
is like playing whack-a-mole.
If one thing doesn't get you, the other thing will.
And so it certainly makes sense,
at least to me,
that we should try to address
the underlying biology of aging.
Human life expectancy is getting longer.
In 1910, humans in the United States
were only expected to live 40 to 50 years.
Now, in just over a century,
we've nearly doubled that,
with an average life span of almost 80 years.
And according to futurist Jamie Metzl,
we're working on technology
to extend that even further.
There's a lot of really exciting work
about sequencing, genome sequencing,
people who live into their hundreds
to see which is the case.
Are there genetic differences between
those kinds of people and everybody else?
And genes instruct cells to make proteins,
so what are their genes
instructing their cells to do?
And can we mimic those kinds of outcomes
for everybody else?
If we could mimic that for our entire population,
could we stop older generations from dying off?
Before we get into the consequences
of indefinitely extending our lifespans,
let's take a look at
how we would do it in the first place.
In just over 100 years,
we've considerably expanded
the average human life expectancy
by improving sanitation,
workplace safety,
and, most importantly, healthcare.
We've developed treatments
for life-threatening injuries,
and we've eradicated some of the world's
deadliest diseases.
But if we want to extend
our lifespans any further,
we'll need to tackle the biggest threat
to our bodies,
aging.
But first we need to understand
what aging is
and there has been some incredible work
and great progress in just understanding
the basic mechanisms of aging.
And there's even a debate raging about
is aging one comprehensive thing
or is it a bunch of different parts?
Different systems within the human body
that are aging at different rates?
Which is important because
you don't want to kind of have
an immortal one kind of cell
and a mortal other kind of cell
because you'll just be equally dead.
So there's some really exciting science though
about understanding, "how can we
basically shift the way our bodies function
and the way our cells function
from growth mode into repair mode?
How do we put ourselves
into the equivalent of screen-saver?
Well, it's already begun,
and it's all thanks to something called CRISPR.
CRISPR stands for
"Clustered Regularly Interspaced
Short Palindromic Repeats."
Never heard of it?
Yeah, me neither.
So let's head back to our resident expert
Jamie Metzl to explain it.
It's an ability to cut and paste,
like on Microsoft Word,
the genome.
The genome is the source code of life
and you can cut it to turn off a gene,
you can add genetic material,
and that is what allows us
to re-write genetic code.
Having said that,
genetic code is incredibly complex
and so people shouldn't imagine
that we can just re-write everything.
We're in the beginning
of the genome-editing revolution,
but it's moving really quickly.
So if we can start editing out the genes
that cause us the most problems,
then one day, we could, theoretically,
live in a world where no one ever dies of old age.
Wouldn't that be great?
Well, don't get too excited.
Because in reality, it might not be that simple.
Let's look at the pros and cons,
and then we'll see if you
still think it's a good idea.
The first pro is pretty obvious.
We wouldn't lose as many of our loved ones.
Everyone would be able to live alongside
generations of their descendants.
Families would have lots of support
because parents could have many different
grandparents, great-grandparents,
great-great-grandparents,
and more to help raise new children.
If we all lived forever,
people might care more about the future.
Meaning that issues like climate change
would be more important to older people
because they would be alive for the effects.
But, as Jamie said,
aging is a complicated mix of things.
And we won't be able to get rid of
all the bad things at once.
Even if we get rid of
some of the deadliest aspects of aging,
we might still have to deal with
deteriorating bones, muscles, and minds.
And that brings us to the cons.
Sure, we'd all live longer,
but what good is that if we're suffering
past a certain age?
The older people get,
the more care they would need.
We might not need hospitals as much,
but care facilities for older people
would quickly be overwhelmed.
Eventually, we would reproduce
to the point that we would surpass
the limits of food supplies and other resources.
At this point, there may be some push
to enforce birth control,
and that likely wouldn't go over well.
Cities would become overcrowded,
and civil unrest may be more prevalent.
And just to be even more of a downer,
this is based on the idea
of our entire planet collectively gaining access
to this technology.
But realistically, that's not how it would happen.
More developed, wealthier nations
would likely have access to this technology first.
So they'd have a headstart
in building a population of superhumans.
And that could be dangerous
for international relations.
The question for us is,
"How do we use this technology wisely?
And how do we use it wisely in ways
that don't divide populations
the way that's happened in the past?
When Europe had faster
technological advancement
than other countries in the world,
they used that to colonize and kill
people all around the world.
And that was that divide.
If we don't want that,
we just need to make sure that our
sacred values guide the application
of our most powerful technologies.
So regardless of whether or not
you think this is a good idea,
one thing seems clear.
If we are going to pursue some
level of immortality,
then we need a
plan for everything that comes with it.
And maybe that plan should involve
some of us relocating to
our neighboring red planet.
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.