If you lived to be 150 years old and beyond

First, the most pressing issues pertaining to the prospect of living to 150:

• Something must be done to prevent the ears and nose from growing indefinitely.



111 year old Cuban, Ignacio Cubilla Bano

• If your physical features resemble an elephant's scrotum, then you'd experience stiffer age discrimination.  Life will be about looking like you're 90 or older for 60 years!

60% of people who took an unscientific poll administered by the Australian newspaper "The Age" responded yes to the question "Would you like to live to 150".  

Source:http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/drugs-may-let-us-live-to-150-20111016-1lrm5.html

As advances in medicine continue, it is now a distinct possibility that humans will live a healthy life well beyond life expectancy levels today.  Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist (gerontology is the scientific study of biological, psychological, and sociological phenomena associated with old age and aging) believes the first person to reach 150 years is among us, and soon humans will live to be 1,000 years old.  Dr. de Grey is no quack.  He has been interviewed on 60 Minutes, by the New York times and countless other reputable media.  Here is his 22 minute presentation in the 2005 TED conference.  TED is an annual conference where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to present the highlight of their year.  Past speakers include Steve Jobs, Malcolm Gladwell, Richard Dawkins, Al Gore, Brian Greene (String Theory), and Sir Ken Robinson.

According to a January 17, 2003 post on fightaging.org titled "This Wonderful Lengthening of Lifespan", "a cure for aging will likely come about from one or more of the following technologies:

1. Genetic Manipulation
With the human genetic code now mapped, the race is on to find anti-aging genes.|

2. Stem Cells
While still a hot button issue, the potential of therapeutic cloning and regenerative medicine using stem cells is enormous. Imagine growing a new heart from your own stem cells, creating a replacement organ without the dreaded problem of immune rejection from your body.

3. Small Biomechanical Devices 
With smaller technology showing more and more promise, doctors are willing to take a look at Microelectromechanical System, MEMS and Nanotechnology for less invasive devices to monitor and repair aging cells and organs."

In 1900, life expectancy in the U.S. was 49.2 years.  In 2003, it had risen to 77.5 years, with the largest acceleration in the first half of the 20th century thanks to scientific breakthrough of the "germ theory of disease".
Source:  http://aging.senate.gov/crs/aging1.pdf.

The U.S. government has a vested interest in estimating future life expectancy in order to balance social security, Medicare etc. payments to qualified recipients with tax proceeds.  According to Steven Goss, chief actuary of the social security administration, the increasing rate of life expectancy in the future may not match the rate in the 20th century because of obesity, AIDS, SARS or antibiotic resistant microbes.  All of these conditions, however, can be cured at some point with technology, and when they are:

• If people reproduce every 30 years, everyone would be a member of 5 living generations.  The genes of later generations are so far removed from earlier generations so as to render familial ties as completely irrelevant.
• Accelerated pace of scientific advancement.  Imagine if  Einstein lived to be 150.
• Multiple career changes would be a certainty.  Multiple Sclerosis may be a thing of the past.
• If male testosterone levels are allowed to decline naturally with age, there would be fewer wars and atrocities.
• Estate tax revenue would decrease substantially for a while as people live longer and hold onto their assets.  The government would have to find alternative methods of taxation to make up for the shortfall, even though these taxes make up only 1.5% of total tax revenue (source: CBO)
• Older generations would retire later and leave the younger generations with fewer jobs.  The old may also drain resources of the young for social services such as Medicare and social security, a problem public policy will need to address.
• Older generations would be contributors to social service government revenues as well, as they would retire later.  Most of Northern Europe's problems of providing for the elderly because of stagnating population growth would be solved.
• Midlife crisis can wait a few decades.
• 'Til death do us part would have to change to, "I'll take your hand in matrimony for the next 40 to 50 years, and then we'll revisit our vows."
• Marriage pre-nuptials would become more common as giving up half your nest egg to your divorced spouse would be a BFD.
• Higher rates of suicide?  Who can put up with a few more decades of depression and misery for those who suffer serious chronic mental illnesses?  Although by then, these maladies may be cured as well.
• Price of energy and everything else skyrockets?  Longevity would most likely be exclusive, at least initially to developed countries who are the highest utilizers of earth's resources.  The consumers who consume the most will do so for a few more decades.
• If you can smoke and have healthy lungs from advance stem cell technology, then tobacco companies would be in business again.  So would fast food, Coca Cola and any other product detrimental to our health now, and waning in public demand or perception.  The lifelong value of customers would take on a whole new amount for all products and services.
• Life insurance terms would have to be rewritten.
• World population growth would accelerate for 70-80 years before reverting to population growth levels today.  Many of the centenarians who would have otherwise died before reaching 100 years would continue living.

Barbara Walters asked "Freakonomics" author, Stephen Dubner, if it will ever be cool to be old, to which he replied: "I'll say that there will come a time when being old is cooler than being young, because what being old will represent is power, it will represent money. It will represent having survived. It will represent wisdom. You know it's a prediction I'd like to make."

As long as technology can bring sexy back to the old and previously decrepit, living to be 150 and beyond would be a fantastic prospect.  For 600 million years, death has been taking the fun out of life.  The time for change is long overdue.