The day we live to be 150 years old

The day we live to be 150 years old

David Sinclair is a distinguished professor of genetics who co-directs the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard University and claims that, by the end of the 21st century, life expectancy could reach 150 years thanks to the development of tablets designed to improve our defences against disease and physical and cognitive decline. “How do you imagine that world,” Sinclair was asked in an interview. “I imagine grandparents playing tennis with their grandchildren and being active members of society, without having to spend the last years of their life in residential homes.”

Beyond the idyllic or gimmicky images – that “perpetual Disneyland” that Antonio Diéguez, professor of Philosophy of Science, reproaches certain sectors of techno-science for promulgating -, Sinclair is a reputable guy, with a respectable scientific career. His research methods may well cause a major disruption in health care – time will tell. However, there is nothing original about his objective, laudable as it may be: history shows that we are undeniably living longer and better with every passing century. In Spain, for example, life expectancy has increased by 15 years in the last four decades of progress. A fact that not even the tragic effects of the pandemic can curb.

Possibly the greatest difference of the digital age compared to every other era that came before it is the speed at which change is happening. The wave of advanced innovation in the field of health, along with improvements in our diets and lifestyles, contribute to this equation: we do not know if we will reach 150 by the end of this century, but it is not at all quixotic to say that, if we can successfully solve the climate emergency ahead of us, we will live longer and suffer less. And that is where, as always, the questions arise. Will it be possible to delay the retirement age in a robotised society where demand for labour will fall sharply? What will happen to those sections of the population that cannot access and benefit from this wave of health innovation? How are the power imbalances between generations going to be resolved when the lion’s share of income is controlled by the over-60s? Will we – as Professor Diéguez argues – create a gap so brutal that social classes will be replaced by biological classes? While these questions remain unanswered, we will insist on the idea which, in a way, is at the heart of Ethic‘s editorial line: progress, without humanism, can never be called progress.

 

Pablo Blázquez Director de la revista Ethic

Pablo Blázquez Director de la revista Ethic
Pablo Blázquez Director de la revista Ethic