One of the paradigm shifts on the future scenarios curve is healthy life extension. When I mention to an audience that the first person to live to 200 has already been born – it gets quite the reaction. Extending our healthy lives has many implications to very long held beliefs. These challenges to our belief systems are the reason I believe humanity is heading towards another Tipping Point – that moment in time where intuitions and beliefs built over long periods experience a considerable shift. It is the reason I titled my presentation “A Journey through the Looking Glass”.
Through the looking glass is a metaphorical expression. It means: on the strange side, in the twilight zone, in a strange parallel world. It comes from the idea of Lewis Carol’s novel: “Through the Looking–Glass“, and the strange and mysterious world Alice finds when she steps through a mirror. I firmly believe we are stepping through the looking glass.
Healthy life extension is a great example of a scenario on the curve upending long standing institutions. As visualized below, multiple building blocks converge to deliver this scenario.
Has the first person to live to 200 years old been born yet? Johnty Andersen, Researcher into Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and Anti-Aging Medicine has this perspective on that question:
“I think the answer is almost certainly yes. Once these other factors come into play and examples include nanotechnology, tissue engineering, gene therapy, stem cell therapy, advanced robotics, cloning and memory upload (this one’s time frame is harder to work out than the others) then factor in all of the other interventions that we will develop over the next 50 years then clearly assuming a child born today will only live to 100 has to be a gross underestimate, frankly for children born this year even if they only average a life expectancy of 150 something will have to have gone catastrophically wrong in my opinion”
A very good articulation of the reasoning can be found in his article Here.
What happens when multiple scenarios take hold? What happens when they converge and amplify their impact? These questions underscore the critical need for Future Thinking.
Reimagining the Future 
[…] dimension to the combinatorial dynamic they reference. As described in this look at just one Future Scenario, the building blocks of dramatic change either exist or are emerging rapidly – and they […]
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[…] are driving the belief that humans will live longer, healthier lives. Some even believe that this Healthy Life Extension scenario will enable someone already alive today to live to 200 years of […]
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[…] Healthy Life Extension […]
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[…] How many of us wish we had the wisdom we have later in life in our earlier years? As we experience Healthy Life Extension, those gray hairs contribute to the acceleration […]
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[…] Kotler are the co-authors of The Future is Faster than you Think. The book explores the topic of Healthy Life Extension at length (a must read by the way). The authors believe that even if Kurzweil is off by a decade or […]
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[…] Healthy Life Extension: One of the paradigm shifts on the future scenarios curve is healthy life extension. In this era of genomics, precision medicine, and rejuvenation biotechnology, extending our healthy lives is not only possible, but likely. It is believed in some circles that the first person to live to 200 may have already been born. Extending our healthy lives has many implications to very long held beliefs. As visualized (click on visual to enlarge), multiple building blocks converge to deliver this scenario. Google’s head of engineering, innovator and futurist Ray Kurzweil often discusses the concept of longevity escape velocity; or the point at which science can extend your life for more than a year for every year that you are alive. Kurzweil believes we are much closer than you might think. In fact, he believes we are just another 10 to 12 years away from the point that the general public will hit this longevity escape velocity. This video helps to reimagine life, health and longevity. […]
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[…] other things. Now, you may ask, how is it possible to extend our lives in a healthy manner? In a Post from 2018, I shared a perspective from Johnty Andersen, Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and […]
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[…] posed this question in 2018 in a post on healthy life extension: Has the first person to live to 200 already been born? I ask that question in various forums to […]
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[…] five. This drop in fertility rates coincides with another societal factor: the extension of our healthy lives. As fertility falls, people will live longer lives. Policy action could be taken, as witnessed by […]
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[…] scenarios in our emerging future are healthy life extension and radical life extension. The former extends are healthy lives and the latter pursues […]
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[…] scenarios in our emerging future are healthy life extension and radical life extension. The former extends are healthy lives and the latter pursues […]
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[…] is just as important as lifespan. This lies at the heart of a key future scenario identified as healthy life extension. That one scenario has many thinking about a world where people live much longer, healthier lives. […]
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