š Who Will Finance Forever?
With 426 million octogenarians expected by 2050, 80 will be the new 40. Enter the immortality industry, set to be a seismic $610 billion by 2025. We have decided not to die.
From the minds of Sputnik Futures. Exploring every rabbit hole there is. For more wanderings, become an Alice in Futureland subscriberāit's free.
š AudioDose: this is Alice on Sonic Mushrooms. Reverse destiny here.
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š ALICE book Hacking Immortality: New Realities in the Quest to Live Forever
Hello, weāre Alice, and we are always in a state of wander.
No curtain call yet, the end is not nigh and the bellās not tolling for thee. Welcome to the Future 100, the happily-ever-after set of centenarians. Itās a preservation society and everyoneās invited.
The 100-year life is upon us. Are you ready?
Weāre rolling out health. In a demographic shift unparalleled in human history, long-life is on the rise, with a projected 3.7 million people worldwide to be centenarians by 2050. (Pew Research). Most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Japan, and other countries will celebrate their hundredth birthdays, if the current pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries continues.
According to The New Map of Life, an initiative launched by The Stanford Center on Longevity, this once unattainable milestone could become the norm for all American newborns by 2050. The melting pot of medical advances in the emerging field of geroscience could transform how we age, due to its study of aging as a driver of chronic conditions and disease.
Dishing out the decades sounds great but if weāre really forward thinking, the concern is not how we age but how much we may not. With increasing life expectancy comes increased ālongevity risks.ā
Do we have the right policies in place to deal with immortality? Do we need a new retire-mentality? (Thatās right, youād better read the small print.)
The Perils of Wisdom
Letās say 100 is the new fifty. What quality of life do we want to maintain, and what are the social, political, and financial consequences? Can we design family structures, communities, housing, cities, and insurance policies for mortals that may no longer be mortal? Some fear that boredom may sink in, suggesting that life eternal may be best saved for eternal optimists. To quote Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins, āthe artists who refused to dieā: āHow much joy would you be willing to endure in order to secure a possibly uninterrupted future?ā As you live longer, youāll need not just a robust retirement fund but also a plan with a purpose. Besides not outliving your money, how can you make your life meaningfulĀ in retirement, which could last three decades or more?
Perhaps to become well-rounded 120-year-olds, we should consider the Fun Theory Sequence by artificial intelligence theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky. Fun Theory is the field of knowledge that deals in questions such as āHow much fun is there in the universe?ā and āWill we ever run out of fun?ā and āAre we having fun yet?ā and āCould we be having more fun?ā
A key insight of Fun Theory is that eudaimoniaāthe theory that happiness is the ultimate human goalāis complicated, as there are many things that contribute to a life worth living. Humans require many things to experience a fulfilled life: aesthetic stimulation, pleasure, love, social interaction, learning, a sense of security, and much more. If we have the chance to live longer, healthier lives, should happiness be part of the equation? And how do we value it? This is part of the challenge facing the digital immortalists today.
The Cost of Living
Today we associate old age with illness, disease and pushing up daisies. We donāt want to be old as we donāt want to be sick, but we forget that science will prolong good health too. Put it into perspective: if the length of our lives is doubled, so, too, will be the best years of our lives. If a personās life expectancy is around 120, and a new generation is born an average of every twenty-five years, then in 2050 we may see the first eight-generation family.
The U.N. predicts that in 2045, the number of people sixty or older will be higher than the number of children worldwide for the first time in history. This potential new āfourth stageā of life, where we are vital and productive citizens well into our eighties, nineties, and even hundreds is not just a scientific challenge but also a socioeconomic one. With increased health span, we may also see people having more children even later in life. Are we as a family and society prepared for the financial burden of more people living longer lives? Or will these golden years push us into the red?
W.A.P.ās happening?
Once we had an age pyramid. Now itās a population rectangle, with nearly equal distribution of people in most decades of life. Among people 75 years and older, the U.S. labor force is expected to grow by 96.5 percent over the next decade.
āDemographic dividend,ā a term coined by Harvard economist David Bloom, proposes that a decline in a countryās birth and death rates, and a larger working-age population (WAP), can accelerate a countryās economic growth. But thereās a catch: with fewer births each year, a countryās young population declines in relation to the working-age population, which can lead to economic stress.
Take China for exampleāits population has been declining and is expected to continue its slippery slope for the coming decades. This demographic transition in China will constitute a major constraint on its growth and Ā power. Chinaās working-age population that peaked in 2011 at more than 900 million will by mid-century decline to some 700 million. These workers will have to provide by then for nearly 500 million Chinese aged 60 and over, compared with 200 million today. By contrast, Indiaās population will keep growing, projected to approach 1.7 billion by 2060, with its WAP plateauing at around 1.1 billion in 2050. But will there be enough jobs?
Reskilling, not retiring
Artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the equivalent ofĀ 300 million full-time jobs, replace a quarter of work tasks in the US and Europe. But will it be game over? Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, doesnāt think so. Googleās chief internet evangelist believes āAI will make a lifetime of learning critical.ā
This notion of education over a period of a lifetime will certainly have to become a part of our normal society.
ā Vint Cerf Ā (SiliconRepublic interview)
Cerf believes that this new industrial revolution will be similar to the others, but the difference will be cultural, not just material. While jobs may get replaced with AI, he reasons that new jobs will come along, but people may not be prepared unless they get retraining.
āWe really need to build this notion of learning over the course of a career into our thinking and that is going to happen mainly because people are living longer anyway, which means they have longer working careers and which means technology will be changing over a longer period of time, forcing all of us to learn something new in order to be relevant,ā explains Cerf.
The Comeback Kids
But no oneās putting granny out to pasture. A study examines the changing definition of retirement and takes a fresh look at the three decades of life after work that many will have. The study of more than 11,000 U.S. adults found that despite worries about health care and long-term care costs in retirement, they still desire to live longer, a majority (59%) want to work in some way during their retirement.
āNew retirementalityā is what financial consultant, Mitch Anthony, calls it. Todayās trend of retirees returning to work, he says, is because ātraditional retirement is an unnatural condition that runs contrary to the preservation of the human spirit.ā Anthony, co-author of āLife Centered Financial Planning: How to Deliver Value That Will Never Be Undervalued,ā says that people who are ready to retire should be seeking out a āretirementor,ā people who are already retired, thriving and able to show them how to live with vitality and vigor.
Leading Indicators
š§ The Longevity Risk
Whatās your life line? Whoās keeping score? Your longevity is one of the most significant unknowable factors that determine how much you need for retirement, how much you can spend, how much time you have to do the things you want to do and more.Ā Lifetime expectancy calculators use data to help assess how long you yourself are going to live ā¦ but sadly, thereās no guarantee.
Livingto100 is aĀ calculator is based on data from the aboveĀ New England Centenarian Study. It asks you almost 50 questions to determine how long you might live, and gives you personalized feedback on each data point as to why itās important to your longevity.
Blue Zones Vitality Compass is the life expectancy calculator from Blue Zones, a publisher dedicated to uncovering the best strategies for longevity based on places in the world where higher percentages of people enjoy longer lives.
š§ Health is the New Wealth
Itās not about living longer. Itās about living healthier longer. Human Longevity, Inc. is committed to accelerating living to 100+ by revolutionizing the landscape of the current system of āsickcareā to true āhealthcare.ā By continually adding and analyzing their clientās health data, they are transforming treatment from a reactive practice to one that is proactive, preventative, and personalized. Built by the pioneers of the human genome sequencing effort, Human Longevity is the global leader in advancing the Human Longevity Care movement.
š§ The Silver Economy
Now that we can measure our biological age, based on the length of our telomeres or the biomarkers in our cells and tissues, you may be soon find out that your sixty-five-year-old self has the body of a forty-five-year-old. According to Professor Moshe Milevsky at York University in Toronto, and author of āLongevity Insurance for a Biological Age: Why Your Retirement Plan Shouldnāt Be Based on the Number of Times You Circled the Sun,ā chronological age is a poor metric that we should not be using. His book examines the personal financial implications of extreme longevity and how to guarantee a sustainable income stream for the remainder of your biological life.
Milevsky predicts that longevity will have a dramatic impact on public retirement policy as well, raising the bar on the age you can claim, and start collecting on, government pensions or IRAs. Shifting our age measures to biological ones will help make longevity risk as salient as mortality risk. āThere are going to be winners and losers using biological age,ā he tells Barrons.com, with the worldās poorest living shorter lives due to unhealthy diets and limited access to health care. He says that these people, and those who are biologically older than their chronological age, should be able to pick up their pensions early.
š§ Planning to Age 100
With one in four 65-year-oldsĀ today living past age 90 and one in 10 living past 95, everyone needs to plan for a longer lifespan.Ā The most sensible number: age 100. That's especially true for women, whose lifespan is almost 8% longer than that of men. According to Victoria Mazur, head of compensation and benefits at Lord Abbett, "the foundation ofĀ saving for retirementĀ hasn't changed to support the 100-year life. People aren't thinking about this."
š§ Wheel of Fortune
Novos Labs offer an online longevity quiz to see if you are maximizing your lifespan potential and provides 60 tips for living a longer, healthier life.
What Else We Are Wondering
š Go With The Flow
Japan is home to the longest-living populationāthe island of Okinawa is a blue zone with the highest concentration of centenarians in the world. The secret? Moving their bodies everyday (Yoga, tai chi or Radio taisÅ, which translates to "radio exercises"āitās easy, give it a try) and getting into the āflow.ā Coined by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is the moment you are in complete awareness and fully immersed in what you are doingāit could be dancing, reading, dreaming, gardening or whatever activity frees your mind and fills your heart. Gravitating towards the activities that spark this state of "flow" can lead you to your "ikigai," which is "the happiness of always being busy." According to the authors of Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, "there is no magic recipe for finding happiness, for living according to your ikigai. But one key ingredient is the ability to reach this state of flow and, through this state, to have an 'optimal experience.'"
š Return to Youth
Thereās a cultural habit in Okinawa called āAyakaru,ā where theĀ 97th birthday is very special. Itās a major goal of a lot ofĀ people, that they want to make their 97th birthday. And theyĀ celebrate the 97th with a ceremony called ākajimaya,ā whereĀ they are paraded around the village in the back of an openĀ truck and they are carrying a pinwheel, and that pinwheelĀ celebrates or symbolizes their return to youth, and they areĀ given a bit more leeway after 97 to act more like children.Ā People believe if they touch this person, they can achieveĀ the power of healthy longevity.
š One More Time
Donāt act your age. Yoro Park in Japan houses āReversible Destinyā a theme park for adults. Designed by Shusaka Arakawa and Madeline Gins, āThe Site of Reversible Destiny ā Yoroā covers approximately 18,000 square meters with various mysterious objects to surprise and delight. Adults revert to childhood feelings and are inspired to jump and discover various possibilities of using and balancing the body.
Craving more?
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