Will the Baby Boomers be the last generation to Die or the first to become Immortal?
How much longer can Baby Boomers live before the Singularity comes?
Will Biotech and Medicine be ready to save their collective lives or are the Baby Boomers the last generation to die before crossing the finishing line…
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Debate Stats
Total Comments: (41)
Date Started: April 20, 2011 - 9:11 am
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Comments
We need to change the status quo. The people in control of things now are neither capable or willing to do the things necessary to usher in a transhumanist/extropian way of life. It’s as simple as that. We need new players at the top.
The shakers and movers of society are often the young. As far as congress, presidency and judicial systems go, I think there will be some kind of term limits set up when we realize the average senator is serving as long as Byrd did.
Eventually, due to population growth, anybody who wants to extend their lifeline indefinitely will be required to move to Mars or similar.
Obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are epidemic among the “baby boomer” generation and those that came after with no cures in sight. If you think they are going to be the first generation to live forever or close to it you’re nuts. What sort of quality of life would they experience- they’ll live long enough to watch all their extremities get amputated before they go blind and lose their kidneys. Their final thousand years or so of life will be spent strapped to dialysis and heart/lung machines.
I know this site is all about optimism, but it’s really hard to be optimistic when you see the numbers.
No! really! You are clearly not up to speed on the full expectations of the Transhumanist visions. The question is whether or not they can be realized, but let’s face the facts: a human body is only as complex as it is, and not infinitely complex. It may be helluva intricate and intertwined and convoluted, but at some point it may be possible to understand what it does and rectify it. I don’t know if this will be possible in short order (centuries) or even in my lifetime, but there are some arguments it will be. And we don’t even need reverse engineering the full detail of what it means to be human – we need only understand enough. And maybe not even that, we may need to tweak it enough, or hack it enough and then fudge our way into a sustainable and bearable model of engineering.
My expectations (and I am sucking my thumb here) are the following steping stones.
(1) by 2025 there are insanely expensive (tens of millions of equivalent Namero$) treatments that extend life for small elites. Insane waiting lists, with many it doesn’t work or it creates horrible side effects. Nonetheless it will turn out that of the initial several thousand that have access to these treatments some 5% will still be alive in a few centuries, solely on account of these contrived “silver bullit” treatments.
(2) by 2030 a next batch of treatments comes online, and they extend average lifespan by “a few decades” for people inbetween 35 and 50, are expensive but affordable (100K-200K Amerimini) in rich countries – and rich countries make them available to aging people IF they relinquish their pensions; i.e. in countries such as the US, Australia, Western Europe, Parts or Russia and China, Japan, Korea these treatments become not just affordable but socially obligatory; i.e. if you insist on aging naturally you don’t get any treatment for your ‘aging hobby’. Sadly these treatments are quotad and many don’t get them in time (they die prematurely or are to old to begin with to have the treatment work, or are too socially damaged – i.e. people with a criminal record get these treatments last in line)
(3) By 2040 there is a wildstorm of garage developed nanomedical treatments, not just for life extension, but also for rejuvenation. Oddly enough, for cultural reasons “living forever” isn’t so hot any more as people grow a strange morbid fascinating with dying. Next to all these nanotreatments (which are affordable, have exotic side effects, are fairly safe) there is organ printing and whereas many people stay staunchly and stubbornly human, the inner cities teem with creatures no longer human. These ‘exotics’ take risks and their life expectancy is reducing, oddly enough, because of widespread nihilism. But people in 2040 who are in their 60s, are somewhat affluent, live in rich countries, are somewhat healthy, and somewhat sane can expect to find a treatment that will make them live to hundreds of years. Question is – do they want to?
(4) By 2045 there is a major crisis to the sense of self of humans, as the first humans without a natural body or brain are recognized as citizens in some countries. In other words, they replace a little body here and a bit of brain there, and incrementally, over a few dozen small steps they find themselves totally replaced and still functioning as they were (and often substantially better). The problems are manyfold – these creatures are increasingly smart, think fast, have very weird modes of thinking and have these bizarre and abstract goal sets. And worse, many don’t physically look human – they have virtual bodies and their mind is encased in some laboratory device, or more interesting *emulated* in some machine. In the 2040s this stuff quickly escalates so that
(5) 2050 &**&*&$$$%^$%^&*(*(***&$%HHJ&&%^^$%$% (buffer overflow)
Mark – the whole idea is that we develop a cure for obesity. This might be a drug, gene therapy or maybe even (gasp) an understanding of proper diet that makes it easy for an average person to maintain a proper weight without feeling deprived. Once you solve weight, and especially if you solve proper nutrition, then those problems you talk about are greatly diminished. (There will still be people, like smokers today, who don’t choose that path).
Then as these people age into their late 60′s and 70′s, we come up with other answers for solving problems with cancer, bone loss, and various dementias.
And as they hit their late 70′s and 80′s, we come up with an answer for telomere shortening, and this could be the magic bullet that allows people to live to the 120′s and beyond. Unless you can regenerate neurons, the brain will eventually age and like Alzheimer’s patients today, that can be a long, slow, expensive dying process, so there will probably have to be some kind of rationing system for handling people who can’t take care of themselves (with euthenasia allowed to be set up beforehand by the individual as they reach some threshold of dementia). But the theory is, at some point we can transfer all knowledge from our brains into computers. That’s assuming a rosy economic/social scenario for many decades to come.
Khannea’s comments below are good, but pretty much everything should be multiplied by 4 in my mind. What he says will take 5 years, I expect to take 20 years.
Let’s put it differently – we’ll see the first generation that can’t afford having that many venerable people. We;ll be the first rich nation generation that will let people at the end of life die prematurely (sometimes years or decades) because we’ll decide “we don’t have money to do so”.
The logical pressure funnel will be to find a solution. Now look at how expensive medical care is in the last 6 months of any life. On average. What if we can keep people from entering that stage of decrepitude forever, indefinitely?
Then we could also save hundreds of trillions of having to pay pensions as well, right?
I see this happen rather fast actually. And people will not be offered a choice. People will be told – “If you want to grow old naturally, fine, but society won’t pay for you dying horribly. It’s your private suicide hobby. “
As a generation, the baby boomers will die. However, some baby boomers, maybe 10-30%, well educated ones, ones with good genetics, ones that have taken care of themselves, and younger ones (late 40′s) will live.
Our medical costs will shrink in the coming decade as prevention becomes a norm (as it becomes cheaper for a company to hire someone to help/nag you to exercise and eat well). This will happen as a side effect of the move to electronic medical records and the data mining that happens after that. The primary savings will come from an increased understanding of where those costs come from.
1% of patients can make up 30% of costs, doubling the prevention spend on that 1% can reduce their medical spend by half or more.
70% of medical costs come from lifestyle choices, over the next decade, with better understanding of behavioral economics we will be able to reduce these costs substantially.
With genetic screening costs falling to below $100, doctors will be able to look for likely issues and prevent them before they become critical.
/me gigles at The Commander.
Personally, I am a boomer. But I’m also a boomer with grown children. So, I guess I’d say that I hope that my generation is on hand to get immortality. But, if not, I’ll just be happy if my kids are.
victor-storiguard.blogspot.com
It is!
I think one can look at this question in the following way: we never want to be at or near the head of the line, when the guillotine is waiting. The French aristocrats must have been having the same discussion: when will it stop, who will be the last guy? Eventually, but gradually, it will stop (death). But the road there, IMHO, is full of problems that merit deliberation and the kind of debate we are having. In 10 years(if not much sooner) we will have available replacement hearts, kidneys, etc… But only for the sick, if your (or my) heart is just worn out normally, insurance certainly won’t pay, and why should it? So, in the short term, organs replacement, protein modulation (myostatin blockers) already promise attenuated senescence, but only as elective intervention, ie you better have deep pockets. Will we wind up with thousands of strong, healthy centenarians catered to by children of people who died off because they could not afford it? And, the 3rd world countries, should they die off ‘naturally’ too? (they already do, as AIDS treatement etc… is too expensive)
will the government ever allow it? will the insurance and pharma companies? i dont like conspiracy thories (i say this as i sit here and let one slip out lol) but theres a lot of money in people dying. or more so in keeping them just on the edge of it. I still have a hard time swallowing we dont have a cure for cancer yet, we have come so far as a species, i can swallow it, just like i said, i have hard time doing it
Technology isn’t going to save the Boomers. They’ve been screwing up on a regular basis since Vietnam, destroying the environment and the country in the process. Even if it were possible for technology to save them the generations since will eventually have enough and pull the plug. Those that survive crashing retirement funds, Global Warming and milking us for healthcare will eventually reap what they have sown, and the rest of us will be much better off once they are gone.
I don’t understand how you can say something like that. Do you not have parent, grandparents, or what is it. You can’t be suggesting all those 60 and older deserve to die? wth is wrong with you.
Tabrel, it would be wiser to reevaluate that perspective. Whatever sample you use to base those opinions off do stand for all. Those same baby boomers have also paid into the system their entire adult lives. They deserve that healthcare like all the following ones do. Many of them have also built some of the support structure that any technological advanced will be based on. Your comment serve no logical or compassionate ends.
May you arrive at whatever enlightenment goals you may have one day.
*don’t stand for all
I believe representatives of the Baby Boomer generation (those currently in their late fifties to late sixties) will be the first to extend their lives indefinitely, barring accidents. In twenty years, they would be in their late seventies or eighties and there are still quite a few people in that age group doing very well today. Health science is becoming more and more an accelerating technology, and twenty years should see vast improvements in methods to increase longevity by arresting diseases and reversing deterioration or replacing deteriorating parts.
I think it makes a big difference whether a baby boomer is aware of the impending changes in technology or not.
If you have a reason to live, you are far more likely to live longer.
We are already extending life at 1 year per year. Personal genomes are close. I see potential.
My mom is 65 and I want her to make it. No matter what the chances are, we’re going to give it a shot!
It is clear that commenters need to agree on a technical meaning of a generation\’s survival.
There is quite possibly a baby boomer alive today, who would quite \”naturally\” live to be 120 or slightly older.
I think most of us would consider the survival of one or two rare outliers as not counting as the generation surviving.
I\’m going to go with \”50% or more of those alive today surviving\” as counting as survival.
And defined that way I think it\’s quite unlikely that they will survive.
In fact defined that way I think it\’s touch and go at best for 40 somethings.
Are the Baby Boomers enough open mind ? and smart ?
And geeky ? to understand the current world
do they understand today in a world where work disapear we have to share
What a condescending comment!
As a baby boomer I can assure you that I am geeky enough and smart enough and open minded enough to understand any world that either you or myself am likely to encounter.
Some are, some aren’t, same as any adult alive today. Perhaps more aware of the direction of things than younger people perhaps, since they have more experience in the job market, healthcare, investments and thinking about what they can do to extend their waning years. The boomers are my parent’s generation (I’m 34), and I think they are pretty aware, at least as much as other generations.
Anyway, this awareness has far more to do with education level and inclinations than age.
Anyone alive today has the potential to become immortal, due to cryonics. If you do die before aging is cured, make sure you get frozen! Simple! Then when the technology comes along, bam, you’re revived! We’ll show Jesus how to do a resurrection in style lol!
I agree with Keith Kleiner and David Israel that the regulatory bodies of the world will hinder the advances of regenerative medicine and other interventions (somatic gene therapy in humans, ect.) so much that the baby boomer population (those 65-55 in America today) will have some negligible number (<1%) achieve negligible senesence and rejuvenation to youthful vigor before they die. It is unlikely — without some event (a media blitz of robust mouse rejuvenation) that spurs a serious political change in medical regulations today — that a comprehensive set of therapies for aging will arrive in time. It's not even considered a disease yet! For affluent countries this regulatory restriction will apply; the more loosely regulated less wealthy will be restricted by economic realities (they can't fund the research without the help of the affluent countries). Baby boomers, write your senator about NIH funding (more aging research) and FDA policy (overall survival a worthy target of intervention in general aka non-sick populations, expidited review of novel mechanisms, aka 'first in class' molecules) today and prove me wrong.
To respond to jmstamper: there are a good number of things that could still kill us even with fully functioning organs. From the non-medical (car accidents) to the medical non-organ (immunoscenesence) there are more things to fix than just what we can cut out and replace. We'll have to maintain some things in-place, especially our brains, if we don't find a non-biological alternative. Or die trying~
I think less than 1% is a little low. I would guess 1-5%. Consider this: about half of 60 year olds will still be alive in 20 years, when they’re 80. In 20 years (2031) cancer will be easily detectable and completely manageable, if not readily curable. Almost every major organ will be grown in vitro and transplanted without rejection risk. With brand new organs, heart, lung and kidney diseases will be a thing of the past for those will access to quality healthcare. Brand new organs will be less vulnerable to immunoscenesence and reduce it. I believe that by 2031, we’re near to the time respirocytes come on the scene, which also suggests other innovations in nanotech like an artificial immune system. And the brain won’t be left out of the regenerative medicine revolution: new neurons and even whole chunks grown in vitro and implanted, not to mention brain computer interfaces and nootropics. Of the 50% that make it until 2031, 10% of those will make it to 2051, at which point we’re home.
I think the Kurzweil timeline is optimistic. It’s our technological curve in a vacuum. The issue is that this type of technological transformation of the species will meet with stiff resistance and regulatory stifling. It may occur for those wealthy enough to side step conventions but our main stream will likely not get it for decades after. Individually we don’t want to die but what happens decades after this new species stays alive. Do they retain the assets of their former incarnation? There goes inheritance and escheat taxes. Are they in virtual worlds or are they inhabiting robot forms? Will they be competing for jobs with humans? If they are in robotic forms we will need much more housing.
It will be the greatest step in our history but it will have complications. Our childhood will go from 18 years to becoming an adult to 80 years to becoming >H+.
Lets hope for a quick and smooth social metamorphosis in which everyone can add to the value each others existences.
There are people in their 80′s today who may make it. The reason is regenerative medicine, including the injection of stem cells, etc.(cell therapy)and implantation of in vitro grown organs and tissues. At the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Anthony Atala has extracted muscle and bladder cells from several patients’ bodies, cultivated these cells in petri dishes, then layered the cells in three-dimensional molds that resembled the shapes of the bladders. Within weeks, the cells in the molds began functioning as regular bladders which were then implanted into patients’ bodies. Atala is working on growing 22 other organs, including the liver, heart and kidneys. Why would we die if all our organs are new? If you want to acheive Aubrey de Grey’s “Longevity Escape Velocity”, support the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The hard problems will be neurological, so keep doing your crosswords.
My parents are of the baby boomer generation, and from previous conversations I don’t think they would want to live forever. When the time comes perhaps they will change their minds, but I think you could say that about a great portion of the population. Everyone was brought up knowing that death is part of the cycle and now that some serious efforts are being put forth to alter natures plan; Im just thinking there are many out there that may choose death rather than becoming something unnatural (in their eyes).
this is a very intrigueing subject, it is very likely that baby boomers will die off, not all of them but i would say most….however, i am equally intriqued (am i spelling that wrong, should probably google before posting…ahh well, lol) that this subject is not catching national or even global attention, what are we all going to do when theres no more real estate left, and we have no food or clean water because of pure demand by the ever growing populous? im 24, i hope to live forever, i have two kids, if i live to be 100, and my children have 2 kids appeice by the time there 25, and so on….i have contributed …..i dont know, a lot of breathing consuming people, seems like i acted irresponsible, even though i can afford them now
I’m 58 and I often imagine my 80s will be spent in something akin to an isolation tank, either in a state of suspended animation or only in contact with the world through brain implants.
I’m not especially convinced that even the millenials are going to make it. Advances in medical technology seem to be one of the things that futurists have the hardest time predicting- maybe it just has something to do with the ethical constraints that add a ten-year waiting period to even the most helpful discoveries. Yes, the expected lifespan of infants born this year was higher than ever before, and that will be true for next year as well, and the year after that. But the number of people living past 120 (or 130) won’t nudge a bit, I expect.
The most ethical way I could think of to increase the timetable on medical advances is to start cloning and rapidly growing human bodies without any minds more complex than a goldfish, for testing purposes. And if you think Planned Parenthood is in danger of a pipe bombing…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopreservation
I am 65, in the oldest group of baby boomers and intend to live past the singularity. I am lucky enough to have good genes, have always been fit and do all the right things to live a long life. By online projections assuming nothing dramatic happening I should live until 85 to 95 [my mother and father lived into their 90s], that is to 2031 to 2041. I know that Kurzweil forecasts the singularity as 2045 but between now and then a lot can happen. From now on I will use all the interventions as they come along so assuming a few improvements in supplements between now and 2017 I should be in good condition when it is is possible to regenerate vital organs that will see me through until the 2020s. In the 2020s regeneration of vital organs will be routine using iPSC technology so that they will have the life expectancy of a neonate. Techcast.org forecast that cancer will be containable from about 2022 and entirely curable after 2025 so that should keep me going in better condition than otherwise until 2031 or so when I will be 85. From 2025 I expect other body parts to be replaceable so that I can have my hair, skin, knees, ears, eyes, etc. replaced. Genetic engineering will come on stream from about 2025 so that will keep things in better condition and cure things until the 2030s when nano-bots [Kurzweil again] to be available that can fix anything from the inside so that should take me to the singularity looking like a 25 yr old.
I am quite aware that this is the future and we don\’t know what will happen but there is a better than evens chance that it will unfold as I describe so I am going to give it my best shot. After all, I have nothing to lose and it could happen. It would be horrible to be the last man in London to die of natural causes.
I am 58 and in a similar situation. I am also so inclined to “take a hard run at it”. The problem with these topical threads is that they lead to thinking which is too narrowly focused: (longevity, in a vacuum).
The future of medicine and of health care costs should be bright. Discoveries and demographics will force health care costs to rise at(at as much as) double digit rates for the next ten to twenty years. However, health utilization studies (including Medicare) suggest that a high percentage of lifetime health care costs are expended in one’s last six months. Modalities available to curtail or eliminate our catastrophic diseases will begin to change how health dollars are spent. The bad news is that by 2025 health care will be very expensive. The good news is that as longevity protocols arrive, they will begin to significantly reduce and eliminate current “final” health care costs and temper otherwise heroic treatments for current cancers and similar diseases.
As importantly, other technologies will be greatly advancing, via nano-medicine and medical robotics. Farms growing replacement organs and tissues can become ubiquitous. Evenutally tissues and organs will be grown or re-vitalized internally. After that restorative techniques and maintenance will be such that heavy lifting will be the exception.
Robotic surgery, where necessary, can theoretically introduce new supply and lower costs, over time. This will be especially true with the emergence of machine replication (coupled with machine intelligence).
Much stronger intelligence will introduce health efficiencies. Far-reaching preventative therapies (for all)will become common.
It will be cheaper to maintain health with longevity tools than to spend incremental sums for extraordinary life saving attempts as at present.
Health care availability to all needs to be seen as a human right. The major impediments to cost effective therapies may intitially result from pharma or medically patented discoveries which cannot be emulated by other production means or related discoveries. That could certainly cause a spike in longevity affordability. Even that would fade in time.
As has been said endlessly in the past, it is far, far cheaper to keep the populace healthy than to treat catastrophic disease or end of life “disease” as we must face today.
The next twenty plus years will also give rise to enormous new economies for many former third-world geographies. World GDP will grow in multiples each decade. Resources available to billions will allow for longevity applications.
Thoughtful, accelerating, progress can result in a tomorrow that is difficult to grasp but equally as exciting. I am grateful for forums that allow for expression of future probabilities and concerns. The concerns are real and must (but can) be addressed. The challenge is pace of change versus time to reflect and adapt.
All in, I’m In!
This “singularity” looks t become pretty horrible, assuming it in any way reflects societal values that exist today.
I’m pretty sure baby boomers will have the chance to live forever, but only if they take personal responsibility for achieving this. If they eat bad food, get fat, don’t exercise, smoke, etc. then even modern medicine won’t be able to save them. But if they take good care of their bodies, they just might stick around long enough for science and technology to take them to the next level of longevity.
The baby boomers certainly won’t get to live forever. Sadly, they will all die. The required technological advances simply won’t come in time. I think for the generation after them (those that are in their 20′s, 30′s, and 40′s right now) have a decent chance. Those that are being born right now seem to have a superb chance of immortality. Just imagine the amount of technological progress they will be able to leverage when they are 60 years old!
If Keith is correct that people in their 40′s have a decent chance, then clearly the baby boomer’s aren’t ALL going to die. There’s just too much variability in lifespan even now. The population of people over 100 is growing rapidly. If the generation before the baby boomers is routinely living long enough to conquer aging, then clearly those baby boomers who, through a combination of luck and good health practices, live 20 years longer than average, are going to squeak through.
By the same token, who’s to say that someone who is 80 today can’t make it? We can expect that, even with today’s medical technology, a few of these people will live more than 30 more years. But clearly medical technology isn’t going to stand still for the next 30 years, which will improve the odds even further. As Rob pointed out, we don’t have to get to the singularity to get significant life extension.
I think saying they will all die is quite a reach given your belief that 40 year olds should make it. Maybe the vast majority of current 60 year olds won’t make it, but lifespan varies so much that if a 40 year old could make it, there would most likely be at least a few 60 year olds who would also make it over the bridge. Especially if effective ways of arresting brain deterioration from diseases such as alzheimer’s are developed within the next twenty years. People have to die of something after all, and telomere shortening is not the thing that kills you at even 100!
Think about it. To be the first generation to ‘make it’ in to immortality would be pretty horrific.
You’d have to live with the knowledge. I would have me a massive dose of survivor’s guilt for centuries.
I suppose the only thing worse than being the first to make it would be being the last to miss it. But really, I don’t see it as being all that different from the first wave of people to get access to new drugs. The best example I can think of is people given a terminal diagnosis of HIV in the 80′s or 90′s who are now able to live mostly normal lives taking anti-retrovirals. Would I feel regret for the people that passed? Of course. But guilt? Only if I’d somehow impeded the technology’s arrival.