In this episode of Next Act Ninjas, Rachael Van Pelt dives into the mind-blowing concept of Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV). Imagine a future where each year you live adds more than a year to your life expectancy; a world where technological advances outpace your lifespan. This episode explores the possibility of advancements in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and AI delaying or reversing aging enough to achieve LEV, and its profound implications for our lives. We'll discuss the ethical considerations, economic impacts, and the necessity of preparing for a longer, healthier life. Join us as we navigate the exciting possibilities and challenges of achieving Longevity Escape Velocity.
Chapters
00:00 Exploring Longevity Escape Velocity: A Future of Extended Lifespan
04:30 Ethical Considerations around Extending Lifespan
06:25 The Complexity of Solving Biological Aging
08:18 Proactive Preparation for Longevity Escape Velocity
12:13 Adapting to Advancing Technology and Shifting Mindset
Welcome back to another episode of Next Act Ninjas, the number one podcast for becoming a master of your lifestyle longevity. I am your host, Rachael Van Pelt, and today I'm diving into a truly mind-blowing topic, Longevity Escape Velocity. Imagine a future where every additional year you live adds more than a year to your life. In other words, if you're a healthy 54-year-old woman who's currently expected to live to age 84,and you make it another 10 years to age 64, now you're expected to live to 97. Or you make it to 70 and now your life expectancy is 105. You get the idea. The state of the science and technology of longevity essentially is outpacing your lifespan. The finish line keeps moving further away. What's crazy, this concept of Longevity Escape Velocity (or LEV), is not science fiction, but a real possibility that scientists are working towards right now.
Stop and think about that for a minute. What do you think this would mean for you and your future? What about the rest of society? Drop your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to know what you think. Does it excite you, scare you, or are you unsure what to think about it?
The science behind LEV is rooted in advances in biotechnology, regenerative medicine, artificial intelligence. We're talking about the potential synergistic effects of multiple breakthroughs in stem cell therapy, gene editing, nanotechnology that could extend life faster than time is passing. The combined effect of advances in all of these technologies will likely lead to delayed or even reversed biological aging.
It's pretty crazy if you really wrap your mind around it. Today, I might have about 30 years of my life left, but by simply living another decade, my odds of living an extra 50 years could go up dramatically due to these advances in longevity science and medical technology. I love this. I had kids late in life, so I never thought I'd live long enough to see my grandkids grow up. But what if I'm around to see my great grandkids?
Now, your knee-jerk reaction might be to think, no way, I don't want to live another 50 years, at least not if half of those years are in rapid decline and I succumb to disease, immobility, cognitive decline. And believe me, I get that. Few of us want a longer life if it simply means more years of needless suffering. In fact, this is one of the top challenges that these advancing technologies face. They cannot simply extend the number of years we stay alive without increasing the number of years we stay healthy. We already have too much of that keeping-people-alive-but-not-healthy. It's exactly why I became a healthspan coach. I'm not okay with the last 20 to 30 years of a person's life to be simply surviving when I know they could be thriving.
But let's assume for a minute that the new technological advances solve this too. Now, instead of just living longer, you're living healthier. You're staying mentally sharp and free of chronic age related diseases right up to the very end. Does that possibility make you excited? Yeah, me too. That is at least until I start thinking about the economics of it. If I have 50 years left instead of 30, now I start to wonder if I'm going to outlive my retirement. I worry about the people who haven't saved even enough for a 10 year retirement, let alone 50.
That is exactly why we have to improve wealthspan at the same time as we improve our healthspan. That is the mission here at Next Act Ninjas. Regardless of how many decades we have left, if we want a great quality of life, if we want lifestyle longevity, then we must be proactively improving both health and wealth. And if advances in science and technology massively extend our lifespan, these goals are only going to become more urgent than ever before.
Now look, I fully realize that there are significant ethical questions about extending human lifespan, including issues of overpopulation, resource allocation, social inequality. I don't want to gloss over the fact that it could become challenging to ensure equitable access to anti-aging treatments. One of the primary concerns about such rapidly advancing technologies is that it may not be accessible to everyone, potentially widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Wealthier individuals might be able to afford those life-extending treatments, while those with fewer resources could be left behind. Likewise, there are already disparities among nations when it comes to access to new medical technologies. If developing nations already struggle to provide basic health care, how will they provide cutting edge longevity treatments?
That being said, technology does keep getting cheaper and cheaper, doesn't it? So just like we saw with personal computers and mobile phone technology, accessibility should improve dramatically over the coming decades. I mean, seriously, there are more than 17 billion mobile devices in the world today. And that's expected to increase to 19 billion by next year. Isn't that crazy? So while advances in longevity science may be initially only available to wealthy early adopters, I expect it won't take long before it becomes available to everyone. Besides, when artificial intelligence gets smart enough to solve biological aging, it shouldn't have any trouble solving the problems of overpopulation and resource allocation.
And if you're thinking anti-aging is an easier problem to solve than overpopulation, think again. Biological aging is an incredibly complex problem. Contrary to what the trending anti-aging biohackers would have you believe, there's no single pill that you can pop to reverse aging and we aren't going to discover some magical fountain of youth. But with advances in AI, we may be able to address the incredible complexity of aging. Human aging is multifactorial. It's a process that involves the interaction of many physiologic systems, genetics, environment, lifestyle. Understanding and manipulating all these thousands of factors in a controlled way is extremely challenging. And there are still so many unknowns about why we age or how to effectively intervene. And scientists, they've identified anywhere from 10 to 15 what we call hallmarks of aging. But we have yet to come up with a single unifying field theory that ties them all together. In other words, aging is not just a single process, but involves multiple interconnected systems. And these systems, much like ecological systems, if you tweak one part of the system, there's a domino effect in consequences, many third and fourth order consequences that may be unintended. The bottom line, biological aging is super complex. So, by the time AI gets around to solving this kind of complexity, it should have little trouble sorting out other problems like overpopulation or climate change.
In the meantime, how should we be thinking and preparing? It could be a decade still yet before we truly hit any sort of Longevity Escape Velocity, but we can prepare by focusing on three things. And the first two are exactly what we talk about here at Next Act Ninjas every week, building healthspan and building wealthspan for your long game. And the third is don't die. You may think I'm kidding, but the truth is it doesn't really matter how much health and wealth you have if you die in a car wreck tomorrow. If we want to bridge the gap between today and where technology will be in just another decade, we better take care of ourselves in the interim.
I think the fact that we could possibly reach Longevity Escape Velocity in our lifetime is a little crazy. For those of us who are in our 50s and 60s, this is huge. We will either be among the first to experience this leap in lifetime, or we will be among the last to age naturally. Right now, the average 55-year-old man can expect to live to age 79. The average 55-year-old woman can expect to live to 82. Flash forward just another decade, that could look very different. A 65-year-old in 2034 may be looking forward to many more golden years. In upcoming episodes, I promise we'll look at some of the emerging technologies and treatments that could become part of our daily lives.
In the meantime, if you hope to enjoy whatever remaining years you have left, you are going to need to be proactive. High quality of life long term does not simply happen by chance. When it comes to extending your healthspan, that means addressing all four pillars of wellness. Regular physical activity, good nutrition, adequate sleep, and of course social connectivity. When it comes to extending your wealthspan, that means making sure you have a solid strategy for growing your nest egg. And that includes diversified investment portfolio, multiple streams of income, that kind of thing. That's why I cover these topics every week here on Next Act Ninjas.
So ask yourself, are you treating your body like it has to last you another 50 years? Are you saving and investing like someone who needs their nest egg to last that long? Are you building relationships and thinking about how you might keep contributing to society that long?
The possibility of reaching Longevity Escape Velocity changes how we think about our next act, doesn't it? If advances in technology really do extend our lifespan that quickly, it's also going to become immediately apparent that we can't follow in our parents' footsteps. Doing what they did will get us into trouble. We're going to run out of health and wealth very quickly, and we're going to suffer longer. Our reality will be very different in a world where we reach some kind of Longevity Escape Velocity. It is going to change our frame of reference around what it means to age and our priorities throughout life.
Now we can certainly pretend that these advances aren't happening as fast as they are. Believe me, there are days when I want to do just that. Anytime I'm tired and feeling run down, when I'm pessimistic about the future, when clickbait-driven media makes me feel like we're headed to an apocalypse. But science and technology advance year after year, whether we're ready for it or not. We can let fear and overwhelm take over and become technophobic like generations before us or we can embrace change and learn to adapt. I personally think it's better we adapt rather than fuel ageist stereotypes.
If we become the first generation to ride the LEV rocket, how will we fare? Will we lead the way or will we languish? Will we end with a bang or a whimper? I think we owe it to the next generation to lead with gusto. And that means learning how to shift our mindset to think long game.
Build your healthspan and wealthspan to last a much longer lifespan than you think you have today. Because the likelihood that we reach Longevity Escape Velocity in the coming decades is quite high. The uncertainty that comes with that may seem scary at first, but it also opens up a world of possibilities. Let's not squander those additional years struggling with poor health and insufficient wealth.
Thanks for joining me today on Next Act Ninjas. I'm Rachael Van Pelt. Live well, love more, age less, my friends.