Would you like to live to 150 years and beyond? Is this realistic?

In the mid-1960s I would ask our futurist seminars at the New School for Social Research: "How many people here would like to live for hundreds of years?"

Only a handful of people ever took the question seriously or expressed interest in living far into the future. Most of the people dismissed the question as frivolous.

"This is a joke"—someone would say. "We can never live that long."

"This is science fiction—not possible."

"Such longevity will not be attainable in our lifetime."

"Who wants to live that long anyway?"

In nonfuturist circles the resistances and skepticisms were even stronger.

These days when I ask this same question at conferences most people respond positively.

Recently I again posed the question at a UCLA (Extension) course in long-range planning. The class was comprised of NASA engineers —industry executives and planners—high-tech specialists—physicians —psychologists—motion picture and television personnel—others. Out of a class of around two hundred people only three had resistances!

Immortality is no longer a dream. Immortality is now science—an emerging discipline. It is also developing into Big Business.

If you are around in 2010 you will have an excellent chance to live to the year 2030. If you are around in 2030—regardless of your age —you will be able to live indefinitely into the future.

If people do not foresee immortality ahead it is only because they are not familiar with the dynamics of human progress. Medicine and genetics can help us prolong the human life span by a few decades. To extend life for hundreds of years we will need more radical interventions.

These upcoming procedures go beyond the purview of this book. They have been thoroughly discussed in another book—Countdown to Immortality.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 1234