–Bryan Johnson
As English mathematician and philosopher AN Whitehead remarked, “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.”
If we were to expand this concept to our lifespan, and how we’ve been extending it over the last few decades, it’s safe to say some considerable leaps have been made for our civilization. A 2022 estimate by the United Nations (UN) puts the number of centenarians across the world at around 593 000, and projects there will be 3.7 million centenarians living by 2050.
At the same time, longevity has succeeded in developing a science of its own, albeit an unconventional one at times. Some even believe we’re on the brink of ending aging entirely.
One of the notions making, Cambridge researcher Aubrey de Grey explains that, with the improvement of treatment strategies and technologies, life expectancy at each age increases slightly every year. Currently, over a year’s worth of research is needed to manage each additional year of expected life. When this ratio is reversed, we achieve longevity escape velocity, and life expectancy is increased faster than one year per one year of research.
