And where should we direct our medical research?  This article is about the new “paradigm” of the “longevity dividend”–arguing that we need to research how to live long and that, well, we ought to be living a lot longer.

This, amidst worries of a death shortage and people getting way, way too old with no way to provide for them.  It reminds one of that scene from Gulliver’s Travels when he meets people who are immortal but they’re all still aged–blind, deaf, senile.  And they’re miserable.  But, a response:

Transhumanist George Dvorsky, one of the honchos responsible for the Betterhumans portal, did a quick run through of the objections to attempting to boost healthy human life expectancy, including the appeal to nature (death is natural therefore good); undesirable psychological consequences (long-lived people would be bored); and undesirable social consequences (nursing home world). If you want at thorough debunking of these and other objections to life extension, may I suggest that you read my book Liberation Biology?

Finally, theoretical biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey, critiqued the idea of the longevity dividend from the point of view of someone who is pushing for a more comprehensive research attack on aging itself. De Grey’s new book, Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime is out in September. De Grey said, “I am pessimistic about the longevity dividend, but I strongly support it.” Why pessimistic? First, he is not pessimistic about the prospects of increasing life expectancy. But De Grey is pessimistic about the idea that the way the campaigners for the longevity dividend want to pursue it will result in reduced medical costs. Why? Because he pointed out that American life expectancy has already increased by about seven years since 1960 and medical costs have obviously not gone down. Inherent in the idea of the longevity dividend is the notion of compressed mortality, that is, the period of decrepitude at the end of life will be shortened. De Grey argues that this not biologically plausible. Medical interventions can reduce the risk of death and disability at various ages, but eventually, frailty will come — it will just come later. As Murphy and Topel note, American men are about 6 years “younger” in 2000 than they were in 1970-a 55 year old in 2000 is equivalent to a 49 year old from 1970. Frailty may be unavoidable, but pushing it off for as long as possible is still a great idea.