It was reported last week that US life expectancy
topped 78 years as a variety of diseases – including heart
disease, diabetes and flu – decreased this past year.
More interestingly, life expectancy – which has been increasing
about two or three months from year to year – jumped an impressive
four months this year. This caused one demographer to note that the
increase was “an unusually rapid improvement.”
It was “an usually rapid improvement,” but I’d like to argue
that such rapid improvements will become “usual” for the
foreseeable future. If one tracks the amazing rate of progress in
biotechnology, genomics, stem cell research and nanotechnology; it
is hard – barring a devastating calamity that kills thousands or
millions of people – to envision how life expectancy will do
anything but continue to increase at an accelerating rate.
It seems only prudent, therefore, that we should at least begin
preparing for life expectancies in the neighborhood of 100 within
the next few decades.
Given the existing pressure on such social programs as Social
Security and Medicare, I believe one implication of this “unusually
rapid improvement” is that these systems will need to be radically
overhauled in order to survive this new demographic reality.
I’d be interested in hearing from other Future Bloggers and
readers what you think should be done to modify these systems or
whether you think that they will simply collapse under their own
weight?
In my new book, Jump the Curve, I make the case that one
strategy for “jumping the curve” and helping your organization
innovate into the future is to “develop a future bias.”
A future bias is the opposite of “hindsight bias” and hindsight
bias is, quite simply, the idea that after an event occurs
most people take credit for believing that the idea was
pre-ordained and that they “knew” it would happen. For instance, by
1920, most citizens claimed they knew that man would “always” fly.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Most people were completely
blind-sided by human flight. Lord Kelvin, the world’s most renowned
scientist claimed in 1899 that “Heavier than air machines are
impossible,” and no less an authority than the New York
Times wrote in an editorial in December 1903 – just two weeks
before the Wright Brother’s historic first flight – that human
flight would not be achievable for “1 to 10 million years.” My
guess is that if a poll had been commissioned at the beginning of
the turn of the 20th century the overwhelming consensus among the
American public would have subscribed to similar opinions or,
alternatively, something along the lines of “If God had intended
man to fly, He would have given him wings.”
In the future, as a result of exponential advances in technology
(see above chart,
source – Collapsing Geography), many things that sound
impossible today are, in fact, not only going to be possible they
are going to be commonplace. Therefore, in order to embrace this
future, it will be necessary to think exponentially – and not
linearly – about the future. As Ray Kurzweil says in his book,
The
Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, in the 21st
century humanity will experience the equivalent of 20,000 years of
change (using the 20th century’s rate of change). What he is trying
to do in an indirect way is to get people to develop a future bias.
(cont.)
Juan Enriquez' recent presentation at TED juxtaposes the accelerating world financial crisis against the backdrop of the longer term, more profound changes in robotics, biology and genetics. For the former, he suggests that we work longer before receiving social security and not get too tied up in the current morass that we lose track of the incredible advances in the latter. With regard to this he says we are beginning to evolve into a new species - "Homo Evolutis - Hominids that take direct and deliberate control over the evolution of their species...and others." This is not a new meme though it seems to be gaining traction and is popping up more frequently these days. Our ability to manipulate and integrate technology into our very beings will no doubt be one of the hot button issues of the next decade.
