Yves here. As the New Year rolls in, many people turn their thoughts to resolutions centered on improving health—whether that means eating healthier, consuming less, or increasing physical activity. The driving forces behind these resolutions often include desires for physical appearance and the pursuit of longevity, or at the very least, a more fulfilling life in old age. The medical field has increasingly zeroed in on the concept of “healthy aging” and, for those with the means, even life-extension therapies, which can be as radical as blood transfusions from younger donors. Satyajit Das offers an insightful, if skeptical, perspective on this trend.
One notable byproduct of humanity’s quest to defy death—a phenomenon partly fueled by the rise of secularism—has been the emergence of a wealthy cohort in denial of mortality. A tale I often share highlights this notion:
In the Indian epic Mahabharata, Yudhisthira searches for his brothers, who have gone to fetch water. He finds them lifeless by a pond. Overcome with grief but still thirsty, he is ready to drink, but a crane interjects, proposing that Yudhisthira must first answer a series of questions.
When faced with the most challenging query, “What is the greatest wonder of the world?” Yudhisthira replies, “Every day, hour by hour, countless people die, yet the living believe they will live forever.” The crane, revealing his identity as the Lord of Death, ultimately revives the brothers following their exchange.
Satyajit Das is a former banker and the author of numerous works on financial derivatives as well as general titles, including Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006 and 2010), Extreme Money: The Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk (2011), A Banquet of Consequences RELOADED (2021), and Fortune’s Fool: Australia’s Choices (2022). His upcoming work focuses on ecotourism and humanity’s relationship with wild animals – Wild Quests (to be released on May 1, 2024).
Woody Allen famously sought to achieve immortality through substances rather than through his artistic legacy. Recently, China’s General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin (both in their 70s) were overheard discussing life expectancy and speculating that it might someday extend up to 150 years, while implying that being 70 is now considered young compared to earlier times. Meanwhile, a group of aging Silicon Valley pioneers—including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, PayPal’s Peter Thiel, Google’s Larry Page, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman—have invested heavily in anti-aging initiatives.
This predominantly male tech elite’s fixation on longevity appears to tie into their fascination with space exploration. Having significantly contributed to environmental degradation, they now aspire to escape Earth, leaving it behind for the less fortunate. Considering that habitable planets are light years away, achieving prolonged or eternal life becomes even more crucial for their journeys into the cosmos.
The drive for extended or eternal life stems from a deeply rooted belief that death can indeed be conquered. Early pursuits included the legendary ‘fountain of youth,’ referenced in Herodotus’ writings from around the 5th century BC—a mythical spring believed to restore youth through its waters. Similarly, The Epic of Gilgamesh speaks of the plant that transforms the old back into youth. Since the 19th century, however, the focus has shifted towards scientific methodologies.
In developed regions, average life expectancy now hovers around 80 years, a significant leap from the 30 to 40 years typical in 1900. This increase is attributed to declining infant mortality rates, fewer early deaths, better management of preventable illnesses, and advances in controlling chronic diseases that largely impact mid and later life. Essential factors contributing to this progress include improved living conditions such as sanitation, access to clean water, and adequate nutrition. Medical advancements have also played a crucial role, thanks to improved disease understanding, innovative therapies, vaccines, and particularly antibiotics.
However, while average life spans have risen, enhancements in life expectancy itself remain a subject of ongoing debate. In his Natural History, Pliny devotes an entire chapter to long-lived individuals. Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, reached the age of 75, while his wife, Livia, lived to be 86 or 87. Roman Emperor Tiberius passed away at 77, and Empress Suiko, Japan’s first reigning empress, died at 74. Thus, while average life spans are evident, individual life expectancy—the figure of most interest to the average person—has not dramatically changed. Increases are largely attributed to a greater number of individuals living longer lives.
Life expectancies are influenced by income disparities that dictate living conditions, sanitary practices, and healthcare access. Queen Elizabeth I perished at 70, even as her subjects averaged around half that age. A study of 2,000 ancient Roman working-class skeletons found that their average life span was merely 30 years, primarily due to trauma, hard labor, and diseases.
Today, proponents of longevity or “immortalists” employ a blend of scientific methods and, at times, dubious technologies, in their attempts to extend life or, ideally, achieve immortality, transcending the estimated biological limit of 125 years.
Present techniques vary widely and include tissue rejuvenation, molecular repair, regenerative medicine, and gene therapies. Options like organ replacement, utilizing either artificial organs or live organs—through practices like xenotransplantation, where organs or tissues are grafted between different species—are increasingly being considered. Human organs, either donated or “harvested” from young donors, also present a potential alternative for replacements. Additionally, there are methods such as plasma exchange or plasmapheresis, which targets autoimmunity, cleansing the blood via centrifugal filtering to eliminate aging and inflammatory agents. These substances are replaced with fluids containing albumin from donors and then reinfused into the body. Notably, tech owner Bryan Johnson famously injected himself with plasma from his teenage son, Talmage, though he later discontinued the practice, citing no observable benefits.
Pharmaceutical and nutritional approaches involve drugs or diets aimed at revitalizing the body and eradicating major diseases. There are now apps designed to monitor vital signs and detect pre-disease states. Coupled with health supplements and vitamins, a booming global industry surrounds purported anti-aging products, despite limited evidence supporting their claims. The side effects of numerous strategies remain uncertain at best.
A more extreme method is cryonics, where the body—or, notably, just the head—is preserved at ultra-low temperatures below −130 °C. The theory posits that individuals may be revived in the future when cures for their terminal illnesses or solutions for eternal life emerge. However, this technique carries inherent risks; there are uncertainties surrounding revival technology, and mechanical failures of the preservation systems could lead to devastating losses. The costs could reach upwards of $200,000, representing perhaps the ultimate form of consumption—where one remains oblivious to their loss, potentially forever, as they are either deceased or frozen.
Two recent publications delve into the ongoing discourse surrounding longevity from distinct angles.
Seven Decades: How We Evolved to Live Longer (2025, Princeton University Press) by anthropologist Michael Gurven argues that humans are biologically designed to live roughly 70 years, a result of the evolutionary trajectory of Homo sapiens rather than improvements in sanitation, water quality, or medical care. This notion of longevity has roots in humanity’s hunter-gatherer past, with beneficial traits for community cooperation that have emerged over the last 50,000 years.
Gurven scrutinizes dietary habits and lifestyles within indigenous societies, likening them to pre-industrial Western cultures, particularly noting the absence of chronic age-related illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and dementia. His thought-provoking chapters address themes of loneliness, the psychology of aging, and geronticide, comparing the experiences of older individuals in communal cultures with those in modern, individualistic societies. He underscores the isolation and loneliness experienced by the elderly in the West and argues that their sense of obsolescence damages their wellbeing. Unlike in indigenous societies, where retirement is largely an alien concept, older individuals are expected to contribute until their time comes.
While Gurven’s insights—gathered from a limited cultural spectrum based on his fieldwork—offer valuable perspectives, their applicability across different societies remains uncertain. The push for intergenerational cooperation and simpler living conditions, though commendable, may be challenging to realize in many modern contexts, and not everyone may agree with Gurven’s vision of a fulfilling and productive old age.
Seven Decades’ blend of vivid personal experience with scientific discourse ensures it is both enlightening and accessible. The integration of evolutionary biology, ethnography, cultural comparisons, and empirical data provides rich insights into aging, life spans, and living well.
In a more humorous take, The Immortalists: The Death of Death and the Race for Eternal Life (2025, Bodley Head) by journalist and social scientist Aleks Krotoski critiques the billionaire class’s quest for prolonged life spans, a more straightforward target. Through interviews and investigative reporting, Krotoski portrays a blend of boundless ambition, quasi-religious faith in technology, and hubris characterizing these wealthy individuals.
Aldous Huxley foresaw the intertwined beliefs of technology, spiritual optimism, youth, and fantasy in his 1939 award-winning novel After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. Drawing its title from a Tennyson poem illustrating the irony of eternal life without eternal youth, the narrative satirizes American narcissism through the character of Jo Stoyte, a millionaire who hires a scientist to uncover secrets of longevity. Like Stoyte, many in the wealthy elite perceive death as an issue that can be fixed. They are now pouring billions into efforts to reverse diseases in a manner akin to debugging a faulty computer program, a metaphor that unintentionally highlights the complexities involved, considering the state of technology today.
Intriguing theories and dubious experiments proliferate in this realm. Plans for a ‘Longevity Network State’ already exist, where the rich can biohack their bodies without governmental oversight—with AI anticipated to play a significant role in this transformation. In addition to dedicated platforms like AlphaFold, OpenAI is developing a version of its large language model designed for longevity. Advanced AI systems are projected to yield solutions that surpass human understanding.
Krotoski observes that these innovators often suffer from what he calls “engineer’s syndrome”—the belief that engineering can resolve any intricate problem. Despite their glaring lack of foundational biological knowledge, these tech magnates see life as a challenge to be solved and mistake the belief that technological advancements might allow them to evade death. For this circle, accepting a fixed lifecycle equates to defeatism, dubbed “death-ism,” which they believe prevents them from achieving their true potential. Max Chafkin’s biography of Peter Thiel, The Contrarian, illustrates Thiel’s view that acknowledging the uncertainties of the future implies yielding human agency. This mindset is deeply rooted in the very approaches that led to their initial successes. The characters’ inherent lack of self-awareness, along with their absurdity and naivety, infuses an unintentional humor into the narrative.
Though The Immortalists is captivating, it does not delve deeply into the fundamental motivations behind the billionaire technocrats’ aspirations. Their obsession with mortality disruption may stem from fortunes that cannot possibly be utilized within a single lifetime. There is a notable element of narcissism at play; as Bill Gates pointed out, “It seems pretty egocentric while we still have malaria and TB for rich people to fund projects to enhance their own longevity.”
Opportunities for extending life indefinitely will likely remain the privilege of the wealthy and potentially selected individuals, reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove’s plans for a chosen elite to foster a superior breed of humanity. The intent behind their extended lifespans remains ambiguous. In Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman, a cursed captain condemned to immortality after defying nature must eternally roam the seas. Given the deteriorating state of the physical and social world, the security of these immortalists’ futures hangs in the balance. The BBC reported that a tech billionaire’s former bodyguard advised that, in the event of an apocalypse, his first course of action would be to shoot his employer and claim control of the bunker.
As we ponder these themes, various practical, economic, and ethical aspects concerning extended lifespans emerge. Estate planning becomes convoluted: if one opts for cryogenic preservation and the possibility of being revived, what becomes of their possessions? Wealth remains trapped with delayed or absent intergenerational transfer. The implications for overall population sizes remain obscure and the burden of an aging populace on public finances is mounting. Advanced societies already grapple with demographic challenges, wherein supporting older citizenry strains both public and private resources. The ethical dimensions are equally complex: should advancements in life extension be accessible to all, or reserved for an elite few? In blunt terms, the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf argued, “Nobody is entitled to clutter up the planet forever.”
Japan, recognized as one of the oldest societies worldwide, exemplifies some issues tied to longevity, including geriatric crime. Instances of lonely, impoverished elderly individuals committing crimes for shelter, food, and companionship have emerged. One notable case involved a man in a wheelchair, armed only with a sharpened umbrella, attempting to rob a convenience store—only to tip over and require assistance to continue his act. Many elderly criminals display high reoffending rates, preferring prison life due to its comfort; thus, jails must now adapt to accommodate the needs of aging inmates.
The Roman Empire honored successful generals with public triumphs, during which a commoner would whisper “memento mori”—a reminder of their mortality—into the ear of the victor. Jorge Luis Borges, in his short story The Immortal, captured the essence of life’s meaning as being rooted in its temporality. Without the limitation of life spans, both motivation and urgency diminish. Ultimately, a fulfilling life need not be long but can embody all that is worthwhile within its frame.
© 2024 Satyajit Das All Rights Reserved
A version of this piece was published in the New Indian Express
