With the magic of modern medicine, average life expediencies across the board have increased to levels only a few decades ago people thought would be impossible. In the US alone since 1960 we have added almost an additional decade to the average life expectancy and drastically reduced infant mortality rates. There are many interesting ideas I could explore with the long term effects of expanded life for most, but I want to talk about how although we are living longer, our bodies still have not evolved to the point where life past a certain point is worth living.
In many ways we have cheated the reaper and saved lives that would been lost to natural causes and people are gaining extra years because of it. This depends on every individual since people are different and may be in much better condition compared to someone else their age. However, even if we fix someone to the point where they wont die, we have a few vital organs that wont last the journey, primarily the brain. Many people believe the next step is artificial organs, which even if we did have, were still a very long way from being able to have artificial brains, which are a weak point for most people.
Dementia is a massive problem not only among the elderly, but even the middle aged. There have been some improvements on how we deal with it ,but to a point we still are in the dark with fixing the causes. Our bodies never evolved to have the brain last so long because it didnt matter in the long run, most people wouldnt live to the age where their brain was the first thing to fail. Now that we are coming up to that horizon, its going to take a massive effort and concentration to try and sustain mental competency in the elderly.
I dont expect our average life expectancy to start slowing, in fact I think we could potentially see things vamp up as new techniques are perfected. So the question of how do we keep people in the right frame of mind, only becomes more important. A life with dementia where you dont know who anyone is and your mind is slowly degenerating is not a life worth living, its a horrible existence for the people living and their families. If we are going to live to this point, we need to focus on the brain and ways to make it last longer.
I have no doubt that eventually the solution will come and science will find a way, but it could still be a long way off. I wouldnt expect anything significant to come in the next few decades, but I could be wrong. It would definitely be a turning point for human civilization if a way is found to not only preserve the brain , but also find a way to produce it artificially. At this point the biggest flaw in our evolution will have been fixed.
-Calaber24p