Erstellt am: 7. 10. 2016 - 18:00 Uhr
Life at 100
Reality Check Special
Longevity, living to 100 and beyond, Saturday 8.10.16 at 12 midday and afterwards for 7 days on demand.
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In a new book, the 100-Year Life, authors Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott spell out an interesting prospect:
"A child born in the west today has a more than 50 per cent chance of living to be over 105…"
Bloomsbury
I wanted to know more about this potential 100 year old life. Lynda told me:
"A lot of people want to know about how much money they have and how much they have saved up. And that is an important aspect for living a long life. But we think that there are three intangible things that are maybe even more important. The first is: have you developed the skills and networks that really help you to be productive. Secondly, are you really building your vitality, your deep friendships with others. And finally, do you know how to change? On our website 100yearlife.com we invite you to take a test and find out if you are building or depleting your very precious intangible assets."
In fact, I took the diagnostic test and at the end it gave me some conclusions about where I could improve my prospects as I move through the decades.
I was also curious about what life could be like in 100 years’ time for babies born today and the 50% of them that will be celebrating their 100th birthday! So I turned to futurologist, Dr Ian Pearson:
Steve: Ian, what about technology. Will our 100 year olds, in the year 2116, still be sitting in front of a keyboard and screen and doing what we tend to do every day online?
Ian: I don’t think they will. In the year 2116, I think people will be tele-pathically connected to each other by a network. We’ll have implants inside our brains and we’ll be communicating in telepathy with others. People may not even talk with each other. And you’ll have access to the knowledge that’s on the internet just by thinking about it.
But the 50% estimate, I would dispute that and I think it is likely that almost everybody will live to the age of 100 in one shape or form because in the next 50 or 60 years, we’ll already have a connection to the network from the human brain that will be so good you could back up your human mind and when your body dies you still have an electronic copy of your yourself running on in cyberspace. So even people who die biologically will be able to carry on electronically
Steve: What about that early 22nd Century. Will it be full of dynamic travel? Will we all be on hover boards? Will we be flying between Vienna and Australia in record time?
Ian: Well, one hundred years ago, people thought we would have now a transatlantic tunnel which looked similar to today’s ideas for the hyper loop. So if this idea has been around for so long, maybe by 2116, it may be a common way of travelling. I think people will travel a lot by using androids at the other end. If you could imagine going to Australia for a holiday to pick up a hire car. Well, electronically, you could send your mind to Australia and inhabit an android there. And it will save you the "bother" of ever going on a flight. So people may communicate will travel via androids to house their mind. It really will be that easy to link your mind to the machine and to use a "hire body" as you use a hire car today. Getting around might be virtual most of the time.
Steve: How will climate change in the year 2116 affect our 100 year olds & those younger than them?
Ian: I don’t think it’ll be that different from the climate we have today. Scientists are now suggesting we are heading into a few decades of global cooling because of what is happening with the sun. And then in the 2nd half of the century if we are still producing lots of carbon dioxide, warming may pick up again. But actually a lot of that will just cancel out the cooling. At the end of that period, we won’t be using fossil fuels or any of that kind of fuel to get electricity. We’ll simply be getting the power we need from fusion or solar power so we won’t producing any.
Steve: Do you think we’ll be a more caring society in one hundred years’ time?
Ian: We may well be. But there may be other types of conflicts. A lot of people are talking about going super human, giving your brain a boost and adding a few extras zeros to your IQ by connecting yourself to the network or to ultra-smart artificial intelligence. We’ll also have some super smart robots running around, so we’ll have several varieties of human beings and some extremely clever robots. That will make for new kinds of conflicts that we don’t have today. Ordinary humans may be quite restricted in what they can do in a society which is surrounded by super humans!