Using Tech Headlines To Inspire Fiction: What Will Be The True Impact of Life Extension?

With their debut novel, To Live or Let Live, hitting shelves in just a few weeks, SJ Vivant (who chooses to remain somewhat anonymous to avoid encouraging reader preconceptions) discusses the inspiration behind the story—the ethics and morality behind life extension technologies—and how they created a seemingly perfect world where everything comes at a cost.

You’ve most likely noticed the increasing frequency of news articles about billionaires who, in keeping with a philosophy that nothing is ever enough, are pumping vast amounts of cash into research to remaining young and extending their lifespans. What I feel is lacking is any discussion about the possible and likely consequences should these efforts be successful—especially as history is strewn with examples of technologies we introduced with great excitement and little proper thought for their wider impact.

Life Extension (LE) is already here, if only in the news at present, and I believe we’ll be reading and hearing much more about it in the future. But are we sleepwalking into another technology-created crisis? My new novel, To Live or Let Live, is set in a future where technology has enabled the rich world to double the human lifespan. When this technology becomes widely available, the ensuing impacts on population growth and the environment force governments to introduce drastic measures which hugely reduce human freedoms. I think we need to start the conversation now, asking about the foreseeable consequences of life extension, while there’s still a chance of influencing both the development of these technologies, their implementation, and the frameworks/legislation that will govern them.

The real-life cases of life extension tech

Before we go into the future possibilities, some present realities. You could fill a book with all the billionaires who have invested in LE businesses and all the reported breakthroughs, so here are just a few examples:

• In 2021, CNBC reported that “Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s Larry Page, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Palantir’s Peter Thiel are just a few of the super-rich who have taken a keen interest in the fast-emerging field of longevity.”
• The Daily Telegraph recently reported that scientists have discovered an “anti-ageing holy grail” that makes mice live 25 percent longer and delays both the physical manifestations of ageing and age-related diseases.

• The self-styled “biohacker”, Bryan Johnson (pictured, source), is clocking up regular press articles about his $2 million per year routine, including injecting himself with his teenage son’s blood plasma in an attempt to reverse his natural age and prolong his life. 
• And on 22 July 2024, Lord Evgeny Lebedev said in the House of Lords: “We are standing at the precipice of a medical revolution catalysed by medical monitoring devices, genomics and the understanding of what drives ageing. Britain can become a global leader in longevity science, and capturing this beachhead would benefit us both socially and economically.”

The latest UN projections suggest we will hit a peak global population of 10.3 billion people in 60 years’ time, in 2084. That’s assuming life expectancy continues rising in line with current trends. But what will happen to population numbers if/when scientists are able to increase our lifespans, first by 25 per cent and then, perhaps, by double or even more? 

How long will it take for these advances to be available for the average person in the developed world, and beyond? And, if/when they do, what will living extended lives mean for our societies, environment and the individual when hundreds of millions, then billions, of people are using them? 

Exploring the political scientific in fiction

To Live or Let Live is set in what, at first sight, seems to be a near-perfect society. There’s next-to-no crime, the climate has been tamed and environment is reverting to a cleaner, more natural state. We can live to 150. But everything comes at a cost, and the younger generation pay the highest price: In line with global population treaties, in the rich world life extension medication can only be taken with contraceptives, and you must agree to give it up to be able to have a child.

When, not if, we crack the code and can slow – or even reverse – aging, like any new technology, it will initially be limited in supply and expensive. But it’s not too much of a reach to imagine that, for many of those who do get to live extended lives, there’ll be personal, psychological and sociological sequelae. 

In the future my book envisages, governments initially suppressed news of the LE scientific breakthrough as they feared its impact on the population and environment, before the coverup is exposed and they’re forced to offer it to everyone. What sort of impact might doubling the human lifespan have in the real world?

Well, have you yet reached an age where you’re starting to find it hard to keep up with social and technological change, or do you have a friend or relative in that position? It’s tough enough when you live to 80 – imagine having to deal with a further 70-odd years of new ideas, art and technologies. 

What about the mental health impact?

And are our minds built for a longer life? Andrew, one of the characters in To Live or Let Live, is a world-famous scientist who feels his extended life lacks purpose and seems to be suffering from a ‘Life Extension Related Psychological Syndrome’, in which sufferers are ready for the next phase of their lives but are unable to move on because of delayed biological ageing. Current LE evangelists seem to act as if there’ll only be upsides to their advances – but significant mental health impacts may well result and need to be considered.

Another character, Rose – a widow in her mid-thirties – is dealing with the prospect of living to 150 without the love of her life; Lorraine chose a long life over motherhood, only to be diagnosed with a late-onset, severe reaction to LE medication. She will age and die both faster than her peers, and childless – will people perhaps suffer similar fates in our long-living future world?

In our real world, society is breaking into small units and echo chambers. We’re currently in the middle of a loneliness epidemic, made worse by the pandemic and advances in home working and entertainment. We’re still trying to understand what role technology has had in provoking or exacerbating this upsurge in loneliness. 

What will a slower-aging population do to socializing, social cohesion and society, especially if LE is not equally distributed? What will increasing the human lifespan by, say, 25% do to our working lives, our pensions and the economy? And If we can live until we’re 150, will we still be able to retire before we’re 70, or will working past 120 become the norm? 

What about global resources? At current trends we’ll need a lot more; with LE therapies available to billions, there’ll be even less of everything to go round.

(Photo by Daniel Fazio on Unsplash)

To Live or Let Live is written on the premise that, if humanity survives the climate crisis and is relatively unscathed 100 years in the future, we will have technologies to control the climate and clean the environment. But extending the human lifespan will upend all our pre-existing calculations, forcing the powers-that-be back to the drawing board. The fixes they come up with may not be all that palatable. And that’s why I say we need to start talking now about the possible and likely impacts of LE treatments and technologies.

S J Vivant’s first novel, To Live or Let Live, is published by Wherry Publishing on 24 September 2024