Panacea is Coming: 7 Lifestyles for Longevity Escape Velocity

Hey everybody, David Shapiro here with a video. So today's video is gonna be about longevity, longevity, escape velocity, and more specifically, how we're gonna live when we live forever. So welcome to Longevity Lifestyles. Now before we get started, I need to give you a little bit of context. What are the assumptions that I'm making and what are the trends that I'm paying attention to? So first and foremost, the primary prediction is that panacea is coming. And there's three primary trends that I'm paying attention to when I make this assertion. First, AI drug discovery. If you watched my recent video about orphan drugs and the FDA approving the first AI-generated orphan drug for rare diseases, granted it's not fully approved, but it is in phase two clinical trials. So basically this is a sign of the ramp up to AI discovering all drugs for all diseases. Now that's obviously a prediction, it's not guaranteed, it's not a foregone conclusion, but it is a step in the right direction. Number two is rejuvenation therapies. Some of the biggest universities in the world, Harvard, MIT, and a few others, have been releasing papers recently about whole body rejuvenation, cellular rejuvenation, chemical cocktails, and these are things that do not require genetic engineering. These are just medicines that can be taken, sometimes orally, and in other cases, via injection or other vectors of administration, that create rejuvenation, basically a legitimate, real-life fountain of youth, and this is not just on mouse models. Some of these are on human models, meaning that we are very, very close to having general-purpose medicines that, one, are cheap and easy and accessible, that also promise to move us closer to indefinite lifespan. And then finally, number three is using AI and the sensing, detection, prevention, and modeling of diseases. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and so if you can detect and prevent the disease, you've probably seen some of the trends out there lately of AI being able to predict Alzheimer's several decades in advance, being able to calculate exactly where the cancer is or what's wrong with your brain just with a few drops of blood, that sort of stuff. So these three trends combined, between AI drug discovery, rejuvenation therapies, and then finally the sensing, detection, prevention, and modeling of diseases, this is what I mean when I say panacea is coming, and AI is the medical panacea. Okay, so with that assumption, with those trends and extrapolations in mind, here's what I predict is gonna happen to set the stage for longevity lifestyles. Number one, indefinite lifespan. We are ramping up to longevity escape velocity. Some people have asked me if we're already there, and I kind of think that we are, because when you look at the definition of longevity escape velocity, it is that for every year of life, you gain more than a year of life expectancy. Now, as some people have pointed out right now, particularly because of the pandemic and depression and other reasons, life expectancy has not increased, as particularly for young people, and it's actually still going down. So technically, it might be a little while before we feel the effects, but with compounding returns and acceleration of AI, I suspect that within five to 10 years, we will definitely have really concrete data about longevity escape velocity. And honestly, within 10 years, I suspect everyone's gonna look back at this video and be like, wow, Dave, that was really quaint. This either aged really well, or I completely undersold and underpredicted how much it's gonna be. So we'll see, time will tell. Number two, post-labor economics. So this is something that I'm constantly talking about. Basically, as AI ramps up and it gets better at solving things like medical issues and disease prevention, those improvements are going to be commensurate with other improvements, which are basically just going to invalidate the need for human labor. And so then, part of the longevity lifestyles is gonna be let's combine longevity with post-labor, and let's see how we're gonna live. Number three, I think that hospitals are gonna collapse. Most diseases, particularly in affluent, industrialized nations, are age-related. I don't know about you, but from the time that I was born, the next time that I went to the hospital was in my 30s. So I went more than three decades without going to the hospital. And if everyone is locked into a 22-year-old body or 25-year-old body, that level of health and vigor, most people might never need to go to the hospital unless they get into a car accident or to give birth. And because of that, I think that hospitals as a business model are just gonna go away. And so I suspect that the few hospitals that remain are basically gonna be government services, just because the margins are gonna be too thin and it won't make sense. Now, what we might do is subsidize private industry, because we're in the free market theory, and so rather than the government providing the service, it might just be that the government writes a check so that the business is profitable, not sure. Number four, and I think that if you look at Reddit and the subreddit r slash Suburban Hell, I think this is probably the best news for everyone, is that suburbs are gonna collapse. And so the reason is, as people live longer, we're gonna have fewer children, because what's the rush? We're gonna have different lifestyles. But also, with post-labor economics, suburbs are really optimized for being close to the city where the jobs are, but if you're not working in the city, then you don't need to be close to the city, you don't need to be within commuting distance. And also, they're optimized for single-family homes, and if you're not having children, you don't need to live in the suburbs. So I suspect that suburbs are gonna go the way of the dinosaur and we will look back, maybe not so fondly, on that period of American history and say, wow, suburbs were a terrible idea. I'm glad that died a quick death. Again, this might age poorly, we'll see. Okay, now that the stage has been set, let's talk about longevity lifestyles. All right, so number one, urban socialites. So urban socialites are the people that want to live in the cities and stay in the cities forever. Basically, imagine that you've got a 25-year-old body and you just wanna live it up day in, day out. You wanna go to concerts, you wanna go to raves, you wanna go to clubs. I remember I went out on a date with a woman and went dancing or whatever. I'm a terrible dancer, so didn't do that again. But I went back to her place to meet her roommate and stuff and she's like, yeah, whatever, I'm not interested in anything getting tied down, because I'm young and hot. And I was just like, that is, when I made this slide, I was like, that's who I was thinking of, was that girl and her roommate that were just like, we're young, we're living it up, we're gonna enjoy the time while our bodies are at our peak attractiveness and that sort of thing. So this is fast-paced life, it's all about experiences, it's all about getting out there and meeting a lot of people. Now, I'm not saying that people are gonna be urban socialites forever, but rather than just doing it in your 20s, you might be able to do it for several decades. Number two, rural hermits. So this is more my speed, I am a hobbit. These are people who just wanna decamp to the countryside to smoke their pipe weed and read books and eat good food, maybe have a garden and brew some ale, basically live like Bilbo or Frodo, their ideal life out in the countryside. Now, there's a bunch of different ways, obviously not everyone's gonna wear a waistcoat and read old Victorian books. Some people might do it for spiritual reasons, some people might do homesteading or whatever, but the idea is that proximity to nature, peace and quiet, solitude, that sort of thing. Minimalism could be another reason that people wanna decamp to the countryside. Number three, so a slightly alternative model for the countryside is social communes. So obviously urban life is not everyone's speed, that's not my speed, so this is probably closer to what I would wanna do, where rather than grouping together for work, because that's why we cluster around cities right now, today at least, some people cluster in cities for social reasons, but by and large, cities are there because they are a nexus, a hub of work, and also social hubs. But imagine that you want community life but not in the urban, dense urban environment. America and a lot of other places have a lot of open space, and so because of the high cost of cities, I suspect that particularly as post-labor economics ramps up and people need stuff to do, I think that small towns and planned neighborhoods out in the countryside are just gonna be a thing. So whether or not it's a full-on commune or at least just a small planned community that is very community-centric, I think that this is just gonna be a thing, and I actually predict that a lot of people are gonna live like this, where it's just like, oh hey, here's a little town, it's a cluster of 100 houses, and everything is focused on creating community centers, because people aren't gonna be working. So you're gonna be in your house, you're gonna get bored, and we're just gonna plan small towns and villages around social life. The next one, globetrotting adventures. So there's a lot of people who do this today and aspire to do this. This is like what the influencer trend and a lot of YouTubers, there are so many people out there that this is the life that they aspire to, where they just wanna travel, they wanna document their experiences, they wanna become an influencer, they wanna become a YouTuber, or TikTok, as the young people use today, Instagram, that sort of thing. But imagine that you're gonna be young forever, and you don't need to work because we have post-labor economics, you don't need a social media following to do this, you just go do it, and you do it for the sake of the adventure, from if you wanna go climb every mountain, or you wanna visit every city in Greece, or whatever it is that you wanna do. I have friends that have been to Vietnam, Cambodia, China. One of my friends back in the day, he just gets a plane ticket, goes somewhere with no plan, and he ended up on a fishing barge going up the river in Vietnam, and all he had to survive for a week was a jar of peanut butter. I'm like, dude, you are insane. So I was thinking of him when I made this slide. But if you're young and healthy forever, why not? And if you don't need to work, why not? Go for it. The next one, natal pods. So I actually came up with this idea when I was writing my novel about utopian future and dystopian future and all that sort of stuff. And I realized, if we have low birth rates, and children need a village, the term is it takes a village to raise a child, we don't really have that today, particularly in America. Some cultures do have multi-generational homes. When I was growing up, our neighbors were a Hispanic family, and so there was five generations living in one house. So they brought the village with them. But we don't know how to do that. At least us white people don't know how to do that in America. So what I suspect is we're probably gonna start doing it on purpose, and we actually already are. So there's what's called mamunes right now, which is basically a bunch of single mothers get together and rent a big house so that they raise their families together. So just take that out to a logical conclusion where we do it more on purpose, but also because there's gonna be fewer children. In order to get children living in a way that is more natural and healthy for them. Because again, if most people are having children, you're gonna need to deliberately create the environment where children will have friends to play with. Because you probably noticed today, at least I have noticed that in many suburbs, there might only be one house with children on the street. And that's not good for children. And so natal pods, the idea of deliberately creating that village. Eternal gamers. So my wife and I, one of the things that we do is we love playing video games together. A bunch of my friends, they're all gamers. That's actually like, we have a discord that one of the things that we do is just coordinate gaming, right? And so one thing that I suspect is that if you have post-labor economics and you have indefinite lifespan, like there are gonna be people that they're just gonna live for the game, man. Like especially with VR, AR, some people are expecting full-dive VR. I've mentioned that before and I still have some reservations. But I'm coming around on like, you know what? If your physical life is taken care of, why not? Just go all out and treat your game life like it's almost like a second life. Or maybe it's your real life. Maybe it's more important. Now obviously, movies like Ready Player One show that as kind of a dystopian outcome, which that's something to be mindful of. Because if the company who makes the games and the VR controls your life, that's not good. But I don't think it's gonna, I hope it doesn't turn out that way. Anyways, I do suspect that there are some people that like that nostalgia factor of like, you know, playing Halo all night with your buddies when you're like 12, we're gonna have that. And some people are gonna have that for the rest of eternity. And then the last one finally is Master Craftsman. This is something that like, obviously you don't have to pick just one. You might be a Master Craftsman out in the countryside. You might be a Master Craftsman in a commune, whatever. But this is where, because one thing that people talk about is like, oh, well, if you lose your job and you're gonna live forever, what do you do? Well, I mean, a lot of people have hobbies and talents and skills that they wanna hone, right? Like I know guys that they rebuild Mustangs, right? You know, they just go find a barn find of a Mustang, rebuild it, clean it up, you know, either sell it, keep it, or put it on show or whatever. And then they do it again. There are sculptors, there are writers. This is actually how my wife and I met, we're both writers. If we didn't have to work and we didn't have to worry about our health or anything, we would probably just write. We would like research history, write sci-fi, write high fantasy, and that would be like our shtick. That would be what we do, you know, in terms of challenging ourselves and stretching ourselves mentally. I might probably still do YouTube, I don't know. But we would see. So anyways, this is a set of potential longevity lifestyles to kind of get the gears turning in terms of how you might live in the future if you don't have to worry about getting old or sick and you don't have to worry about money. All right, so in conclusion, there are some potential problems with all this. Number one is gerontocracy. So if you're not familiar with the word gerontocracy, it means rule by the elderly. And if everyone lives forever, you know, there's no reason that like Supreme Court justices would ever retire. So basically, we're gonna need universal term limits for all government offices, which we should have that anyways before people are living forever. But once people are living forever, we absolutely 100% need universal term limits. I think that's a pretty, that's like a no-brainer solution. So, you know, whatever. Number two, wealth consolidation. So, you know, we have billionaires today. If people have forever to accumulate more wealth and power, then they're gonna be trillionaires and then quadrillionaires. So, you know, and the more money you have, the easier it is to consolidate more power. So the solution to this, I think, is also pretty simple, which is more wealth taxes and more property taxes, which that's gonna be necessary just to keep the economy going. Because if all the money ends up in the hands of like, you know, the top 10,000 wealthiest people on the planet, what's it doing just sitting there, right? One of the principles of neoliberalism is that money that's just sitting there isn't doing the world any good because it's stagnant. It's just static wealth that's sitting there doing nothing. So wealth taxes and property taxes to keep things in circulation, or, you know, there's other ways to incentivize that circulation, but wealth taxes and property taxes are a mechanistic way to force that. Number three is cultural stagnation. So in universities and academia, there is this little quip that says, science advances one funeral at a time. And that is because people often kind of get stuck in their ways. But this is partially, I think, biological because there's this, this is not a real medical term, but it's called calcification. And so this is a popular thing in chess because chess is super, it's intensely mentally rigorous, and you can tell when you lose your mental flexibility. I mentioned in a recent video that I've started feeling myself kind of calcifying, which it's really kind of sad, but like, you know, you hit your mental peak, you know, 25 to 35, so I'm just after my mental peak, and it's all downhill from here, and that really sucks. So what I'm hoping is that some of these rejuvenation therapies that we come up with also include mental rejuvenation. Because imagine that you're mentally physical, mentally and physically healthy and flexible for eternity. So maybe if rejuvenation therapies keep us all young, mentally and physically, we will avoid that cultural and scientific stagnation. Another problem is demographic collapse. So people are still divided on as to whether or not we're gonna end up with overpopulation or underpopulation. One thing that I like to point out, though, is that all advanced nations are facing demographic collapse. And if people are gonna live forever, then there's even less pressure on having children. So basically what I think that's gonna happen is that we're gonna achieve population equilibrium because death rates are gonna go down and birth rates are gonna go down. So personally, I don't think it's gonna be an issue, but we can incentivize population equilibrium with policies. Basically, if birth rates get too low, you hand out incentives, like say, hey, if you have children, then we'll give you a nicer house or we'll give you a bigger stipend for a nicer house. This is something that some of the comments have said. It's like, oh, well, if you just incentivize people to have children, they're just gonna keep having children, which that's the welfare queen myth, which wasn't really true in the first place. But you can change policy based on what the population demographics are. Now, but the thing is, is if people are living a long time, you might actually wanna disincentivize having children. So that might mean that you actually don't incentivize people having children at all. You don't give them any additional money to have children. Who knows, we'll see. And then finally, number five, regulatory capture, which is that governments and businesses collude to ensure that they have all the power and that they focus on wealth generation and profit reaping just for themselves. And basically, they focus entirely on wealth rather than this other dream that we all have. And so the current model of economics basically says, the idea is that we should generate wealth at all costs. We should seek GDP growth. This growth-only mindset completely excludes quality of life and other metrics. And so basically, what we need to do is come up with a new common dream, a new common image for the future in order to work towards that. So to wrap up, here's my call to action for you. Number one, advocate for post-labor economics. I talk about it all the time on my channel. It is my jam. Basically, the tenets of post-labor economics is one, actively work to automate away human jobs. Let's get humans out of the workforce. Because why? None of us want to work menial jobs anyways, so let's get out of that. Let's just make that a deliberate policy goal. Number two, redistribute wealth. Obviously, if we're not working, we can't demand wealth from our labor anymore, so we're just gonna need to redistribute it. And again, that's not like socialism or communism. That is just, it's gonna be necessary through some mechanisms to keep the economy going. Because if we don't, then wealth is just gonna pile up in the companies and the wealthy people, and the rest of us aren't gonna have anything, and the economy stalls out. It's just not good. And then number three for post-labor economics, advocate for AI as a public good, which it kind of already is, because most of the research driving AI is already open source. But as AI advances, we need to ensure that the government treats it more as a public good, and that's gonna help drive us towards this post-labor economic model that I've presented. Number two, champion AI in business. Like I said, automate everything. This is one of the reasons that I consult with clients, is I help them with adopting AI, learning about AI, investing in AI, that sort of thing. And so by championing AI in business, I'm helping drive them to that, because one of the specific things that I help my clients with is either headcount reduction, which is like, okay, how do you get people, how do you create tools that mean that you don't have to hire anyone else, or that sort of thing. Now, that being said, most of my clients have told their employees like, hey, our goal is not to fire anyone, but you need to learn the AI tools. So that's where we're going right now. But in the long run, I think we should explicitly try and just get rid of human labor as much as possible. And finally, number three, vote accordingly. The conversation is still very much couched in old school capitalism and old school neoliberalism. So we need to start the conversation around post-labor economics. We need to find people who believe in it and people who will push this narrative. Then double down on AI in medicine and research. AI is the panacea. So remember, if you want this future, then we need more AI, we need it in research, we need it in healthcare. And victory is possible with a common dream, which is why we're here today. So thanks for watching. My question to you for the comments is, how will you live? Which of these models of longevity lifestyles resonates with you? And which ones did I miss? I wanna know how you wanna live, because I came up with these in a vacuum, but obviously this is just seven general boilerplate ideas. Tell me in the comments how you wanna live. All right, have a good one, cheers.