Medical re in the field of stem therapy has progressed in and bounds in recent years. Furthermore, although heart disease and cancer are still wide in developed countries, many ling scientists agree that within a couple of decades, a c for them will be found. This ra the prospect of leng life expectancy far beyond its cu level – indeed it is not too far-f to say that barring accidents, immortality will soon be a real possibility.
You will need, however, to ful two basic conditions in order to live forever. Firstly, you must have good genes; secondly you must be rich. There may come a time when laws will be passed to allow people to choose the genetic make up of their children. For the moment, though, such an idea str us as horrific, so only those who are naturally healthy genetically will be able to ben fully from the sort of medical treatment currently being developed.
The second condition is also obvious. The cost of replacing vital organs whenever they break down is huge, so unless the state decides to make the treatment freely available to all, it will only be by the very rich. Either way, it seems unlikely that developing countries could have access to it, unless the world economy, which is dri by competition and the search for profit, changes dramatically and puts more em on sharing.
Another obvious consequence of immortality is demographic. Our planet can conceivably sus a population of nine or ten billion, but if a small percentage of those decide that they want to live forever, the earth will la both the room and the resources to allow that. So while people in developing countries would carry on raising children who might have to struggle to g access to basic com such as water, those in the developed world would be seeking to ext their life, in comfortable surroundings, for as long as they possibly could.
Do you think such a future is really possible? What, in your view, will be the consequences of medical research? Does the idea of immortality ap to you?