THE ECONOMICS OF IMMORTALITY
Ananya Warrier
FY B. Sc. Economics (2024-2028)
Reading Time – 6 mins
Is Immortality Even A Possibility
Once people enter the upper echelons of society, where they are rich beyond belief, a new fear is unlocked – that they will soon meet God. After all, the median age of a billionaire today is 67, with forty-two per cent of billionaires being over 70. This new-found fear often becomes uppermost in one’s thoughts – how do I delay aging, and even death? Can I avoid it altogether?
This is where gerontology comes into play: the study of aging has now become intertwined with the study of immortality, with bigger names like Aubrey de Grey – who treats aging as a ‘disease’ that can be cured – and Bryan Johnson – who has already claimed to slow down his rate of aging from 1 to 0.64 and celebrates his birthday every nineteen months – at the forefront of “aging research.”
While most of humanity have toyed with the idea of immortality – most notably in literature – the idea that this could soon be a reality, just within our grasp, is quite an exciting but also daunting prospect. But how would society look in a world where most people have no end for the foreseeable future?
A Thought Experiment
Imagine a world where there was a machine, or a miracle pill, that allowed a person to live for as long as they wanted, by using it on a subscription basis. Let us make a few assumptions:
- This machine or pill isn’t in the control of a few billionaires, but rather is used by all who wish to live longer. Hence, it is a non-exclusionary and non-rivalrous good.
- To subscribe to this machine or pill is entirely voluntary.
- Anyone can stop their subscription at any time.
This new invention would, undoubtedly, affect every facet of life – how we work, how our resources are allocated, how we even look at life.
Our View of Time
Time constraints – such as choosing and specialising in just one field at the tender age of eighteen – wouldn’t really exist now, since the usual model of school, college, enter the work field, work, save and retire would dissolve. One wouldn’t be pressured to pick a discipline or line of work and stick to it: in fact, our careers itself would be more akin to a broad journey, seeing as we’d have more time to explore and understand a vast number of topics. This would mean that rather than specializing in just one niche field, people would be able to specialize in more than one field. This could mean increased efficiency, but would also increase competition for the same job – if one man can do three tasks with equal skill, why hire three different people? Hence, competition would increase further as fewer and fewer jobs would be left available. Then there is the fact that people would stay in jobs a lot longer, and people in positions of power could retain that seat for hundreds of years. This could even mean that the natural flow of life is stretched further – youngsters will stay in school longer, thus increasing the age one would usually enter the job market.
Imagine if people from the 18th century were still directing us – progress would slow down almost to a halt! We wouldn’t have been able to come out of the war-mongering mentality that was more prevalent then, and society might still be divided into rigid social stratas. In many cases, the only thing that brings about genuine social change is …well, death.
Resource Allocation
Many social scientists have already claimed that the earth has or will soon reach its limits of carrying capacity, with most estimates capping off at 9 – 10 billion people. How would resources be divided then, one might ask? In a world where people already have alarming gaps of inequality, the gap could be further exacerbated – the Gini index today stands at an average of 0.62 on a scale of 0 to 1 – since people who have the resources to live a higher quality of life would advance ahead, and people who don’t have the resources falling behind. Imagine living forever, which would increase the likelihood of amassing greater wealth. This cycle of inequality could worsen to heights never seen before.
The state of income inequality today
A possible answer to this could be innovation. Many reports already suggest that whenever humanity faces scarcity, innovation has always come to the rescue. But can human ingenuity really solve this problem?
Overpopulation
While it may be best for individuals to live forever, it might be collectively disastrous. This is known as the “tragedy of the commons” – acting in their apparent self-interest, individuals destroy a common good.
What measures would need to be put in place to ensure that we do not burden the earth? While one could argue that since immortality doesn’t mean invincibility, deaths would still occur, albeit it would be negligible.
So Who Wants to Be Immortal?
All of these problems would suggest that immortality is a situation no-one is too keen to live through – except, of course, billionaires who finance such studies and research, usually for their own gains. A common sentiment amongst billionaires is that they refuse to accept limitations, and believe that all problems can be solved via innovation and technology, most of which they already own. However, this research is divided into two groups – those that believe we can live at least indefinitely, and those who believe that we can be healthy and have a better quality of life, free from disease and decay, until we die.
Despite the very interesting thought problem I tried to answer here, I still firmly believe that immortality is more a bane than a boon, and – as a wise man once said – “Growing old and dying is what gives meaning, and beauty, to the fleeting span of a human life. It’s precisely because we age, and die, that our lives have value and nobility.”