The Urgent Case for Anti-Aging and Age-Reversal Biotechnologies
Why increasing healthspans will help solve, not worsen, the fertility crisis.
Why I'm Doing This
As this is the first post to my Substack, I’ll try to convey my primary objective regarding this project. In one sentence, it is to spread awareness of the urgent, arguably existential, societal need for anti-aging and age-reversal biotechnologies.
Secondarily, I want to provide information about some of the lesser known but potentially transformative biotechnologies that slow or marginally reverse biological age. Many of these therapies have surprisingly solid scientific support but are disadvantaged by the fact that they originated outside of the US and the Anglosphere.
Returning to the first goal, however, promoting anti-aging and age-reversal biotechnologies, we need to briefly review some history to understand where we are now.
The Overpopulation Hysteria
One of the most important phenomena of our era is the simultaneous and dramatic fall of fertility rates along with increases in lifespans. This has resulted in a shrinking cohort of young people and a growing population of older people. This phenomenon is often called the 'flipping of the demographic pyramid,' though scientists typically refer to it as the 'demographic transition.'"
When I was a young economics student in the early 1970s, there was an obsession among elites with the prospect of catastrophic overpopulation. The concept of population outstripping resources was not new, having originated in 1798 by Thomas Malthus, a priest in the Church of England.
In 1968, however, Paul Ehrlich’s book, "The Population Bomb," stoked fears to new levels. Ehrlich warned that it was probably too late to prevent the starvation deaths of hundreds of millions in the 70s, which would lead to the end of modern technological society. Despite the forecast of inevitable doom, he and his collaborators proposed mandatory reductions in birth rates and general transfers of power and resources to governments to accomplish zero population growth.
The Demographic Transition
Fortunately, I wasn’t attending an elite university where the crusade to reduce births was widely embraced. In fact, due to my family background, I didn’t know there were elite universities. As a result, I was introduced by an economics professor to the work of the eminent demographer Warren Thompson, the sociologist who recognized and named the demographic transition. This was observable natural reduction in birthrates that accompanies higher standards of living and longer lifespans. Eventually, extrapolating Thompson’s trends, depopulation would arrive.
This was not obscure research, by the way. Thompson’s book “Population Problems," first published in 1930, served as the standard demographics textbook prior to the overpopulation panic. Nor were Thompson’s projections based on theoretical handwaving. His conclusions were based on available fertility and population data.
For me, Thompson’s research served as seminal instruction. At that point in my life, I still had some degree of respect for media, government, and other institutions like the UN that were pushing the overpopulation narrative. I think most people did.
On the other hand, anybody with a basic grasp of first and second derivatives could see that birth rates in the developed world were approaching sub-replacement rate levels. Moreover, increasing standards of living were producing the same reductions in birthrates all over the world.
I recognize that few journalists or politicians are exposed to even rudimentary calculus, but the concepts were really quite simple. Briefly, first derivatives tell us if something is increasing or decreasing and how fast. The second derivative tells us if that rate of change is itself changing, and if so, in which direction.
Despite the fact that parts of the world were already experiencing below replacement birthrates, most people in positions of influence failed to see the coming depopulation. This probably had something to do with the fact that total populations were still growing, even where birthrates were low.
It’s About Deaths, Not Births
The root of their error was the assumption that population growth was being driven by births, exemplified by the cover of Ehrlich’s book which had a baby portrayed as a bomb complete with fuse. In reality, population growth at the time was actually due to lower deaths and longer lifespans.
Once again, this is simple math. Births - deaths = total population.
Since death rates were falling faster than birth rates, populations were growing in most places. It is ironic, though, that the same older people who were blaming babies were the actual cause of population growth.
Even at the height of the overpopulation panic, population data were telling us that the world would eventually face a very real and very serious problem. Birthrates in the US and Europe had begun falling fast before WWII. Post conflict, returning soldiers and their families made up for lost time, producing the baby boomers who have maxed out various nations’ credit cards, but the long-term trend of falling fertility remained constant.
Lots of people cheered those falling birthrates, not realizing that it was dramatically reducing the support they would need in their old age, either through familial care or taxes for social programs. Technically, they were promoting the degradation of the old-age dependency ratio (OADR), the ratio of working younger workers, contributors, to older retired people, dependents.
Celebrating the Destruction of the Contributor Class
For those few who understood the consequence of the demographic trends, the message was clear. We would eventually reach the point where the number of young people would be too small to bear the burden of a rapidly growing aged population, a very serious problem indeed.
Instead, the intelligentsia focused on overpopulation and various other largely imaginary problems. On several occasions when I was speaking to groups about this problem, my debunking of the need to reduce birthrates generated anger and outrage. I was an overpopulation denier.
Today, however, we’re firmly into the collapse of the OADR. The following chart is based on European data but it is more or less the same in the US and elsewhere.
This continuing degradation of the OADR is unsustainable and it will impose impossible burdens on younger people. Eventually, it will lead to major reductions in benefits if not failures of social programs for the aged, including Social Security. Though I’m extremely skeptical about a lot of the catastrophes peddled by the political classes, I’m genuinely alarmed by this prospect. Arguably, in fact, these programs have already failed but are subsisting on credit provided by constantly growing national deficits and debts.
The Myth that Age-Reversal Is Expensive
Today, the overpopulation myth is largely dead, but we have two other problems that have escaped public understanding just as did the demographic transition. One, of course, is the worsening OADR. The other, however, is that many people, even among those who descry falling birthrates, believe that anti-aging medicine will worsen the problem by increasing the number of older dependents. The other is that these therapies will be available only for the rich.
While it’s true that traditional medicine has tended to prolong the senescent or geriatric phase of life, which accounts for about half of all medical costs, true anti-aging medicine will increase healthspans, not just lifespans. The productive healthy parts of our lives will grow in relationship to a shortening period of dependency, solving the OADR and improving quality of life. Eventually, the final phase of senescent dependency will disappear entirely for everyone who doesn’t reject age-reversal biotechnologies.
As for the belief that age-reversal will be expensive, this is not the case. In fact, I predict it will save insurance companies so much money that these therapies will essentially be provided for free.
Because I don’t believe there is any way to increase birthrates fast enough to solve this problem, the only solution is to increase healthspans significantly. A happy side effect would be incredible increases in societal wealth. Older people will be able to help the young instead of draining their resources.
We must build a consensus for supporting the age-reversal biotechnologies that are already on the horizon. In future essays, I’ll talk about how you can help make age reversal a reality as well as some commonly overlooked biotechnologies that will help you live long enough to personally experience the age-reversal revolution.
Very nice first issue. I look forward to learning more and thank you for this fine beginning