[extropy-chat] Article: Who would not seize the chance to live to be 150?

[Keith M. Elis]

What evidence is there that the average human lifespan in the developed world is about to suddenly increase at a rate faster than we are experiencing currently? 
   
  I ask because if I really believed this were true, I would form a company to offer permanent cash value life insurance to healthy applicants at steep discounts to the prevailing market premiums which are based on soon-to-be-proved-incorrect actuarial tables. The idea is that current life insurance premiums are mispriced. People would replace their significantly more expensive coverage by 1035 exchanging billions of dollars into my discounted cash value policies at a phenomenal rate. I would be happy because I know something they don't. They are going to live a lot longer than they think, and they're going to have to pay me those discounted premiums the whole time. Not only do I get rich quick, but I keep getting richer because these insureds just won't die. They just keep hanging around, kept alive by radical new technology. That's very, very good for me, the life insurance company owner who predicted it.  
   
  Or perhaps this belief of mine is not something I would be willing to bet on? In that case, is it even worth believing? 
   
  Keith  

Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
  
On Feb 8, 2006, at 5:47 PM, Neil H. wrote:

> The big question is who will bring human enhancement and life 
> extension into the mainstream. Politicians and business leaders, 
> who are already struggling to cope with rising pensions and 
> healthcare costs, may be understandably reluctant to speculate 
> about a world in which we all live (and work?) well into our second 
> century.

Since people will be healthy an indefinitely long time health care 
cost should drop quite substantially. Since there is effectively no 
"old age" there is no reason for pensions and other such devices that 
presume it. So these worried politicians and business leaders 
should resoundingly embrace such possibilities.

- samantha
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