Today we're discussing chapter 7 of Fully Automated Luxury Communism, titled "Editing Destiny: Age and Post-Scarcity in Health". This chapter addresses the enormous societal challenge posed by the fact that for the first time in human history, there will soon be more people over the age of sixty-five than under the age of five, a shift which is referred to as the "crowning achievement of our species". This longevity, however, raises critical questions about the viability of collective insurance programs, such as public pensions and socialized elderly care, as these traditionally rely on a larger "working age" population compared to dependents.
The chapter explores how advancements in technology offer a solution to the exponential medical challenges presented by an aging population. It frames healthcare as increasingly resembling an information good, noting that organic life itself is a composite of material and information (DNA). Chapter 7 details how rapid, exponential progress in genetic engineering, particularly techniques like gene sequencing and CRISPR-Cas9, has drastically lowered costs and increased efficiency. This shift toward extreme supply in healthcare suggests that medicine can move from a reactive approach to a predictive one, allowing for the potential elimination of genetically inherited conditions and making healthcare cheaper to administer each year. This development is presented as a way to not only meet the challenge of societal aging but also surpass it.
