Longevity's Impact on Health, Wealth, and Aging

Only by standing at a height of 10,000 m to see the world and observing the world

from the perspective of one hundred years can we have the vision and persistence,

not deviate from reality, and gain an earlier and further view.

If the 250 thousand years history of mankind from the hunting-gathering era was

condensed into one day, then in the first 23 h and 58 min and 30 s of that day, human

beings would be in the long process of evolution from hunting-gathering civilization

to agricultural civilization. Therewas no significant change in human living standards

in general until 1800 A.D., when human life expectancy was not much different from

that of the hunting-gathering era-basically 30-35 years old. However, in the last

minute and a half of that day, with the emergence of the Industrial Revolution,

mankind seemed to have opened the door of miracle. The Industrial Revolution lives

up to its reputation as a "great revolution". It has started the rapid development

of human civilization in the past two and a half centuries. Technological progress

has made mankind break through limits and created unprecedented prosperity. The

progress of agricultural technology has enabled mankind to solve hunger problems on

a large scale and continuously improve nutrition. The use of coal and oil has greatly

improved the efficiency of human production and laid the foundation for the industrial

system. The high-speed iteration and upgrading of computer and communication

technology have been constantly changing human communication and lifestyle and

have greatly reduced the costs of human production. Since the Industrial Revolution,

human life expectancy has doubled. By 2019, the global life expectancy reached

72.6 years old, and the life expectancy in developed countries generally surpassed

the threshold of 80 years old. The global population also increased from less than

1 billion in the early eighteenth century to 7.7 billion in 2019. Today, we are used

to the bustling world until the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the globe

in 2020, triggering memories of the 1918 Flu Pandemic (also known as the Spanish

Flu) that had been buried for more than a century. If we take this once-in-a-century

pandemic as the beginning of the next day, we cannot help but ask the following questions: Will prosperity after the Industrial Revolution continue to be in place

tomorrow? Can the human beings who ride in this blue ark in the vast universe

survive the era of resource scarcity and march toward endless growth?

In recent years, people of insight have actually felt that mankind is standing at

the crossroads of our times. I think that from the perspective of the span of time and

space over a hundred years, the changes of our times we are facing include three

aspects. The first is the great change in globalization and the world landscape. The

second is the great change in civilization form and production and lifestyle brought

about by taking carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as development goals. The

last is the great change of mankind as a species in the era of longevity. These three

aspects influence each other and will become the main forces affecting the global

future.