Recently The Economist magazine reported that scientists are getting close to developing an anti-aging drug that would not only allow us to live longer, but would also slow down the arrival of diseases such as cancer and dementia.

Is that a good idea?

The article talks about a time when organ replacements will be as common as knee and hip replacements are now. When a body part wears out, you just replace it. At age fifty, you could have more than fifty years left, enough for a whole new life. The article asks us whether if we got married at twenty, would we want to spend the next eighty years with the same partner? Or would serial partners be the norm? Would our brain be able to store a hundred years of memory? And what about the economics of it all? Could our fragile planet sustain the growing population?

I don’t have any answers, but I have trouble imagining how I would keep up with four or five generations of my own family. How many people would that be at Thanksgiving dinner?

If they happen, these changes will be too late for me. Thank goodness.