Science Fiction, Legal Fiction, Political Fiction, and the 100-Year Life
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Description
Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott’s prediction that the median lifespan will exceed 100 years for children born today in high-income countries is “science fiction” within the dictionary definition: a “story featuring hypothetical scientific or technological advances.” This chapter argues that for a 100-year life to become the norm within the timeframe that Gratton and Scott envision, we will need to make extraordinary progress over the next several decades in reducing old-age mortality – advances that are qualitatively different from the disease-specific innovations that attract the vast majority of biomedical investment today. To achieve those advances will require not only scientific ingenuity but also legal and political innovation. Patent law – the most familiar tool in the innovation policy toolkit – is ill-fitted for the goal of attaining century-long lives. Instead of relying on private-sector sources, we will likely need governments to commit to moonshot investments in longevity akin to the Apollo project. Yet securing support for those investments will be challenging given the political economy of public funding for biomedical research. Thus the path to a 100-year life will likely require major breakthroughs not only in the laboratory but also in the legislature.
First Page
216
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009466004.020
Source Publication
Law and the 100-Year Life: Transforming Our Institutions for a Longer Lifespan
Source Editors/Authors
Anne L. Alstott, Abbe R. Gluck, Eugene Rusyn
Publication Date
5-13-2025
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Recommended Citation
Daniel J. Hemel,
Science Fiction, Legal Fiction, Political Fiction, and the 100-Year Life,
Law and the 100-Year Life: Transforming Our Institutions for a Longer Lifespan
216
(2025).
Available at:
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2134
