We are getting older, quickly (again)

About 15 years ago I learned from biologists and modern research that our body is generally able to sustain about 700 years. Only there is something that turns us off at about 70 - 80 on average. Plus our metabolism as well as our understanding of the metabolism is too weak to help us get much older. But this all is changing rapidly.

Life expectancy between 3,000 BC and 2,400 AD

About 5 years ago I found a striking sentence in a book about Gilgamesh where he said to his friend "Before the great flood people were much older than now". I started to explore average life expectancy and a ton more data. The result in a nutshell is this:
Before the great flood, in accordance to the Bible, people were indeed several hundred years old. During the great flood we seem to be genetically crippled (like through a nuclear accident) and our life expectancy collapsed to about 24 years in no time.

Then around 1900 an unparalleled process began: We became older and older as you can see in the graph. I picked life expectancy data from Europe, Middle east and Asia from resources like Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia and dozens of Internet sources.

The economic impact of getting much older is enormous. The German government is actually exploring to lift the retirement age to 70 years.

If the typical trend analysis of biological development, following the curve up to today is applicable, we can recognize this rapid growth effect until we get "back to normal" at around 2,400 B.C. and will get 600 years on average.

What Does That mean?

The answer is filling a book (right now) and would much exceed the size of a blog post, but are some topics to explore:

1) We will need to mentally prepare ourselves and others to deal with a much longer life
2) We will work longer - or better said be much longer productive
3) We need to understand that career change is no longer an option but will happen anyway as demand in workplaces change
4) Long term projects are much more feasible than in the past
5) Protecting what we created is maybe less important than being able to cut loose and restart something new
6) Think of a career change with 65, do that for 30 years and then do something completely different again for another 20 or so years
7) Build some resting phases into your life as you won;t sustain a non stop productive life (not the next 2-3 generations)
8) Understand that you are able to support a longer life with a mental engagement
9) Be prepared for a more flexible retirement and age care policy as some will be much longer productive than others and age is no longer the only marker in that process
10) Recognize that you will life longer than you planned to in the past and your current retirement funds will need to be extended. Your kids in turn will live even longer and have to prepare much differently.
11) Governments will need to collaborate with health care, age care and work force organizations to model the new reality for their own financial structure.
12) The good news - longer productivity will fill the insurance and health care pockets to be able to manage the new situation.