STOP, WATCH, LISTEN
What will life be like in 2218?
When Thapelo Mokoena starts talking as the star of a new podcast series called The 200 Year Old, it’s hard not to think of him in his role as Nelson Mandela in the film, Mandela: Long Walk To
Freedom and wish that modern science could have enabled Madiba to survive this long. Mokoena plays the part of fictional character Sam, a journalist from the year 2218, writing a personal story about his great, great, great, great, greatgrandmother, Lesedi Ndaba, played by actress Nambitha Mpumlwana, the first person to survive for 200 years.
“I’m recording this in June 2218,” intones Sam at the start of the podcast. “The world looks nothing like it ever has before. Money and how we use it is vastly different from previous centuries. Nothing is what it used to be, not partnerships, not families, not friendships or relationships. I guess that’s bound to happen when you live exponentially longer.”
From this point, Sam goes back 200 years to a very different world — Lesedi’s world of the early 21st century — our world. She tells us the story of how she came to be part of a scientific experiment that would result in finding a cure for ageing. The story segues between fiction and reality. Interview excerpts with Dr
Aubrey De Grey, a real-life biomedical gerontologist and mathematician, interspersed with the dialogue between Sam and Lesedi.
De Grey is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research foundation, a biomedical research charity based in California and focused on developing new therapies that will undo and repair the molecular and cellular changes of ageing.
Early in the first podcast he says: “Ever since the dawn of civilisation, humans have known that there’s this thing called ageing which happens to you if nothing else does. And, it happens to you at a reasonably predictable age and it’s really, really horrible. It’s a very slow and painful death and we haven’t had any realistic prospect of being able to do anything about it in the foreseeable future until now.
“We are interested in developing new medicines that will keep people functioning both mentally and physically, however long ago they were born, in the same kind of state as they were when they were young adults. Once we’ve seen what ageing is, that it’s just the accumulation of damage the same way it is in a car, then it’s easy to see that the right way, the most common sense way to keep people in a good state of health at an age when they normally wouldn’t be is periodic comprehensive preventive maintenance.”
The hypothetical reality of this podcast is that Lesedi has gone through these maintenance procedures and has survived in a rapidly changing world. She is now available to tell us how she coped and adapted and to give us advice for our futures — that may last longer than we think.
Imagine what you could achieve if you could live to 200, Sam asks? How many partners would you have? And how many kids? Would you embark on multiple careers and when would you retire, if at all? How do you plan to survive financially if you can live for two centuries? And how is it actually possible to live to 200 in the first place?
In addition to De Grey, the podcast also features interviews with David Tal, founder and president of Quantumrun — a research and consulting agency that helps people understand how today’s trends might affect them in the future; Anton Gildenhuys — chief actuary and group risk officer of the Sanlam Group; Monika Bielskyte — founding partner of ALLFUTUREEVERYTHING — a platform for prototyping futures; Tamara Sims, research scientist at the Stanford Center of Longevity; Susanne Tarkof Tempelhof, founder and CEO of BitNation — a “voluntary nation” that records vital records, identity and other legal events using blockchain technology; Paul Irving, chairman of the Milken Institute for the Future of Ageing; and Professor Sarah Harper, founder of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing.
Transporting listeners to the year 2218, Lesedi shares her story across four episodes, each one unpacking a different theme and topic of conversation. Episode one centres on health — how we live to 200 in the first place. Episode two focuses on finance, episode three considers personal life and relationships, and episode four is all about the evolution of society.
As you may have guessed if you’ve heard the current batch of ads on the radio that feature 150+-year-olds, the podcast was developed by Sanlam, so clearly there is an advertising motive. But the branding is subtle and doesn’t intrude on the story. It sets a good example for how advertising can be approached in an intelligent and unobtrusive way so that it entertains rather than annoys us.
Ageing happens at a reasonably predictable age and it’s really horrible