Floss

Yesterday’s post was about eyes.  If you missed it — and wear glasses — click.  It should more than cover the cost of your subscription to this site.

Today’s is about teeth: Floss!

But that’s just my shorthand for, “take care of yourself — you might live a lot longer than you thought.”  Yes, I re-link to that December 14, 2007 post gushing over Ray Kurzweil’s prediction that within about 15 years, average life expectancy will be rising  by more than one year per year.  So on average we’ll be getting a little further from the end each year instead of closer to it.

He still thinks so, as per this recent New York Times interview.

One might note that if he is still saying this five years later, then, well, how come it’s still 15 years off?  Shouldn’t it now be only 10?  Is immortality just another Borealis, ever receding beyond the horizon?  Like video calls?  (Except, wait: we now routinely have video calls! And they’re virtually free!)  Or like the impossible seedless watermelon?  (If they have no seeds, how could we grow new ones?)  Except, wait: I ate three pounds of seedless watermelon just last night.  (So good I could almost cry.)  It, too, was virtually free.  Will we someday have virtually free smoked salmon?  But I digress.

I am willing to grant Kurzweil the five years’ slippage in part because — what choice do I have?  And in part because 5 years is barely a rounding error in the greater scheme of things.  And in final part because, if we can solve problems like mortality, surely we’ll also be able to make ourselves look and feel five years younger.  If I’m actually here 100 years from now, I assure you I will have more hair.  And be taller.  And have lived to see the need for true no-fault auto insurance disappear, as self-driving Google cars more or less eliminate all accidents.  With the side-benefit of no further need for that incredibly annoying GEICO gekko — or, with the conquest of cancer, that even more annoying Aflac duck.

My point is: hang in there . . . and grab an oar . . . as we pull toward sustainability.  A goal we just might attain if we listen more to leaders like Al Gore (just out: The Future) and less to leaders like James Inhofe.