“Good question. Cancer cells are the exception. They’re the immortals among cells. Not only will they go beyond fifty doublings, they’ll continue doubling forever. It's this unconstrained growth that eventually makes them deadly to their host.”
Desh was fascinated by all of this but he was out of his league and knew he needed to move on. “Let’s say I believe your longevity therapy works the way you say it does,” he began. “Let’s say I even believe you aren’t involved in bioterror. But here’s the question: if you really did discover the fountain of youth, why have you kept it a secret?”
Kira raised her eyebrows. “Because I didn’t want to be responsible for knocking humanity back to the Dark Ages,” she said simply.
28
Desh spotted their waiter and motioned him over. They were in a dark, comfortable little corner of the vast mall and his fear of being discovered was waning by the minute. They had time before they had to catch the bus and he was in no hurry to leave.
“Can you start a new check for us?” asked Desh when the waiter arrived.
“Sure, what can I get for you?”
Desh quickly leafed through the menu. “We’ll both have hot fudge sundaes.”
The man nodded and hurried off.
“Hot fudge sundaes?” said Kira.
“I want an excuse to stay here longer,” he explained. He allowed himself to smile. “Besides, when I’m talking to you my brain needs all the glucose it can get.”
She looked almost bashful. “Sorry to have to throw so much at you at once. I know it’s like drinking from a fire-hose.”
Desh grinned at this. “Not at all. Once again you have me intrigued,” he said. “So please go on.”
“Smith told you his theory as to why I’ve kept longevity a secret,” she said. “To acquire great power and wealth.” She shook her head in disgust. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I’d love to share the treatment. The problem is, when I was still enhanced, I considered what the world would be like once I did. The conclusions I reached were shocking.”
Desh tried to guess where she was heading, but couldn’t.
“If everyone lives to be one hundred and fifty,” continued Kira, “what happens to the world’s population?”
For a moment Desh wondered if it was a trick question. He shrugged. “It would go up,” he said.
“It would go up,” she repeated. “A lot. At least as many people would be born each year but far fewer would die. And women would be at reproductive age twice as long. The planet is already overcrowded and getting steadily worse. Introduce my therapy and everyone would need to make room for their great, great, great grandparents.” She shook her head emphatically. “Doubling the span of human life would be an absolute disaster.”
“It’s true our society would have to make changes,” acknowledged Desh, “but you can’t be sure the effects would be catastrophic.”
“Overpopulation doesn’t just have physical effects, it has psychological effects as well,” she said. “A fascinating experiment was done on Norway rats years ago. The experimenters confined a population of them in a quarter-acre enclosure, provided plenty of food, and removed all predators. They expected the rat population to climb to five thousand, but it didn’t. It stabilized at one hundred and fifty. When they forced the population to exceed a comfortable density, even with unlimited food, they saw a dramatic increase in pathologic rat behavior. Withdrawal, cannibalism, homosexuality, and other uncharacteristic behaviors emerged.” Kira raised her eyebrows and eyed Desh knowingly. “You think human stress goes up a notch or two the more crowded it gets?”
Desh frowned. It didn’t take a brilliant scientist to answer this question.
“While enhanced, I quickly realized that if I made the therapy public, the population would reach critical levels very quickly. Within a few generations, at most, humanity would either be reduced to small populations living in Dark Age conditions or extinct. I’ve since run a number of computer simulations.”
“And?”
“And the simulations match my intuition exactly. There are a range of possible scenarios, but I’ll give you one of the more likely ones. The skyrocketing population results in vast economic collapse as resources are depleted and the number of jobs can’t expand as quickly as the need for them. Economies are geared to a retirement age of sixty-five or so, and an average lifespan of around eighty.” Kira paused. “You even joked about the need for an immortal to have a large retirement nest egg,” she reminded him.
Desh frowned. He had made the joke but had failed to consider its implications.