On this episode of Lifespan News, Ryan O’Shea jumps into the political arena by focusing on how rejuvenation biotechnology might make age-related comments not age well.
Script
Donald Trump has publicly criticized Elon Musk, and Musk has responded by arguing that Trump’s age makes him unfit for office, and that he should “hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.” But is this true? Should people age out of eligibility for political office or other positions of power? Let’s explore what this means for the future in this episode of Lifespan News!
There may be no more polarizing figures in modern America than Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and now they are openly talking about one another. During a recent rally in Alaska, Trump went after Musk while discussing the ongoing saga regarding the sale of Twitter. Afterwards, Musk took to that very platform to say “I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”
To clarify what he was referring to, Musk added “Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America.”
This might come as news to the likes of Warren Buffett, the 91-year-old Oracle of Omaha.
But what Musk is really criticizing here isn’t Trump’s actual fitness for office, but his chronological age. And historically, chronological age has been correlated with biological age, but these are two very different concepts.
Chronological age is pretty straightforward, and unless you’re a time traveler or spend your days moving at extremely fast speeds, your chronological age is just the amount of time that has passed for you since you’ve been born. For Trump, it’s currently 76. For Musk, it’s 51.
Biological age is more complicated. In simple terms, your biological age is determined by what chronological age your body appears to be when analyzed. Another way to think of it is if scientists had no idea when you were born, the age that they determined you were after studying you would be your biological age.
And this might be different than your chronological age. You could be identified as younger, or older, than you actually are based on your biology and how you function.
So, what is your biological age? Well, unlike chronological age, there’s no clear answer. It depends on what we measure. There are many aging clocks and they’ll give you different answers. There’s ongoing work to determine which is the best one and what we should measure, and that’s worth exploring, but it’s not important to the point I’m making here.
With advances in healthcare and longevity science, it appears that humans will be able to slow or even reverse the aging process. Initially, the gaps will be small – having a biological age a few years younger than your chronological age today is great news. But in the not too distant future, there may be gaps of decades between the age that some people are chronologically, and the age that they are biologically. Eventually your chronological age could be completely irrelevant and disconnected from your biological age. This is the future we are working towards.
The takeaway here is that everyone has a biological age that is distinct from their chronological age. And while historically these things have been very correlated, that’s beginning to change – and the gap between these two measurements is going to grow.
With this understanding, Musk’s comments on Trump’s age don’t look so great. Many people are already calling them out, and unlike humans in the near future, his words here will not age well. From my view, once adulthood is reached, chronological age should not be of concern. This is going to happen – the question is are you going to adjust your mindset now in preparation, or are you going to be left behind.
But, this back and forth between Trump and Musk continued. After Musk’s comments about his age, Trump took to Truth Social and posted a photo of Musk with him in the Oval Office, claiming that Musk would have dropped to his knees and begged if Trump requested it.
To this, Musk reacted with the famous “Old Man Yells at Cloud” meme.
When there’s more to share, we probably won’t have it for you here, so don’t subscribe if you just want more Musk and Trump drama. Otherwise, I’m Ryan O’Shea, and we’ll see you next time on Lifespan News!