What We Thought This Decade Would Be Like Vs. Reality

Humans Would Be Immortal

Much like cryogenically freezing bodies, people have long thought that future technology and medical advancements would bring immortality. Of course, in 2018, the only fountain of youth that actually exists is a scalpel in the hands of a clever plastic surgeon. That doesn’t stop Silicon Valley from trying. A number of tech companies, including SNES (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) and Project Calico, have massive, multi-million dollar funding. The former hopes to find drugs that cure age-related damage and the latter hopes to flat-out “cure death.” Rumor has it that even Google has been building a drug to mimic foxo3, a gene that’s associated with extremely long lifespans.

Needless to say, this is all pretty far off. In 2017, the male U.S. life expectancy actually slipped backward. Oops.