The story of our longevity

The single unequivocal benefit that civilization, science, and modern life has given us is: longer lives, on average. Extra Life, a new book by Steven Johnson, investigates the origin of this gift. Johnson tells the story of our longer lives quickly, easily, with tons of news. Longevity is an enabling invention that has opened up many other benefits, and its story is important because this miracle has many parents and most of them were institutions. To further the extra 20,000 days we been granted, or to birth other meaningful inventions in the future, we need to continue to improve our institutions. Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer is a great, fast, important read. The book has a good companion 4-part PBS miniseries (streamable) that summaries the story in the context of Covid-19 vaccines and current events. — KK