A Date with Death

I woke up on the morning of December 3rd, 2040 with a sense of relief. Another night had passed and I was alive. I stepped outside for my morning walk. The fog was dense as steel and I could only see but a few feet in front of me. Twenty years earlier, my doctor had taken some blood tests, made me do some push ups, and checked my VO2 max on a stationary bike. She handed me a printout that late fall day. With 98% certainty, I would be dead by December 2040.

By the time I rounded the corner for the last half-mile back home, the fog had barely lifted. A car pulling out of a driveway screeched to a halt just a few feet in front of me. I leapt back. The driver shot a hand out and waved apologetically. I motioned for him to pass then clutched my arm. A shooting pain pierced the center of my chest. I felt the vessels in my neck engorge and my forehead cool. I fell to my knees as the world spun about, gasping my last breath as the end drew near, as my life left me.

Nikhil BarotSeptember 19, 2019death, extrapolation, artificial intelligence, illness

Resurrecting Consciousness

One of the great misrepresentations conveyed in television and film is the portrayal of death. It is not uncommon for a viewer to witness a skilled medical team routinely resuscitate someone from the precipice of oblivion. In a study from 2015 from the journal Resuscitation, researchers observed a CPR success rate of nearly 70% on two major medical dramas. The rate in real life, however, is about half as good.

Why does this matter? Because how death is portrayed on our screens in some immeasurable way prepares us for how it occurs in reality. If the culture is telling people that the odds of surviving a myocardial infarction, a pulmonary embolism, or a massive stroke is very high, then those people when patients (but more commonly, as family members of patients) are besotted with unreasonable expectations when the catastrophic event finally arrives. Odd, then, that these medical dramas strive for such a high degree of fidelity, yet fail to faithfully portray the most challenging moment of our lives.

Nikhil BarotMay 13, 2019science, consciousness, life extension, death