Health, Work and Age in the Metaverse: Bradley Schurman

Thank you to our sponsor InsideTracker. Listeners get 20% off and free InnerAge here: https://info.insidetracker.com/ageist

What are the metaverse and Web3? How can people 50+ benefit from rapidly advancing technology? How will the metaverse and Web3 change our work lives? What about how we connect with our communities? How will the future of technology correct for ageism, racism, sexism? 

Bradley Schurman, an author, demographic futurist, and opinion maker on all things dealing with the business of longevity, joins us on the SuperAge podcast for a fascinating discussion about rapidly advancing technology like the metaverse and Web3. Bradley explains how we can keep up with these innovations and use them to our advantage. 

What you will learn in this episode:
- What the metaverse and Web3 are
- How the metaverse and Web3 will change our work lives and how we connect with our communities
- How nursing homes are using technology to keep their residents connected 
- How the future of technology will correct for discrimination against age, gender, location, appearance 
- Fraud in the digital space
- Why it is so important to stay up to date with these innovations or risk being left behind

“Thanks to decades of scientific and social innovation, we are in almost every measure living healthier, longer lives than ever before. So this idea that the age of 65 is somehow a stopping point has really become outdated.”

“It’s a lot like a tree. When we’re young, all trees look the same, we all have the same kind of sapling, the same kind of structure. But as we live, we become more diverse. We have different outcroppings of branches, and leaves, and different cycles of when we bud.” 

“Tech companies’ single biggest problem is ageism. It’s not racism or sexism it is ageism and there is enough data out there to prove that.” 

“As we enter this new period of time for humans where there are more older people and fewer younger people, technologies like Web3 and Metaverse, they’re going to help us find efficiencies in the system because we simply don’t have enough younger people to take care of the older population.” 

“There are a lot of constructs in the world so why can’t they be in the virtual world as well? They will be. We’ll carry those constructs with us.” 

Timestamps:
00:00:00 Welcome to the podcast
00:00:37 About today's show
00:02:38 Call in to leave a voicemail +1 801-871-5291
00:03:39 Thank you to our sponsor, InsideTracker
00:04:52 Introducing Bradley Schurman
00:05:11 About Bradley's book, The Super Age
00:12:12 About the evolution of technology and the metaverse
00:16:52 Healthcare and technology 
00:19:27 The metaverse and decreasing job hiring discrimination
00:24:39 The adoption & challenges of new technologies 
00:34:41 Practical uses of the metaverse
00:35:37 Crafting our digital avatars VS. who we are in the real world
00:43:40 Fraud in the digital space
00:45:53 The issue for those who are resistant to learning new technologies
00:52:00 Finding the value in things that we cannot physically interact with 
00:58:13 How technology will change our work lives 

Listen to the SuperAge podcast wherever you get your pods.

Have a question you want to be answered by either David or one of our health experts? Want to share how you’re feeling about the podcast? Call us at +1 801-871-5291 and leave a voicemail to be featured on the SuperAge podcast!

Connect with Bradley:

LinkedIn

The Super Age Website

The Super Age Book

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hello, and welcome to Superage. My name is David Harry Stewart. I'm the founder of AGIS. At Superage, we help you live better and become the best version of yourself. And who doesn't want a Superage? Welcome to episode 72 of the Super Age Podcast. It is great to have you with us. This will be dropping on March the 2nd, 2022. And for the next five weeks, we're going to be coming to you from our remote studio in lovely Los Angeles, California. Today on the show, we've got Bradley Sherman, who wrote a book called The Super Age. So, I mean, you have a guy who writes a book called The Super Age. We have to have him on the Super Age podcast, right? But his um it's a great book. It's about how the world is going to be radically different because we're living a lot longer and the impact that's going to have on economies, on jobs, and you know, uh really where we're going in the future. And to that extent, uh Brad and I had a little chat before we had him on the show about things that he saw happening out of the world. And one of those things is the metaverse, um, which is much more than the Facebook company. It's just like a whole different way that things are gonna be done. And I thought, let's have Brad on and talk about what I see as utterly transformative for the way that we work, um, for healthcare, for community. It's it's gonna change a lot of things. And I think it's gonna be happening a lot sooner than people think it will. And, you know, for people who are a little older, we may be thinking that the metaverse is just some sort of like, you know, somewhat silly, trivial gaming thing that Mark Zuckerberg is involved in. It it's really much more than that. And it's, I mean, I look at this as something with a transformative power, something like the way the automobile um transformed the world or the telephone. But I think it's it's gonna be a lot more than that. And how that's all gonna work out for people of all ages, but particularly I think for people of our age, um, if we think that perhaps our greatest impediment in the world may be either mobility or the way we look or other sort of things that you know are essentially ageist in nature, um, the metaverse may have a way of just sort of flattening all that out. Um, I don't know. I mean, I think there's gonna be upsides and downsides to it, as with any kind of new technology. But I think it's something that it's really interesting to talk about in terms of where this could possibly go. But before we give Brad a call, I want to remind everyone we've got this new call-in number. I'm so excited about this. It's so great to get your messages and to hear your voices. Um, if you feel like it, you can call us at 801-871-5291 801-871-5291, and leave us a message about your comments, your questions. Is there something you'd like us to follow up, follow up on? Um, is there something about the metaverse? Is there something about health? Is there something about longevity? What is it that's puzzling you that you want to know about? Um, or maybe you just want to tell us we're great. We love that too. So give us a call, 801-871-5291. Once you get a bunch of them together, we'll be playing them on the air and we'll get the experts on to answer your questions. Today's show is brought to you by Insight Tracker. Go to insightracker.com slash Aegis, save 20% on all their products. Inside Tracker is really the dashboard that I use to check my internal health. Where am I at? What are the changes that are happening inside my body that I may not know about, that my doctor may not know about, that I can check out and track over time? It comes up on an app on my phone, super easy to understand, super easy to track over time. You know, you used to get those blood tests from your doc, and your doc is like, well, this looks okay, or maybe we need to keep an eye on that. And did you have any idea what any of that means? Most people don't. I didn't. Not until I had inside tracker on my phone. So now I monitor these things regularly. I follow their recommendations, and how effective are they? Well, I'll tell you, I reduced my LDL from 119 to 99 in four months following just their recommendations. It works great. It's super simple, developed by Dr. David Sinclair from Harvard and Dr. Gil Blander. It's a great science-backed platform. I recommend it to all of my friends. Go to insightracker.com slash agist, save 20% on all their products. Hey Brad, how are you today? I'm good. How are you, David? I'm doing all right. Thank you. Um so you you have a book out called The Super Age, and you're on a podcast called Super Age. So uh that seems like a really great match. Um tell me, tell me a little bit about the book that you've done.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So it is it is a great match, and uh it's a book uh about a new era that we're entering as as human beings that that I call the Super Age. Um it's co-opted from uh a UN designation of populations. There are three aging, aged, and superaged. Um, and we become superage populations when at least one out of five people uh are over the age of 65. And for most of history, this has been a rather pejorative term, a negative. Um, it was the time that signaled when things started to go off the rails, especially as it relates to pension systems and healthcare systems. But it doesn't need to be this way. Um, in fact, human beings are incredibly resilient people. And thanks to decades of scientific and social innovation, we are in almost every measure living healthier, longer lives than ever before. So, this idea that the age of 65 is somehow a stopping point has really become outdated. And we have to consider people who are post-65 really as engaged members of our community, active members in our society, and productive members of our economy. So the book takes a look at three parts a history of how we got here, what happens if we do nothing and just keep on this path of putting older people aside. And then what happens when we really just lean into it and say, yes, this is a new era. We should celebrate it. Um, and we can gain a lot from it too.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, right on. I mean, I I I have this this idea of like 65 is some like toggle switch, like it's the off switch, like I find that really offensive.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Says who? Well, says history. I mean, that's the irony in all this is that we have always had 65 as the line of demarcation. And it goes back, you know, all the way back to the beginning of recorded history. It just is a time that we generally accepted that 65 seems like a good time to tell people that they don't need to go to church, they don't need to have jury duty. And I know it was well-intentioned. Um, it definitely was well-intentioned. But in the modern context, when we started applying it to a pension system, which is essentially why where we get our modern concept of old age, it doesn't make as much sense because we have evolved as people. And this idea of age-based markers for just about anything is so incredibly outdated. It is so broken. And uh, that really is the negative that we have to get through if we're gonna pass into this new period with success.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, it's it's confusing, isn't it? Because the the demographic, I'm 63. So um I'm I don't have any health conditions, I feel fine, I'm strong, I'm out there doing stuff. I can't imagine that in two years there'll be some, you know, cosmic event. Right. Right. I mean, there may be, but uh not so far. So, you know, you but the way I am is not the way all people 63 are. So it's you know, it's it's highly divergent. Um, as we age, um, we diverge.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Yeah. And I mean, it's a lot like uh, you know, like a tree. You know, when we're when we're young, all trees look the same. We all have the same kind of sapling, the same kind of structure. But as we live and as we live for longer periods of time, we become more diverse. We have different outcroppings of branches and leaves and different cycles of when our when our when we bud in the spring and the leaves fall in the fall. But I think the best way to look at it is just in your everyday. I mean, I look at folks that I went to high school with, and some of them are presenting as in their 60s now, and others are presenting as they're, you know, in their 30s. And I'm 44. So, you know, you start to see this divergence, as you call it, early on. Um, and it just becomes more and more pronounced over time. And part of it is, you know, how we live. You know, did we have kids or did we not? Uh, when did we have those children, if we had them at all? Did we get married? Um, or do we put that off? Um, are we engaged in healthy behaviors? Are we social? Um, are we engaged in alcoholism or substance abuse? Do we smoke? All of these things contribute to how healthy you are, and of course, how healthy you present at the end of the day. Um, but it's not the same path for anyone, everyone anymore. Um, not that it ever was, but there was probably more similar one, yeah, uh, perhaps for our grandparents um than for us today. I love the tree thing. Did you just make that up? Uh no, the tree thing is a is an analogy I use all the time. I think it's it's just one of the easiest ways to see how we diverge. Um, and with a you know, a relatively uh, I suppose, simple organism compared to us, and something that we can see in front of us, you know, as we walk out our front door. One of the big challenges, David, is that folks have a really hard time understanding demographic change because it sounds really heady, but it's not really heady because it shows up in your everyday life, literally wherever you go. And, you know, people have a negative bias against older people. I mean, that's just the nature of society, for better or for worse, it is. Um, but when you start talking about kids, everyone starts listening. And I often point to people, um, you know, uh, the playground that's just down the street from me here in DC. And you go there and you see parents that are anywhere from 18 to like 55 with their with their toddlers and their and their young children. And I have friends who, men in their 50s who've had their first child, and they're often mistaken for for grandparents. So the paths are just different, but they're right here in front of us today, and everyone can see them if they just open their eyes a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

So, what I want to talk to you about is a continuation of a conversation we had a couple of weeks ago, um, where you really enlarged my imagination of what the metaverse could be as it intersects with age, work, healthcare. I I guess, you know, anything that Mark Zuckerberg is involved with, I I I just immediately think is trivial or evil. Well, his approach to this seems a little trivial too, but but yeah, I'm with you. Um you brought up some like fascinating things that I had not conceived of what's about to happen here. So yeah, tell me a little bit about metaverse and age.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

So we've had we're we're in the midst of what people refer to as the fourth industrial revolution or the information age. Um, it started about 15, 20 years ago and is really just sped up. Um, I suppose with the advent of the internet, really um 25 years ago is what the first starting line is. Um, but it's sped up over time. You can measure it in three stages. So the first stage was obviously the internet 25 years ago. The second stage was um smartphones. So that's web one and web two. What the period that we're entering into now is known as web three. Some people refer to it as the metaverse two. Um, but metaverses are different places where people can engage and connect. Right now, you could call Facebook a metaverse. It's a closed ecosystem, or Instagram, or even TikTok could be metaverses. But web three takes us from a two-dimensional experience into a three-dimensional experience. At least it has the potential to do that. So the overlay of virtual reality really becomes the defining factor of what we can live in, um, essentially building a whole new world from the ground up. And there's a lot of people who, and this is always always seems to happen in Silicon Valley, that say they're going to create this utopian type world within the metaverse or web three. No, we're just building another world. Um, the same problems will exist there that exist here. But there are some upsides to it. And for older populations in particular, and I'm talking about the large diversity of older populations here. So some of this will apply to some of your listeners, and some of it will maybe apply down the road. But it will revolutionize how we as creators get compensated. It could revolutionize virtually every way we do work, especially for those of us who are in the knowledge economy. And it could completely reshape how care is delivered and received in this country and around the world. And it's literally just knocking at the door. Um and all of these terms that we hear crypto and and skins and gaming, you know, this is all coded language for what the new way of living will be within this space. Um but that shouldn't scare people. Um, it should actually give them some interest in opening the door and piquing their curiosity and understanding what the future could be.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Brad, help me out a little bit here. So we're talking about a set of, I believe they're called Oculus glasses.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Well, uh, the Oculus glasses are akin to a dial-up modem. Okay. So it's the first step in creating an immersive environment. There's nothing to say that in the near future we couldn't have fully immersive spaces. I mean, it it may sound silly, but um, think about the holodeck uh and Star Trek, where you could walk into a space and it essentially becomes another world. Um, of course, largely driven by technology. What we see right now, what we're able to do currently in the virtual space is experience three dimensions. Um, we can see depth, we can see different sorts of light and shadow. But what makes web three potentially really exciting is that we'll also be able to have the sense of touch. We can feel heat and cold, and we may be able to smell, have olfactory, um, and even possibly someday the ability to taste. Um, but it's so early right now that the potential just seems huge. But it's just like anything else. Like we're finding, we found a new land, and now we're settling it. Um and that's where that's the early stages that we're in right now. So all the things that you expect to come with settlement, um, setting up governance, setting up currencies, um uh, you know, a land grab of sorts, all of that's happening right at this moment. The people that are in it now are like the first settlers to this country.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

So as you point out in the book, there's um, you know, the the there's not an equal distribution geography-wise for things like health care, for things like jobs. Like if I live, you know, like in the rural county that I grew up in in western New York, that's a very different thing than um living in an urban area as far as access to care, jobs, other people, things like that. How does this metaverse um so and again help me out here? So it's it's sort of um an extension of physicality, or um uh that's not even the right word, sort of like a change of physicality to deal with the rest of the world. Yeah, it can be.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

It's gonna allow us to, you know, potentially um, if you live in a rural county, for example, have access to urban um tools, whether it be care delivery or or uh information. I mean, think of it like a bit like the way the internet changed our access to information. You know, if you lived in a small town in a rural town, um, you maybe had a small public library and you know, you might have heard about a book and you'd have to ask the librarian to get it. Well, in 25 years, you know, most people, even in rural counties, even in the most rural counties, can get access to information anywhere in the world now. And that that's revolutionary. So imagine if um we could get care delivered from the best doctors anywhere in the world. Um, and they could be in a same environment with us, in a same virtual environment with us. That is pretty cool. And it's already started. You know, my family's in medicine, um, and they're already doing remote robotic surgeries uh from one part of the country to another. So it may sound like science fiction the way it's being described, but in the future, it will be very commonplace because we're already testing it. We're already trying to see how it works. And and people just need to be open to the to the change, I think, more than anything else, because it's not if the change is coming, it's when.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Let's talk about this in in terms of a work paradigm. Yes. So one of the I mean, I often tell people that the the biggest difference between somebody like us, our brains work a little differently, but the main difference is we look different. Um so if you remove that and I become an avatar of myself. Um and I I remember this reminds me of someone. There was a company in, I want to say New Zealand, and when they hired people, when the the work and the workflow was entirely text-based, there was no Zoom, there was no telephone call, there was no in-person, it was entirely text-based, which removed all of the sort of cultural signifiers, right? Like, what color are you, how tall are you, what gender are you, what age are you? Didn't exist. It was just like, can you can you do this job or not? We the rest of it is just invisible, right? Right. And this is sort of like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

It has the potential, but we've already seen it happen during the pandemic. As most people who are in knowledge jobs had to move online, and Zoom became, you know, an everyday word. It entered our lexicon. There was something really interesting that happened. And and most of the big staffing firms will tell you this pretty, pretty transparently, that um because everyone was in the same-sized box, it may have contributed to people who were the shrinking violets actually producing at a higher rate because they weren't necessarily threatened by the physicality of a room where you might have somebody like me, a six foot three, you know, 275 man who has a big personality, maybe driving some of the conversation, where you know, a smaller framed woman that that might, you know, not be so sure of herself, um, sits in the corner quietly, can't get into the space. And Zoom kind of was a great equalizer during the pandemic. So we've already tried it. Um the idea of avatars, creating our own avatar. I don't I see it as possible. Um, I worry that with that though, we'll be leaning into some, you know, uh impossible standards again of of beauty. And we may see, you know, the the reinforcement of you know what is beauty and and what is perceived as strength and weakness. Um I think the ver verdict's still out for me on on how helpful avatars can be. But I think a space where we are less controlled by our physical appearance um certainly does play out time and time again. It certainly does in the hiring process. When you do hiring and you don't think about age or um or race or gender, um, you really pick people based on what they can do, not not. What how they appear. Or where they live. Or where they live. Absolutely. I mean, geography plays a huge role in that.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah. I mean, it's just the the only we work, some of the people who um work for us here live in the Philippines. And um I got one of my main web developer could be a dog. I have no idea whether it's whether this person is male, female, how old they are, how tall. I no idea. And they're very careful about shielding their identity to me. Yeah. So but um, you know, we've worked together for years and um does great work. The difficulty is I just have to be up at like 10 o'clock at night to interact, but right.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Um so time zones, but no, I mean, I and I think that's you know, kind of that's one of the hurdles that we haven't gotten over yet because we have we carry all this age bias with us, and everyone's ageist, every single person's ageist. I don't care who says they're not, we all harbor that bias um in one way or another. Um, but that in mind, you know, it seeps in that at the strangest times. And the workplace is a is is a spot in particular where um it's just present. Um, it's ironic considering that we we need older workers today more than ever. Uh, perhaps um since the end of the Second World War, we need them as much today. And, you know, we're just struggling to bring them in because we do have those visual cues that say maybe they're not as technologically literate as the rest of us. Maybe they're overqualified. Why would they want a job like this? All these stupid questions that we're trained to ask ourselves about older candidates that we would never ask a younger candidate.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

So you brought something up there about um you know technological adoption. Yeah. And in my experience with running Aegist, seven years ago, almost no one in our community was on Instagram. Now everybody is. Um and what we find is that the uh the utility of whatever the tech is outweighs the pain of learning the tech. Not that Instagram is that hard to learn, but you there are some things you gotta learn, right? So with something like the metaverse, um, you know, how do you feel about the um the adoption? Is it is it just gonna be like what happened in the pandemic? Like everybody knows how to like order food online now, who didn't, yeah.

unknown 24:50

Right?

SPEAKER_01 24:51

I mean, so there is a question of utility. Will people see value in engaging the space? You will have folks that will be resistant to change. They all they always are there. Um but part of the challenge is there's a couple of things that are challenging in this period. First is, you know, to a degree, people not wanting to get online or you know, engage in web three in the metaverse. Um, but the other part of it is that, you know, these environments are being built by young people um almost exclusively. You know, uh tech tech companies have the this their single biggest problem is ageism. Uh, it's not racism or or sexism, it is ageism, like it and and there's enough data out there to prove that. Um, and when you're in a business where you're old at 35, like and you're basically pushed out the door, you know, you're not necessarily building for the entire population, and you're not building for older populations in particular. What I'll say is this though, there has been a compressing of adoption. So um during each technological leap, older populations have caught up faster than they did in previous ones. So I think like most people, we think about things that are familiar to us. I think about my family, my grandparents in particular, um, they were from 100% the analog era. So the biggest technological leap my grandparents made was the VCR. Never got into computers, even though they're they had access to them. Um, never had a mobile phone, even though they had access to them. Then I look at my parents, and my parents are both 71 years old, and my dad is the first person to get technology. And I think that signals that there is a growing curiosity in staying connected. And I think, you know, the folks that listen to your podcast and are part of the great profiles that you do are these new superagers. They are this new group, this population that is economically connected, socially connected, wildly interesting and curious. They are they are really leading the change into this new era. And they're showing, I think, the larger population of their age-based peers that these technologies are important to keep you part of society, part of the pack, uh, part of the tribe.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

I I think that's really true. I mean, we've seen this that um, you know, people in their 60s and 70s saw their parents effectively become like the deaf ant at the end of the table who could not participate in the cult, because it just was like outside and they don't want to do that. So they know they they have to spend a certain amount of time understanding, you know. I don't know. I have I have younger people around me that help me out with because they're they they do have a greater facility with certain things than I do. Um, but I it you know, I think most people I know are they're pretty good with a phone. Um they're pretty good with like anything to do online, it's not a scary thing, and I can see you know, when we move into um, you know, I guess the sort of first stage will be like Oculus sort of stuff. Um I I you know, I think the the people I know any would be be all over that.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Well, and I also think there's something special about Oculus in particular, and there's a handful of companies that have really leaned into it. Silver Adventures is an Australian-based company that I think is just doing really wonderful work. Um, they've actually taken it's almost like a leap forward, a leap in terms of generations, because they go straight into the nursing homes with Oculus. Oh, cool. Oh, yeah. It's so cool because when you think about it, like what's the immediate thing you can do with an immersive environment today? Well, for me, I'm sorry, I'm 44 years old. I can live in the world, and I like living in the world. I like being out there and breathing the fresh air and digging my hands into the dirt and you know, tasting the foods from a street vendor. Like I can still do that. But when you lose your faculties, especially, you know, your ability to get around or to travel, that happens at the latest stages of life. And it doesn't mean that you've lost your curiosity or your or your desire to see new things. So companies like Silver Adventures are out there in the nursing homes, hooking people up and giving them the time of their lives. So this idea that, you know, there might be a delay, there could be. I mean, there will be a hiccup and uptake. There always is. But the fact that the oldest old, the people that are in the greatest need, seem to be embracing this technology with just incredible gusto, um, points to a very bright future for the adoption of the technologies. Because for the first time, rather than the technology being driven upward by younger people, it's actually coming at a pincer, younger people and the oldest people. So those of us that are in the middle might be the ones that are left behind, at least. Yeah, but the program for the starting mic. I know, I got to get on board.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

It's it's so I I have a good friend, Shan, uh Sean Enton, who I've interviewed on this program, he had a stroke when he was like in his late 30s, and he's about 15 now. And he was just exposed to Oculus, and somebody wrote some VR for him, and he's a his left side doesn't work so well. But in metaverse, his left side works just fine.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

And because of that, he because his brain thinks his left side is working, his left side actually starts to work. Yeah, it's the most amazing thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and and there's also something to be said about how, and this is a perfect example with your friend of how this virtual universe, this virtual metaverse, can actually line up with the analog world that we live in, the real life world that we live in. So while they might be two very separate and distinct things today, they will they will engage. And it's a lot like, you know, the grocery store that sells groceries online for delivery via Amazon or Instacart, but also has the physical store still in front of them. Like the two worlds are separate but connected. With Meta and Web3, you know, who's to say that, you know, you couldn't live at home for longer periods of time and maybe have a helper robot? And if you were to fall or needed immediate assistance, that robot could be taken over by a nurse or a doctor and they could actually diagnose the problem before sending, you know, all the entire cavalry uh to the front door with the the ambulance and the the medics and the the police cars and the fire trucks. I mean, that's how it happens today. Um, but wouldn't it be cool if you know that helper robot could just pick you up and dust you off? Um it might sound like an oversimplification, but as we enter this new period of time for humans where there are more older people and fewer younger people, technologies like Web3 and Meta, they're gonna help us find efficiencies in the system because we simply don't have enough younger people to take care of the older population. That's just it's a numbers game. There aren't enough, and they're not going to be enough. We are in population uh rather birth rate decline in most countries at this point. And some countries, including places like Japan and China, are in population decline. They're shrinking as countries. So we have to find other ways to do this uh type of work. And technology is one way to get there.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

I think I think it's absolutely fascinating. Um I was uh I I once had I had a pair of somebody give me a pair of Oculus glasses and I tried them out. And it's it's um an amazing thing. Like you're in another world. Um and I can really Did you ever read the book Snow Crash? No. Neil Stevenson, Snow Crash.

unknown 33:10

No?

SPEAKER_02 33:10

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Oh, it it's like it was like 1994, and he it's all about virtual reality and people who colonize, you know, streets and stuff that don't really exist.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, well, that's happening now. I mean, yeah, it it's happening now. People are carving out their their land, quote unquote land in this new space. Um, and it's it's not really dissimilar from a land rush, the land rush that we had here, um, where we're we're creating models of ownership of a digital space, but it's really no different than the web right now. Like just bear that in mind. So, like you own Aegis.com, yes, I own the superage.com. So we own that space. Um, but we're really like, it's more like releasing it, you know. Uh no one can take it from us, but but we don't physically own that space. Um, the same thing is happening in in the metaverse right now is that people are carving out their spaces. Um, so this isn't too science fiction-y for folks if they look at it through that lens. Um it's just an evolution of what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I and this this idea of the additive that you brought up, the um, the meta plus the physical. So I remember my we lost my mom about six months ago, but my mom's greatest fear was like not connecting to her friends um because she needed a lot of care. So I could just see like if there was um a you know, there's a VR solution to that. Um and so that then one can have community and connection and not isolation in you know, in in meta world um while still being taken care of in physical world.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Right. But there's also some very, very simple practical things we can do too. You know, one thing I hear from older women all the time, all the time, is their frustration with fashion, um, because the body changes. And it's almost impossible to prevent that change happening to the body. It's part of part of getting older. Wouldn't it be amazing if within a meta, within an immersive space, you know, you could have a tailor take your measurements, send them off to somewhere in the world, have have the clothes built for your body and then shipped to you. So it creates kind of connectivity in ways that um we're really just starting to understand now. But you know, part of part of what keeps us healthy is the way we feel about ourselves, you know. So having that ability to dress and wear the things that you want is is a key component. Um, and immersive spaces could help us with that.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

So that brings me back to your your earlier concern about the avatar. So um, you know, the uh with an avatar, I can idealize myself in whatever way I want. Um it's something that it's an interesting thing that comes up. We um, you know, we take pictures here. And so how much retouching? How idealized do you go? Um and I, you know, I use the do you want to go full Donatella? We can do that. You know, face by Mattel, we can do that. Yeah. Or not. Uh so it's always sort of like a, you know, I don't know what I'm saying. I think it's the question.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I think it's the question of what what are what are realistic and what are unrealistic. Because there there is a there's a tipping point where people become disconnected from reality. And and social media has has illustrated that, um, certainly with depression rates among young young men and women. Um obviously the retouching of photographs is is kind of what we're in now. Um that's where my anxiety comes about what you know, what the future looks like. And I suppose we haven't done enough research yet to know what how people idealize themselves as in terms of age and physicality. Um, but we do know from popular media, at least, at least, there's a bias towards a certain archetype. Um, and I'm not sure if we want to be carrying that bias with us or enhancing that bias or expanding that bias uh into the new age.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

You know, we yeah, but I I mean I know from like the research we've done, the the average delta is 20 years. So we all have like 20 years of age dysmorphia. Yep. I'm 63 in my head. I, you know, depending on the day, maybe I feel 40, 45. So do I show myself, is there something wrong with me showing myself the way I feel about myself?

SPEAKER_01 37:56

I I I I think the disconnect will come in the real world. Um, right, you know, and we do we do live in a real world, or at least the world that we understand, the construct that we understand of what what the real world is as we perceive it. And you know, and I think that's I think you're getting to the right point here. You're like, you know, there are this is where the utopian vision comes. We can all look and feel as we want. Isn't that amazing? Sure, but we have to unplug at some point. You know, right, and we have to look in the mirror in the morning. Right. And for me, the the bigger concern is like uh take a real world example, you know, this approach to plastic surgery and what have you. Is a little nip and tuck a bad thing? No, it's not. If it makes you feel better, it's you're gonna have better health outcomes. We all get that, but there is a tipping point where you start to to ignore the reality of your mortality and you start to believe that that 20-year deferential is actually true. And with that, you put off, you know, some really important things that you have to do for your health, preventative care for your health. So, you know, I my personally, you know, I have a history of of colon cancer in my family. So when I was 40 years old, first thing I did, you know, get a get a colonoscopy. I had to fight to get it with my doctor, but you know, still needed to get done. My concern is that if people are too disconnected from their physical reality, they'll put off things like this. They'll get sick in ways that they may not be aware of because they're looking and saying, I look healthy, I look physically good, I may feel physically good, but they're not doing the preventative stuff that quite frankly is really required of us if we want to avoid those things, like cancers.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

I I think of the sort of um that's interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way. Um, I I tend to think of it as sort of the disconnect like that you brought up between the idealized sort of social media, the the I hate this word, influencer, like that world. Yeah. So like a lot of those people, it's very, very difficult because their internal reality and their external reality are really different. Oh, they're completely dis disconnected.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

I mean, most of most of these young men and women are living in their parents' basements, you know, but they're presenting as you know, globetrotters and you know, foodies and you know uh fashion models. And I mean, it it's just too much of a disconnect. So I think there's a couple of areas of disconnect here that we have to be aware of. And, you know, for people like you and me, we we had an analog life, you know, so we are we're a bit more grounded in the reality of what reality is. Um, but the data suggests, you know, there are serious problems with with kids these days because they can't get away from this virtual reality versus their real reality. And that inability to separate the two, you know, certainly is um shown to have higher rates of depression, body dysmorphia in particular, um, things that, you know, at some point were just reserved for young women or are now bleeding into young men. Um, so yeah, I I approach that with a with a degree of caution.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I uh this may sound odd, but I there's a not insignificant cohort of people in their 80s who also have this sort of disconnect. And and in their world, it's Facebook. Um, Facebook reality versus outside reality, which I um whenever I see one of these like people who are older um, you know, in this sort of uh alternate reality they're living in, um, it it's like shocking to me.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah. And and I mean, some of it is the ability to compartmentalize, obviously. You know, do you have that ability to compartmentalize? And do you have that ability to say um the virtual reality is not the same as the the lived reality? And yeah, personally, um, I'm very deliberate about that. Like I look at I look at Instagram and TikTok and and even Facebook to a large degree is entertainment, because only a fraction of what you see there is actual, actually real. Um, they're a version of people's selves that they want us to see. Um and I think if you enter space with that in mind, it it's a lot easier to to understand that like not everyone lives that, you know, jet jet jet uh jet setting lifestyles they project on online.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Really, Brad?

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Oh crushed. Oh relieved. I've so been aspiring, and that it's not true.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

No, I mean I just I think it's just it's just unrealistic expectations, and we should always be hopeful about what's possible in our lives. We should always strive for great things, but it's also important to realize that just because people are presenting it doesn't mean they're living it.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Yeah, I I think that you know, this sort of circles back to this idea of um, you know, that these sort of technologies bring people a lot of uh there's gonna be like incredible um connectivity and access to different things. Geography sort of goes away, um, body shape, all this stuff goes away. So that's awesome. But then as you said, you like to get your hands in the dirt. Yeah. And it, you know, and and I I mean, I can really see like there's sort of this balance coming up. I think it's awesome. And I'm yes, I'm very much gonna be part of it, but I can also see um where that becomes, you know, maybe a well, I don't know, it's hard to say. I mean, if somebody's, you know, loses mobility, they're in a nursing home. Yeah, that that seems like a, you know, meta seems like a much better place.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah. I mean, that and there's also, you know, uh there's also this other piece that we have to think about because we didn't think about it the first time, which is the prevalence of fraud. Um and oh my god, yeah. You know, just the trustworthiness that and it's interesting, there's there is a correlation between trustworthiness and an age. Um, and certainly within the digital space, you know, fraud happens um at a much higher rate amongst older populations. And, you know, I think the average loss if you're engaged in fraud now is it's six figures. I think it's like $120,000, the average loss. I know most people don't have that money. But there is um there is that concern that lingers in the back of my head. And I did an interview with um uh Chris Boyd a few weeks ago for her Think podcast. And Chris said, Well, well, isn't it great? And she uh I I knew where she was going with it. She goes, Isn't it great that you know people have grown up with technology now? So when they get older, they'll be aware of like the potential for fraud. I said, Well, yes, that is wonderful, but this is new technology. So where we may have, you know, kind of built up this protection in the internet to kind of sniff out um bad actors, who's to say that, you know, when I'm in web three or maybe web four or five, that I won't be able to sniff that out. So a big component of any shift in technology is literacy. Access happens very quickly. We can get access to products very quickly. Think about the fact that, you know, the first iPhone, this is the 15th year anniversary of the iPhone, 15 years with the iPhone. And within 50 years of the first true smartphone, really the true first truest form of the smartphone, um, we have an 80% adoption rate worldwide. But of course, where we're lacking is still with older populations, the oldest old.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

So what do you say about the ones that are um, you know, we all know them. They're sort of the uh I call them the you know, sort of belligerently belligerent ignorant. Like, uh even though I could learn, I won't learn just because.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Well, I mean, they get they get left behind and and in some cases, and in other cases, they're they're liberated. I mean, uh there's nothing wrong with living an analog life if you're willing to accept that you're going to be locked out from a lot of other parts of your life. Um, and because we tend to build, we tend to think of young first in the way we design systems, you know, travel's hard right now. COVID testing's hard right now because you need to do that before you get in, and you have to have a rapid test within 24 hours. And if you travel overseas, you've got to do that online with one testing device. Um, it's confusing for the best of us, for the most technically technologically literate feet people. Um, imagine if you've put that off. Well, you can't leave the country now, not with ease, not with ease. Um, yeah, you can you can push it off as long as you want, but technology has a way of kind of weed, you know, kind of getting itself into our lives. Um, and it's usually because our systems need to find those efficiencies for them to function. Yeah, it just gets too hard. Yeah, and I mean there are people that still have landlines and that's the only phone they use. Does it work? Sure. Is it efficient? No. Uh, are they happier? I I don't know. Um could be. I I they could be. I can't imagine a world that I don't have, you know, access to everything in my pocket. I can't fathom what a world would be with like what a world would be without that. Um well, sure you can. We've we had that. Yeah, but you know, it's it's such a distant memory today. Like uh somebody asked me, and I thought it was funny how they presented the question. It just happened a week ago. Do you do you remember AAA? You're too young to remember AAA. And I'm like, I remember triple A as clear as day. The smell, the smell of the markers and the paper when they did the trip tickets. The trip trip tickets. Oh, yes, right. Like I it's such an indelible memory. I remember sitting in that waiting area for sometimes hours to get a trip tick. And you know, the trip ticks were great, but they they were always they were always faulty. There was always some kind of accident or construction on the highway that they put us on. There was that always existed. And I think about the fact that today, opening up Google Maps or Apple Maps or any other any other application, we know in real time, real time when there's been an accident, and we can get rerouted because of it. Yeah, I do remember that old world, but I can't even fathom what it was like to live in anymore.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Okay, so I gotta ask you a question. So you just wrote a book. Yeah, book is on paper, yeah. It has weight. Uh-huh. Where I'm going here. Yeah. So uh Kindle version of the book or hard book?

SPEAKER_01 49:21

I always like to read on paper. Um, especially long form. Okay. And this this might date me, but I like long form on paper. Um, I connect better with the narrative. Um, the data sinks in for some reason. I I feel like I hold it better when it's on paper. Because I do believe there is, and there is some science around this. Um, when we have that tactile response with paper, it somehow locks memories in at a better rate, better than digital. So if you jot a note on your notes on your iPhone, you're less likely to remember that note than if you write it down on paper in a book. It's just the way it is. So when it comes to reading, obviously short form newspaper articles in particular, all those subscriptions are on my phone. And mostly that's because um, you know, I before pandemic, I traveled a lot and you could never guarantee that the newspaper would stop. So I don't I live in a city, I live in Washington, DC. It's not the safest place on the planet. Um, a newspaper out front is the surest sign that you're not in the home anymore. Right. So it's like an advertisement. So that's I I just got used to reading uh short form on my phone very quickly. It came almost instantaneously. But long form, I love books. I love books, I love them more than anything else. Um, and even though they take up a hell of a lot of space, um, I I would choose a book over a Kindle any day of the week.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

The bookshelf is my hard drive. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what I know until I see the once I see the title of the book, and then I can go, oh, right, that and the thing that I want, it's on a left-hand page, halfway down. I think it's this far in the book. There's a mark in the book. Okay, great, I got it. Yeah. But I can't, I can't do that with Kindle.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Like it just doesn't, doesn't work for me. No. And there, there, I I also think there's something, you know, this is so old-fashioned, but I I I think there's something quite sexy about a person's book collection. Um, I love seeing a bookshelf. I mean, it's just it's beautiful because it says so much about that person. Status bread. I mean, I'm sure about status. Well, I mean, I'm I'm sure, I'm sure that people's browsing browser history would tell me a lot more, but it's not quite as sexy. Um, browser histories are dark spaces for some folks. But no, there's something about a bookshelf that's beautiful. Um and yeah, it's status, of course.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

No, I've I'm I'm I'm with you. I'm I've been I've been highly mobile since the beginning of COVID, and I have a storage container. I mean, there's maybe 15,000 pounds of books in it. Um and I have to live there until I finally like get somewhere and I'm gonna, you know, my bookshelf again.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

So yeah, and I you know, I'll tell you this too. This to bring it back to to Web3 and Meta, you know, I I've had a really tough time, at least in the early days, was trying to pick it apart of embracing what's something that doesn't have a physical feel to it, how there's value there. Um, that's been my one hiccup in this, finding the value that's there. And I think again, the pandemic did a lot of things for better or for worse. But I think one of the things the pandemic did in enhancing my understanding of of some of the aspects of the metaverse and and and web three is that I don't carry cash anymore. Yeah, I don't carry cash. I I I I I I should let me let me clarify, I you typically keep one large bill for an emergency, but in terms of transacting now, almost all that's done on my phone. I tap everywhere now. And so the idea of currency is a physical paper note. I still think of the dollar, but how much do I interact with the dollar? Almost zero. So, so digital currency is already here. And this idea of crypto, it's just currency that doesn't have a central bank. That's all it is, and we give currency its value. There's no value in the piece of paper that the dollar is on outside of what we say it is, what we believe it is. Yeah, humans create belief systems, uh-huh. That's what we do. And of course, we create ownership of it too. So, you know, was there ownership of the land here in the Americas before, you know, the settlers arrived? Not to the way we understand it today. Um, but we gave value to land and we continue to give value to land today. Um, so yeah, it there's a lot of constructs that we have in our world. So why can't they be in the virtual world as well? They they will be. We'll carry those constructs with us.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

I'm almost as we're talking here, imagining, you know, my virtual living room. I put my whatever virtual interface on, and I'm in my virtual living room, and I see my virtual book self with all the virtual books, and I and and maybe it does the same thing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

It could, but I think maybe something that's even a bit more practical is what if you're what if you were considering a new couch or a new piece of furniture and you could go into this virtual living room sponsored by IKEA. They do that, by the way. They do that, but but not quite as in the immersive environment. You can see a picture of it today. Yeah, but imagine if you could have the tactile response.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Um, imagine if you could actually walk around it and see it from all the different angles. And yeah, like you could buy, you could engage in commerce, and that could show up, and then you could have that in your real world too. It's all very possible. And it's and it's and it's coming. I mean, whether we like it or not, it's coming. So this again, this isn't a value judgment so much on on whether or not the web 3.0 and and metaverses are going to be a good thing. They're gonna be a thing. They are a thing. Uh, and they're coming a lot faster than than I think we're we're we're quite ready for at this point. And certainly, you know, what always moves these big infrastructure projects forward, because metaverse will be an infrastructure project at the end of the day, uh, because it will help commerce, it will drive commerce, is government. Um, when government makes critical investments in infrastructure, things change. Think about the railroads, think about the aviation industry. Well, think about this. If the 5G network is built, Web 3.0 and the metaverse has become a thing faster than they would have otherwise. If all that government capital pushes into this system and builds this infrastructure that we the metaverse requires, um, it'll happen a hell of a lot faster and it will be distributed more equitably across the country, both into underserved communities and urban environments, but also rural communities as well. Yeah, that's right. I mean, just think about the way the railroad opened up this country. The railroad would not have happened without government capital. Right. Just wouldn't have happened.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

Um, I'm I'm just I'm I'm really excited about all this and a little bit a little bit skeptical. I think there's gonna be, I you know, I I sort of think like these technologies, they don't make problems go away, they just move them to somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

No, it's it's a lot of it's uh sweeping things under the rug. Yeah, there'll be new problems. There'll be new problems. Um and and history has shown us that. You know, when we solved for infant mortality in the early 1900s, late 1800s, early 1900s, it caused our population to explode. We went from around 2 billion people to nearly 8 billion people today, and it'll be 10 billion before it plateaus sometime this century. Um, that's because we solved for one problem and we created another. Uh-huh. And now, you know, it it almost feels like we're trying to rebalance with these, our our populations are almost trying to rebalance with the decrease in birth rates. Um, but now that's created a whole nother set of problems because we have too few young people and too many old people, at least for our current models of work, care, et cetera. So, yes, new problems will certainly arise. We can we can't anticipate that at this point. It's just what will they be? That's the big question.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

I think I think, you know, sort of on the whole here, the meta will um give people who are older access to all manner of employment, connection, community, care, health, all this stuff that they don't have now. Right.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

And I think certainly for all of us, uh, regardless of our age, work is going to be the probably the single greatest thing that will change. Um and for older populations, that's a really good thing. Um, because the first thing that goes almost almost universally is our mobility. Yep. Our ability to get around almost universally. So the fact that we could be working in an immersive virtual environment means that we don't necessarily have to get into a car or hop onto a bus or a train and then walk to our places of work. And I worked with a woman years ago, and she would show up to the office cane in hand, grimacing, grimacing, because she didn't have a choice. She had to work. So she would go through this painful experience of an hour plus long commute every day to the office and an hour plus home every night, plus the various, you know, uh two or three blocks she had to walk. Uh, and it was just heartbreaking to see she had to go through this pain every day to survive.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Um, before we wrap up, I want you to paint me a picture, conference room in Meta.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

I mean, in the perfect world, uh, it's gonna look a lot like the conference room we have now because the immersive environments are supposed to replicate or supposed to feel a lot like what we have today. I would imagine, given the way corporations behave, they're gonna want to have some standards, branding standards, physical standards within the space. They're gonna want to maintain that control. Um, we may look a lot like we do today in the space, but we will occupy some physicality. Um, what that looks like, the avatars, I think the jury's out on that. Um, will they be an exact replica of us or will they be something different? Um, who knows? I mean, I think some of the the prevailing thinkers at this point say that we should have a lot of license and how we design ourselves uh as our avatars, our skins in this new space. But I think the physical workspace, you know, will look a lot like the office room, you know, the conference rooms of today. I don't think it's how it should be. I mean, I think, you know, uh I still remember, you know, those beautiful days at university where we went outside and we sat under a tree. Like that stimulates thought, that stimulates engagement that a white walled, windowless room does not. So I'd hope people think a bit more expansively on that. But corporates have shown that they're not quite on board with that creative thinking quite yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

I'm I'm sensing a decline in the value of commercial real estate as we're talking.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

Uh a shift, a shift in the value of not so much commercial real estate, but how we use space that was in a commercial space. You know, and it I know that probably sounds like a little bit of bending here, but you know, our our central cores, our cities will have have and will continue to adapt. So I think that you know, the affordability, and it's very hard to buy, you know, class A space anymore in cities, that'll open up class A space for more and more companies that may have to locate outside of the city. Um, you know, we might actually have a tightening up of the urban core at the end of the day. Obviously, the office parks, they might suffer. Um they might suffer in a big way. Um, but I think urban areas, cities in particular, will still do very well. Um, it's hard to break from 5,000 years of tradition. Cities are where it's at at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Yeah, we like to we like it to look at each other in in like real time, not in metaverse.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Yeah, and we and we and we and we like everything that comes with cities. Um, and of course, you know, I think it was uh Ariad Ariana Grande did a VR concert recently, and um that was an experience and people people liked it, but I'm sorry, there's just something about a live show that you're never going to be able to recreate uh in a digital space. So we want those things, and typically you have to go to a densely populated area to get them. You know, there's there's no symphony in in in rural Pennsylvania, you know, there just doesn't exist there. But if you go to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or even Harrisburg, you'll find that. Um, but not in the countryside. You miss out on those things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Wonderful. This has been such uh an energizing conversation, Brad. It's been fun. I really enjoy this. Um the whole I think for a lot of people, you know, as we started in the beginning, I said like meta for a lot of people is just sort of this like like I don't know, video game thing. Um, but it's it's way, way more than that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

It's gonna be a lot more, it's gonna happen a lot faster than people realize. I think we're we're still in the pandemic, even though it feels like we've we've reached a hurt immunity state, but we haven't had a lot of time to breathe during it. And if you are able to take a moment and think about what your life was like before the pandemic versus after, it really was like we had this giant shot of adrenaline pumped into our systems and things that should have taken a decade to change, or or maybe more, happened within two years. And all this work around Web3 and Meta, they really have just exploded. So we're on a much faster course than than I would have predicted two years ago. Just be ready. Just be ready, keep your eyes open, and and whenever you can, you know, stay up on it. You know, I I say it all the time. You've got to continue learning, you've got to maintain your curiosity if you're gonna be part of this world that we live in. It's just essential. And and new technological leaps are definitely something that we all need to be paying attention to. Otherwise, we'll be left behind. And like you said, you'll be that aunt at the end of the table that's not really paying attention, or nobody's engaging her because she's not part of the pack anymore. She's been left behind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:51

Okay. Um Bradley Sherman's new book, Super Age: Decoding Demographic Destiny. Um, if you want to know what's going on with people our age, go buy it. It's great. Thanks, David. Great to have you. Take care. Thank you. Bye. Thank you for joining us on the show today. It is great to have you with us. Um, just to repeat, that call-in number we've got is 801-871-5291. We would love to hear your voices because you hear our voices all the time. Um, and a shout out to our sponsor who makes this show possible, Insight Tracker. Go to insight tracker.com slash AGES. Save 20% on all their great products. Love Inside Tracker. Uh, if you would like to send me an email, David at superage.com, I answer all of my email personally and directly. And if you can, leave us a rating on whatever platform you listen to this on, or a comment if you would like. And what we really like is for you to tell your friends, your family, all of your network about the Super Age podcast, because that's the only way we grow. We'll see you next week, and we have a really interesting show next week. We have someone who's um a cancer survivor who has gone through uh a whole range of modalities around that, probably the most I've ever seen. And she's gonna tell us how they all worked for her, what her response was, and you know what she's doing going forward. Because a lot of what she's doing is really, you know, very much super age. So we'll see you then. Until then, have a great week. Bye now.