Fortunately, despite the hype, we are actually centuries away from having any meaningful ability to extend the human lifespan much past its present limit. Thanks to sanitation and antibiotics we saw a huge rise in average life expectancy in the 20th century, but that gain is now being eroded because most people are fat and indolent and cram themselves with slop that is essentially toxic. So now we're seeing lifespans shorten, rather than lengthen.

As most people never actually live their lives, but merely sleepwalk through the period between birth and death, gawping at mindless entertainments while slumped on a sofa, it's unclear what the benefit would be of extending this non-existence. And as senile decay strikes the vast majority of people if they manage to cling on for long enough, it would seem a very strange ambition to enable even more people to become senile.

So while hype is easy, reality is far more complex. And the great complexities of biology mean that, fortunately, we are in reality nowhere close to extending the human lifespan in any meaningful way whatsoever - nor should we attempt to do so given our abject inability to live adequately during the years we already have at our disposal.