Looking Down the Road

Jack Ma is chairman of Alibaba, a China-based mega billion dollar e-commerce company similar to Amazon. In the next 30 years he predicts that the world will see much more pain than happiness with regard to job disruptions.

“Social conflicts will have an impact on all sorts of industries and walks of life,” he said in a recent speech. Ma warned that longer life spans and better artificial intelligence are likely to lead to aging labor forces and fewer jobs. “Machines should only do what humans cannot,” he said. “Only in this way can we have the opportunities to keep machines as working partners with humans rather than as replacements. (Bloomberg News/Boston Globe)

Meanwhile, on April 15th Emma Morano of Verbania, Italy, passed away at age 117. At the time, she was believed to be the oldest person in the world. The reason for her longevity has long been pondered and investigated by researchers.

In the mix of reasons why: the mild climate in the lakeside village where she lived, the three raw eggs that she ate every day for nearly a century, or an unfortunate marriage and separation in 1938 that made her never contemplate marriage again.

Ms. Morano was devout, wore rosaries, and loved clocks that chimed, especially those that sounded like Big Ben in London. She worked until age 75, was proud that she could pay for whatever she owned, and cooked for herself until age 112, usually pasta to which she added raw ground beef. Until Ms. Morano was 115, she did not have live-in caregivers, and she laid out a place setting for herself at her small kitchen table at every meal.

After reaching age 110, her celebrity status increased and she was honored by a host of organizations, Italian presidents and schoolchildren, and even the local gas company. One fan was a blind man who came every Christmas and Easter, and gave her a certificate for being a loyal customer. (NY Times)

Learn More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/world/europe/emma-morano-world-oldest-woman.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
http://www.confrontingaging.com/history-of-aging.html