A live-stream broadcast of China's military parade has captured Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin discussing biotechnology's potential to extend life.
An interpreter translating Mr Putin can be heard saying in Mandarin that human organ transplants could let "us live younger and younger, and perhaps even achieve immortality".
Mr Xi responded that it may be possible for people to live to 150 years this century.
I honestly believe people could live to 150 within the next century
It's a fun and easy thing to believe. Significantly harder to accomplish.
I don’t expect those advances to be soon enough to help either of these guys
They've already benefited substantively from the last 70 years of health technology. And I wouldn't be surprised of Xi, in particular, is enjoying some knock-on effects of being the head of state in a nation that's on the cutting edge of medical research.
But there's a huge difference between "living to 100" and "being a functional adult at age 100". Xi's already pushing the line in his 70s and should have been queuing up a successor two terms ago. Putin's in it even worse, having trotted out Medeved and watched him flop in front of Parliament back in... what? 2008? Now he's got the tiger by the tail as he coasts into his own golden years.
The fact that the US is floundering amidst its own techno-fascist gerentocracy should be a giant alarm bell for every other national government. You can't just stack the fate of your country on whether Chucks Grassley and Schumer can maintain a pulse indefinitely. But I guess when its your turn in the big chair, its easy to think you'll live forever.