ancestors – and even our grandparents and parents. Hi, I'm David, and this is MinuteDeath. I mean,  

MinuteEarth. For much of human history, people  died mostly from malnutrition and a few different  

types of infections. But those old school causes  of death are becoming way less common today thanks  

to some of the benefits of modernization – like  access to clean water, food, basic medicine and  

vaccines. And, as long as we don't drop the ball,  even fewer of us will die from them in the future. 

Of course, modernization itself is responsible  for a lot of new causes of death today; lots  

of people are dying from lung diseases caused by  smoking and pollution, heart attacks and diabetes  

caused by unhealthier diets, and fatal accidents  from so many cars on the road. In the future,  

though, as even more public health campaigns  are adopted, as safety standards increase,  

and as cleaner forms of energy become  more common, at least some of these  

modern types of deaths should decrease as well. But there's a second camp of modern deaths,  

too; people today are living longer than ever, so  things that tend to kill old people – like certain  

types of cancers and dementia – are more common  than ever. And lifespans are still increasing,  

so in the future, our risk of age-related  deaths is likely only going to get bigger. 

There are other non-age related causes of  death that might also rack up an even bigger  

body count in the future than they do today.  Like increasingly large storms and wildfires  

driven by a warming climate, as well as  wars and refugee crises associated with  

diminishing water resources. And it's possible  that deadly pandemics will continue to emerge  

as humans continue to encroach into new  habitats and get exposed to novel diseases. 

And those are just the things that are already  happening. There are also wildcards that could  

take out a big chunk of us at once. Like,  you know, nuclear war. Or cyber-terrorism  

that takes down large swaths of infrastructure  and disrupts basic services. Or non-aligned  

AI run amok. All of which individually  are still unlikely to happen, but – as a  

whole – are becoming more likely than ever before. But before we all retreat into our bunkers, let's  

think about this: twenty years ago, researchers  thought the leading cause of death in 2050  

would be HIV, which had been on a rampage for  more than a decade and was able to integrate  

itself into our DNA so well that it was impossible  to design a traditional vaccine against it. But  

really rapid scientific innovations created a  totally new way to prevent getting the disease,  

and a totally new way to reduce its deadliness. As  a result, HIV has gone from being a major growing  

cause of worldwide deaths to a smaller, declining  one that is expected to continue to fall. 

So it is possible we will be able to science our  way out of some of the other oncoming deathtraps,  

too. But – unless we somehow figure out how to  divorce our consciousness from the meat sack that  

surrounds it – we won't be able to defeat all of  those deathtraps – and new ones will continue to  

pop up. In the future, assuming civilization  continues developing, we probably won't die  

from the same things as our ancestors did, but  that just means we will die from something else.

This video was made in partnership with Bill  Gates. To learn more about how we can help  

improve the lives and health of people around  the world, visit gatesnotes.com. Thanks Bill!