As family structures, ways of parting, the meaning of life and the workings of society all change, what will bring us joy, what will unsettle us, and what will we fear? Rather than a dystopian future out of science fiction, we are a foundation working toward a future in which people with diverse values can live together.
Science and technology aimed at overcoming ageing and death have already made substantial advances and will continue to develop. At the same time, intervening in ageing and death provokes deeply rooted unease and mistrust. These possible futures are still often discussed in terms of science fiction, myth or fable. There are too few forums for examining them seriously, and too little funding and too few people devoted to this work.
Tokoyo Futures Foundation is being established to bring these futures into serious public discussion. We will create forums for debate and ways to attract funding and collaborators to research and related initiatives. We will also conduct our own research. Our plans include an award for people working on these questions and a fund for future generations. We are preparing to establish the foundation in Japan in April 2027.
Research on the biology of ageing and on regenerative medicine is advancing, and in 2026 the number of people aged 100 or older in Japan passed 100,000 for the first time. Whether healthy lifespans will be greatly extended remains uncertain. Yet pensions, work, education, inheritance, family and politics were all designed around the lifespans we have today. This demographic figure does not establish that any particular technology can overcome ageing or death.
Award and fund (in planning). We are planning an award to recognize research and artistic work toward a society that respects different choices about ageing and death. We are also planning a fund that will entrust resources, and the right to decide how they are used, to generations far in the future. The timing and structure of both initiatives are still being developed.
Research and education. Our research examines the state of science, changes in culture, and visions of a possible society. We ask what technologies might become possible, on what timescales, and with what challenges. We consider how they could change people’s lives and views of life and death, and create tensions between different wishes. We explore which choices about access, resources and institutions could lead to desirable futures, and how these choices affect future generations. We approach these questions through philosophy and social thought, artistic practice, and public policy. Through dialogue with researchers in Japan and abroad, we examine what is known about the technologies and what remains uncertain. We do not develop the technologies ourselves. Debates on longevity and on overcoming ageing and death are led mainly by those who hold funding and decision-making power, yet the social changes they bring will affect young people and future generations the most. Our seminar helps young people, mostly in their twenties, develop their own questions, both through philosophy and the arts, which rethink views of life and death, and through policy and business, which imagine and build the society we ought to have, study, create work and discuss one another’s ideas. Selected work from the seminar will be included in the foundation’s annual report.
Presentation and dialogue. We plan to publish our research in an annual report issued by the foundation and present the findings each April, beginning in April 2027. We are also planning large-scale works and exhibitions; works by our founder can be viewed now. We hold a salon once a year, bringing people from different fields together to discuss shared questions.
People differ in how far they wish to overcome ageing and death, and their views may change over time. We do not begin with a fixed position on whether ageing and death should be overcome. We examine people’s hopes and concerns, and the conditions that shape their choices, including access to medicine, working lives and responsibilities to family.
Japan faces institutional challenges arising from population ageing, and carries cultures and practices handed down across generations. We want to think with researchers and practitioners around the world about what to learn from them and what needs to change. As one idea, we are considering an international forum that invites researchers, business leaders, and people in policy and culture to spend several days in Japan together. Its timing and format will be announced when decided.
Tokoyo is the land beyond the sea in Japanese myth, where no one ages and no one dies. As technologies aimed at overcoming ageing and death advance, Tokoyo is beginning to be discussed not only as myth but as one possible future. If a future like Tokoyo were to arrive, what kind of future would it be? Our name, the futures of Tokoyo, comes from that question. We ask what of life, culture and society we should carry on, and what we should change.
The foundation is being prepared by its founder, Akihiko Shimoyama (artist; CEO, Senjin Holdings), with Ei Nakagawa as head of the preparatory office. The preparatory office is operated by Senjin Holdings until the foundation is established.
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