Comment by taeric
20 hours ago
This may somewhat surprise you, but I would ask the same for people in the 30s. 40s even, at this point. Freezing someone at that age doesn't sound appealing to me. At all.
So the heart of my question is why do we view "defeating aging" as the same as "living longer?" Or is this something where the target age that people would want to be generally coalesces on a common number?
"Aging" in the context of "defeating aging" refers to the phenomena of declining metabolism and deteriorating genetic data.
Wrinkling skin, graying hair, loss of muscle mass and bone density, loss of mental acuity, decline of libido, late-life diseases (eg: cancer, Alzheimer's, type-2 diabetes), and so on.
It's scientifically proven that our bodies spend enormous amounts of energy up into our 20s when we reach sexual maturity and then glide through on momentum through our 30s into our 40s when we are raising our children.
Once we're in our late 40s to early 50s we're done spawning new life and our bodies throw in the towel, starting the slow but inevitable deterioration culminating in death.
It's that whole physical process that we as a species want to overcome, we want to defy being just machines for spawning more machines. Life is fucking evil.
Growing wiser from more and more life experiences is also part of aging, but it's not what we refer to when we say "defeat aging".
This makes sense, though I still find the framing odd. I don't mind that I look older now that I'm, you know, older. Defeating aging feels like it would be to find a way to be forever young. Extending life doesn't feel like it would need that.
Obviously, we need some way to not completely lose genetic data and such. If there is a "throwing in the towel" moment, as it were, find a way to prevent that. But living forever doesn't equal forever young, to me. Mayhap I'm just too old for that to have meaning anymore? :D