Fight Aging!

When you spend time following aging and longevity research, thereby becoming immersed in a comparatively small community and conversation, it's easy to lose track of just how unusual your knowledge and viewpoints are in comparison to what passes for the norm. This is true of any group, culture, or endeavor, and is a natural consequence of the economics of learning - most people don't need to know anything about the countless communities outside those they belong to in order to be successful, and you only have a set amount of attention to divide amongst all the things you consider to be important. So "the norm" is really a collective measure of decided ignorance about any given topic. The "the norm" on aging, death by aging, and engineered longevity is what a specialist in some other field - whether astrophysics or bricklaying - is likely know about this topic without expending any significant effort.

Regardless of level of knowledge, everyone will have an opinion, of course. We humans are good at holding opinions - possibly a little too good, but that's evolution for you. Around "the norm" of decided ignorance, holding an opinion has as much to do with learning the prevailing opinion as with actually forming one yourself based on (limited) knowledge. Which again, makes sense from the viewpoint of the economics of time, attention, and knowledge.

This is the hurdle faced by advocates for change in paradigm: it's hard to change opinions when the supporting information for a new viewpoint requires even a moderate amount of effort to obtain and analyze. So it is with aging research and engineered longevity - and most other paradigm changes based on advancing science. You can watch the spread of the ideas of engineered longevity into new discussion communities online; the tech crowd is further ahead than the politics crowd in terms of exposure, for example. But the earliest reactions are still "aging and death are good and needed, and you are most likely crazy for thinking about longevity science." This shows that in terms of advocacy for longer healthy lives, it is still very necessary to keep plugging away at the most basic concepts with the wider audience.

Here is an example of a comparatively well educated online community that is less exposed to thoughts on longevity science - read the comments, and then take a look at this commentary at the IEET:

There were lots and lots and lots of comments that critiqued transhumanism’s rejection of aging and death as natural, necessary, and good. When all the comments are distilled, we get the following arguments:

1) Death and aging is why we value children. Think of the children!
2) Death sweeps away the old, allowing the new
3) We already have too many people! Hello! Malthus!
4) Life extension would result in a nursing home society
5) Can’t do it, aging is too complicated

These are the pillars of "the norm" of opinions on engineering greater human longevity. They are all easily answered, and have been in the post above, here at Fight Aging! and by many other authors, but would that such answers were enough in and of themselves! The realm of public opinion is a long, grinding battle of atttrition that often has little to do with fact, evidence, or anything other than how widespread a particular viewpoint happens to be. Generating much greater public support for longevity science will be a long haul, and no doubt frustrating, but it is absolutely necessary to ensure significant future progress in research and development.