Why Isn’t Longevity Science the World’s Greatest Concern?

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

Without the biotechnologies of human rejuvenation that could be created over the next twenty years given a fully funded crash program of development, we and our immediate descendants will all die due to the effects of aging, exactly as did our ancestors. Aging to death has never been a choice - but now it is, and every needless day of delay comes at a cost of 100,000 lives. Everyone presently alive will suffer greatly due to aging and age-related conditions unless new medical technologies of the sort envisaged by the SENS Research Foundation are developed to repair and reverse the low-level biological damage that causes of aging. So why isn't this front and center on everyone's list of concerns? Why does longevity science and the elimination of age-related suffering barely even register in the public eye?

Here is a talk on this subject given at the Stanford Advancing Humanity Symposium last month by Maria Konovalenko of the Russian Science For Life Extension Foundation, an advocacy initiative:

In this talk I am sharing our wonder about why haven't the ideas of life extension won. It is not clear why isn't every person on Earth concerned with their longevity. There are several serious reasons that I mention in my presentation, but even all of them combined don't give the answer to this question. I am also looking at different possible scenarios of how the extending longevity ideas could rise to power.