What happens to change and innovation? Won't a world with such old people mean that our society stops developing?
You probably know the quote by Steve Jobs that death is life's best invention because it clears out the old and makes room for the new.
Accordingly, many people fear that abolishing aging would lead to social stagnation, above all because old people do in fact seem disproportionately often to be set in their opinions and prefer to stick with what is familiar and customary. So wouldn't a world without aging - especially if very few children are born in it - be a world of predominantly conservative-minded people, a world without a breath of fresh air?
A major reason why many people take part less and less in modern social activities and discussions as they grow older, and are therefore often skeptical of new things, is undoubtedly that their physical and mental condition hardly gives them the opportunity to do so. How many people over 70, for example, have a reasonably up-to-date picture of computer and network technology and of the related questions about the privacy and freedoms of internet users, and can, on the basis of this knowledge, make a nuanced judgment about the merits of new legislative proposals on this topic? As young people, they did not learn how to use these devices because they did not exist yet. The aging process now makes it incomparably harder for them: their fine motor skills are impaired, their cognitive abilities are limited, their energy level is significantly lower.
For people who are chronologically old but biologically young, however, all of these reasons would be obsolete. There would no longer be a universal hurdle preventing them from engaging with the topic. They would be just as capable of doing so as chronologically young people are today - probably even more so, since over time we will get better and better at repairing the damage in the body, and thus also in the brain, and will reach a lower level of damage than that of today's teenagers.
Revolutionary ideas, too, usually come from young people because they have fresh and very flexible brains. As already discussed, we will solve the problem of old brains in the course of this revolution.
Cultural and scientific stagnation would therefore occur at most if people lived longer but continued to age. A society without aging, which is what we are talking about here, would actually prevent such stagnation. Besides having a more flexible brain, people would have much more time for lifelong learning and could educate themselves in all kinds of areas or try out different ways of life.
In addition, a certain sense of proportion must always be maintained: even if there were some stagnation as a result - does that justify letting everyone suffer almost immeasurably and then die? Hardly.