Won't people want to die at some point

Won't people want to die at some point?

Quite a few older people wish to die as soon and as painlessly as possible. In view of this fact, younger people often assume that everyone, and therefore they themselves too, will at some point grow tired of life. On closer inspection, however, there is another possible and even more likely cause besides simple "weariness of life": the physical and mental decline that comes with aging. Many older people are in pain and can no longer get around on their own. Everyone knows that there is no long-term prospect of improvement. In view of this, it is perhaps understandable that very old people usually no longer make big plans and would rather die in the foreseeable future. If we succeed in bringing aging under medical control and thereby keep people young, healthy and fit, the wish to die could therefore also disappear, at least in the vast majority of cases. (For the concern that a significant extension of life could lead to massive boredom, we refer you to the corresponding question further below: "Wouldn't such a long life lead to boredom?".)

Yet old people, too, all too often still want to live a while longer, provided they are reasonably well. As an article (^{see here}) explains in detail, "Do you want to live forever?" is the wrong question. The right question is "Do you want to die in the foreseeable future?". One could also be more specific: "Do you want to die tomorrow? Do you think that when you are 100 and in the best of health, you will want to die the next day?". There will be no miracle pill that makes you immortal after taking it once, but rather medicine that you can use if you want to stay healthy and live for a while longer - and then again, if you still want that for a while longer. And again. Dying at some point in the more distant future feels right to many people - but we do not live in the future, we live in the here and now. That is why we always die in the here and now as well, and an immediate death, unlike a death in the future, is unwelcome to almost everyone. It is not in the case of an extension of the healthy lifespan that something changes about the situation that is normal for us (life); it is in the opposite case that something changes, because in that case we fall ill and eventually cease to exist. Life extension therefore only means that this does not happen, and both our everyday behavior (we do not cross the street at a red light) and the use of technologies that make our lives safer (see, for example, bicycle helmets, disinfectants and filtration for water treatment) show that we do care about preventing this opposite case for as long as possible.

Since rejuvenation therapies cannot stop aging but only reverse it, and therefore have to be applied regularly, anyone who no longer wants to go on living could also simply forgo the treatment the next time around. However, at least as things currently stand, that person would still have to age for a few decades before their death.

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