The disappearance of your experience is no gift, no matter how well you wrap it. I fail to understand how easily many people differentiate between near-term lif

The disappearance of your experience is no gift, no matter how well you wrap it. I fail to understand how easily many people differentiate between near-term life extension (chemotherapy, beta blockers) and long-term life extension. The "natural" lifespan is a form of anchoring. Anything less feels like you're being fleeced, but ask for too much more, and you're being greedy. But this is nonsense. Nothing, short of religion, prescribes that a certain lifespan is the best one. If you ask for ten more years of quality, everybody thinks it's a worthwhile pursuit of medical research. Come to the end of those ten and ask for ten more, and it's the same worthwhile pursuit without end. Why, then, when we simply apply the shorthand of calling it 100 or 1000 years, does death suddenly sound like a welcome idea-- an idea we think is right to impose on the population? If the common lifespan were 40 years, do you believe you'd consider 80 to be just as silly? If 80 is not so silly under any circumstance, then why is it so special that 160 is wrong to desire?