a medicine/treatment to stop the aging process: good thing? worst idea ever? [View All]

Since the beginning of life itself, we have confronted as inevitable the process of eventual physical decay and death. Even in the absence of a violent and premature end, we still reside in what some might well regard as a ticking time bomb. As noted in Fight Club, "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." The telomeres shorten, the cells fail to replicate correctly and become senescant, organs fail, the body weakens, and eventually the processes needed to sustain life reach their unavoidable end. Few humans live more than 100 years.

However, as humans, we are endowed with an unusual gift to fight against these inevitabilities. We seek cures for cancer, we transfer organs from person to person, we vaccinate against diseases, we go deep into the mechanisms of life itself to find remedies for the poisons that afflict us. And in the meantime, we mitigate and rationalize the fears inspired by our finite lifespans with belief in post-death consciousness, or equate oblivion with bliss.

So hypothetically, let's suppose there were a medicine or periodic treatment one could have to extend natural life indefinitely. In this scenario, cellular aging was regarded a disease, and human researchers discovered a cure. Now you can take a pill, or have a periodic injection, that does away with the aging process: the body stays young and pliant, organs continue to function properly, cell replication occurs as "intended". Of course, at any time, a person can cease the treatment, and cell aging will resume -- but this is no longer unavoidable, it is "optional".

Death by violence, poisoning, natural disasters, and various other circumstances would still be possible, but humans (and any other animals to whom we choose to give the medication) no longer face death by aging as an ultimate consequence of birth. The scenario posits no extra technological advances, political fluctuations, or economic circumstances as premise; the treatment is generally available but you still have to get your meds through the usual processes, you still get your food from other plants and animals, and if you've stopped the aging process while virile, you can still reproduce.

The question is twofold: do you regard this treatment as beneficial, and would you partake of it yourself? If you don't see a suitable answer below, select "other" and explain your point of view...

Extra credit is awarded for discussing your answer and answering the qustion of which, if any, technologies to extend life artificially are to be embraced or discarded.