Why are so many people so unashamedly selfish about the prospect of combating aging?

165 ABRIEF PERUSAL OF MY PUBLICATION RECORD will reveal something about my recent activities that may—indeed, probably should—strike you as sad: I hardly contribute anything to the biogerontology literature any more, essentially restricting myself instead to my characteristic outbursts in this space and the occasional invited book chapter. Ultimately, however, this is not a reason for sympathy, because it is deliberate—a choice resulting from the changed relative importance to the crusade against aging of my two ways of contributing, to the science (the feasibility) and to the public debate (the desirability). In recent years, though resistance undoubtedly still festers within mainstream biogerontology, great progress has occurred in broadening the appreciation that applying regenerative interventions to aging may prove to be far more effective, far sooner, than the traditional approach of attempting to “clean up metabolism” and prevent its eventually pathogenic side effects from occurring in the first place. Corresponding progress in enlightening people that defeating aging would be a good idea, however, has been quite considerably slower; hence my choice to devote an ever-greater proportion of my time—and of the pages of this journal1–5— to that part of the equation. Inevitably, my work in this area is highly varied, depending on the audience. Perhaps the starkest such contrast is between mass audiences, whom I address from the stage, the interviewee’s chair and the printed page, and the wealthy elite, whom I address over a beer or (if absolutely necessary) a coffee. The latter interaction, with a focus on one particular aspect of it, is my topic today. The defeat of aging is a heterodox cause, when compared to those that receive the most attention (and the most sponsorship) from wealthy individuals. Orthodox causes have one very clear thing in common: They predominantly improve the lot of the disadvantaged. They seek to normalize— to bring the minority (often a very large minority) up to the quality of life of the lucky. Aging is perceived as a problem that predominantly afflicts those who are already lucky, lucky enough to have suffered no other distresses, or at least none that pre-empted their experience of age-related illhealth by killing them beforehand. Readers of this journal—and, indeed, readers who put up with more than a paragraph of essentially any of my nontechnical output—generally appreciate the dubiety of this perception. They appreciate that the supposedly well-accepted dictum of antiageism, if taken seriously, leads inescapeably to the acceptance that the frail elderly are disadvantaged, and thus, that they are by far the largest class of disadvantaged individuals in the world.6–8 But somehow this does not translate into the combating of aging being a primary (let alone the primary) beneficiary of worldwide philanthropic largesse. Over the past several years of conversations with philanthropists, I have progressed through many stages of comprehension of this paradox. The problem, by and large, is not that they are ageist: They truly accept that old people are people too. The problem is also not that they view aging as a minor problem, one that may seem horrific to the young but that people get used to as it gradually progresses: They appreciate that the distinction that many biogerontologists so counterproductively make between aging and age-related diseases is a fallacy, and that the defeat of aging would indeed entail the pre-emption of those predicaments that the middle-aged fear above all, such as Alzheimer disease and cancer. No: The problem is that they are selfish. Overwhelmingly, those old enough to be seriously feeling the effects of aging are also old enough that they view the prospect of significant personal benefit from antiaging research as negligible, while those young enough to entertain the prospect that they might still be around to partake of such therapies when they finally arrive tend to discount the possibility that such an outcome is not in fact virtually certain, and thus that their contribution could improve their chances. The benefit accruing to others than themselves seems simply not to figure in their calculations. Is this a fair assessment? Well, in respect of the younger generation it is at least questionable. The major donors to the Methuselah Foundation, and now to the SENS Foundation, have been under 50. Maybe they do think as I suggest above, but maybe they care at least a little bit about the plight of