Imagine for a moment that the inhabitants of a town beside a river are hampered by their inability to get across the river. They have been talking about getting across the river for so long, and without any meaningful progress towards that goal, that it has become a polarized topic by now. Most people won't mention crossing the river these days because it has become the subject of tall tales and ridicule. The town is growing, however, and now it has a concrete works and enough revenue to order all the rest of the materials needed for a bridge. Accordingly, a bridge faction arises, but is almost immediately set upon by another, larger faction who think that a better use for the concrete and the funding would be a nice viewing platform overlooking the river, and a road leading up to it. Wouldn't that be a benefit to the town, and safely certain in comparison to actually having to set up pilings and cranes and all the rest of what might be needed to build a bridge? Both of these factions amount to only a handful of people in total, however, and are largely ignored by the rest of the town, whose support they need in order to move ahead.

This sketch is somewhat akin to the situation we find ourselves in when it comes to biotechnology and aging. The people who want to take credible paths to human rejuvenation, bringing aging under medical control, now that such a goal is possible given the technology to hand, are a minority in comparison to the people who want to do no more than slightly slow down aging. The difference in the potential benefits produced by these two courses of action is night and day: one does very little, the other is a road to agelessness and an end to all age-related disease. The difference in cost is likely minimal in the grand scheme of things. Yet the majority of that part of the aging research community interested treating aging as a medical condition are following the objectively far worse path, rather than the objectively far better path. Meanwhile, the majority of the public pays no attention and has little to no interest in the topic - despite the fact that this is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

Thus, there are two battles of importance when it comes to advocacy for the treatment of aging. The first is to create widespread public support for longer, healthier lives and the research needed to achieve that goal. We currently live in a world in which most people are all for cancer research and heart disease therapies, but opposed to or disinterested in research that targets aging, the root cause of those conditions. Progress at the large scale requires greater public support for this cause than presently exists. The second battle is to ensure that the right projects are funded: comprehensive rejuvenation, not a slight slowing of aging. Bringing an end to aging, not just tweaking it a little. Both goals are equally possible, but at present the better of the two has far less support and funding. That this second battle is still being fought, and needs to be fought if we are going to see significant progress in our lifetimes, is why articles like the one quoted below appear every so often - though not as often as they should.

Fear of Life Extension