Humans have been fascinated with overcoming death for thousands of years, but a new study finds most modern-day Americans aren’t interested in extending their lives.
Scientists at the University of Texas (UT) surveyed more than 900 people in the US and only 33 per cent said they would take an immortality pill.
Conversely, 42 per cent of respondents declined the offer and 25 per cent said they were uncertain.
Those who were surveyed were divided into three groups based on age. Young adults between the ages of 18 and 29, senior citizens with an average age of 72, and an older group with an average age of 88.
All three groups answered similarly, with the majority saying no to living forever, but variations appeared when the youngest and oldest groups were asked what age they would like to be frozen at, the youngest said 23 and the oldest age averaged at 42.
Among young adults, 34 per cent said yes, 40 per cent said no and 26 per cent were uncertain.
In the younger seniors groups, 32 per cent said yes, 43 per cent said no and 25 per cent were unsure.
And amongst the group of older seniors, 24 per cent said yes, 59 per cent said no and 17 per cent stated they were unsure.
The researchers wrote in the study published in the Journal of Aging Studies that young adults indicated that they would want to live forever as young adults, whereas older adults indicated that they would like to live forever as middle-aged adults.
This suggests that people are more open to immortality if they could pick an age that’s close to their current one.
However, what was even more remarkable to researchers was that men had a greater level of readiness to use the life-extension treatment than women.
The notion may sound interesting because women tend to live longer than men: the average age life expectancy of US women is 81.1 years and is 76.1 years.
Variations were also observed when researchers asked more detailed questions, such as freezing yourself at a certain age.
According to the study, younger old and older old adults indicated that they would prefer to live permanently at an older age than younger adults.
The average life expectancy in the US is 78.7 years, according to a 2021 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a dramatic increase from 100 years ago when it was only 53.
The increase is due to improvements in sanitation, housing, education and technological advances that better the lives of Americans over past generations.
These developments have also led scientists and companies to design innovations that could prolong our lives, but the study from UT suggests these groups may be wasting their time.
Living life for some might seems like a great concept, but wouldn’t it make everything in life seem less precious? But then nobody really wants to die.
Life expectancy was only 53 about 100 years ago because of the high rate of infant and child mortality. However, our ancestors, especially great grandparents and great-great-grandparents mostly lived well into their 80’s and 90’s, and some even to 100.
The average life expectancy has increased dramatically over the past 100 years, but that doesn’t mean people are living longer, just that fewer people are dying young, and sometimes it’s just all about genetics.
But why not take the pill – you could always choose to end it at a later date if you were tired of existing! Because essentially that’s all that we do as human beings, we exist. We get up every day, work, come home, have dinner, enjoy our time with the children, sleep and then go back to work again.
Perhaps if there was peace in the world, no wars and no confrontation, then possibly the pill would be a great idea, but then if there was a pill that scientists created, you know there would have to be an agenda behind it, and we would essentially become the Stepford Nation.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 
Immortality both intrigues and frightens me. No one wants to die, but to live forever, watching everyone you know die… how would you ever start a relationship? Could you ever have kids? The pain of loss… it would be unbearable.
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Living forever is a question that might seem counterintuitive, but complex for others, and throughout history, humankind has always been extremely inquisitive about this.
Can eternal life be achieved, well historically and with traditional science, probably not, but still we try to formulate a solution, which inadvertently makes some of us quite vain, and many different alchemists from different ages and civilisations have tried to come up with potions, spells and an elixir, to overcome the misery that’s instilled in us mortals – death.
The idea of immortality and the meaning of life has always bothered humankind, and even though we know we can never become immortal, the concept of immortality was then seen as the afterlife, and immortality appears to have been created by our unique inherent ability of complex fictional thinking and storytelling and has become the natural way to explain death and ease its dark sadness.
At the end of the day, immortality has always been humanity’s ultimate goal, although it’s always been the centre of religions, with their fear fading because religion is where they take refuge.
By nature, Homo Sapiens always want more – they’re curious but greedy, and they have this spontaneous urge to control all resources at will, to serve their unending needs, which is the principal reason why happiness is the human’s ultimate desire, but it’s rarely achieved.
We want immortality because we are curious by nature, but what would we do with it if we could have it?
Of course, no one wants to die, and watching everyone that we knew die would be pretty sad, but if we could all live forever, then we wouldn’t have to watch everyone die because we would all be immortal, and I suppose starting a relationship would be a little like groundhog day. And your question about having children, well that could be a problem because they would be immortal as well, so would they get past the foetus stage, who knows.
The anguish of death would be intolerable but we lose family every day as we get older, and yes it’s quite sad, but we eventually get on with our lives, even though we never forget them, and as evolution went on, we would become accustomed to this form of selection.
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Brilliant answer! I hadn’t considered what it would mean for everyone to be immortal. It would definitely test whether love is eternal.
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