"Death by natural causes" induced by age include alzheimers, cancer, heart disease, strokes, etc. natural causes are just diseases that medicine isn't great at truly treating, often those diseases are exacerbated by age. I don't want to imply you are pro-cancer (for older individuals), but what "natural cause" deaths are unworthy of attention in your opinion?
Hey sorry for the delay in getting back. It's obviously a difficult line to draw because terminal diseases, especially those of the painful/slow degenerative type, are tragic and I would never wish them on anyone. I also understand that it will be a bitter pill for me to swallow were I to develop a terminal illness, and approaching death in that way is no doubt a very difficult.
To give you a specific sort of research that I feel is dangerous: preventing oxidative damage to telomeres (stopping one of the primary mechanisms of aging). Even though a breakthrough in that field will generate new therapies for schizophrenia and certain cancers, I believe that it will open a Pandora's box of externalities that, on balance, will outweigh the therapies.
I'm thinking about this more on principle: death is important for society in the same way that fire is important for a forest (imperfect analogy, but bear with me). The passing of older generations creates opportunities and mobility for younger generations, as well as room for cultural change that adapts with the rapid pace of technological change. I think in many ways the world would be a far worse place today were there large numbers of 120+ year-old people still around, voting however they would vote. Having a lot of 120-year-olds around would be ecologically untenable too.
In the original comment I refer to "grace", and by that I'm referring to the way that Randy Pausch or Morrie Schwartz describe their experiences with terminal disease. To them, death is an inevitability that highlights the value and sacredness of our short mortal lives. In the same way, I also really love the way how certain cultures treat funerals as celebrations of life rather than the somber sad traditions common in the West.
