To flip your question around, why are you living right now?
I developed a severe intestinal disorder in my 20s. Some people can get it or ones like it in their teens, others their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. and many won't ever develop such issues, although they're reasonably common to a less severe extreme than my case.
Knowing this, and that I could explain my disorder for years being debilitating and putting me in agonizing pain and suffering, why would you want to live any longer when it could happen to you too?
Not everyone is going to develop such cognitive disorders as you discuss, and often they're a result of complex genetic and lifestyle factors, as well as likely having to do with aspects of aging like reduced function of organs. So it's quite possible these diseases and disorders aren't inevitable simply as a consequence of living long enough, or could be treated and reversed as medical science advances.
If I sound bitter by the way, I am slightly, but do mean for this to still be conveyed productively.
To hear someone asking "why are people interested in living longer?" makes me genuinely want to know why you're interested in living longer. You could die right now and free up resources for the rest of us, or donate resources to younger people than you who are in need, or simply give it to me since I'm neither senile nor old (not even 30) nor have a family history of such disorders as you mentioned, nor would I put it to poor use.
I suspect you want to live. The simple fact is, it's that same desire to live and to continue enjoying life to the fullest that makes those of us with foresight interested in prolonging our healthy lives.
The greatest challenge of chronic pain isn't necessarily the pain, but how it warps and taints parts of you beyond your control.
People who haven't experienced their failure are completely unaware of the incredible mechanisms of our evolution that keep us from suicide. They're also unaware of what choosing to live means in the face of the eventual erosion of those failsafes by pain.
It's like hurtling down the interstate at 70mph in heavy traffic and having the power steering go out. There's no sense of freedom and accomplishment in having to fight just to keep to your lane, only terror from all the parts of you that know how easily you'd crash if you stopped trying for even a few seconds. It's exhausting in every sense.
I developed a severe intestinal disorder in my 20s. Some people can get it or ones like it in their teens, others their 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. and many won't ever develop such issues, although they're reasonably common to a less severe extreme than my case.
Knowing this, and that I could explain my disorder for years being debilitating and putting me in agonizing pain and suffering, why would you want to live any longer when it could happen to you too?
Not everyone is going to develop such cognitive disorders as you discuss, and often they're a result of complex genetic and lifestyle factors, as well as likely having to do with aspects of aging like reduced function of organs. So it's quite possible these diseases and disorders aren't inevitable simply as a consequence of living long enough, or could be treated and reversed as medical science advances.
If I sound bitter by the way, I am slightly, but do mean for this to still be conveyed productively.
To hear someone asking "why are people interested in living longer?" makes me genuinely want to know why you're interested in living longer. You could die right now and free up resources for the rest of us, or donate resources to younger people than you who are in need, or simply give it to me since I'm neither senile nor old (not even 30) nor have a family history of such disorders as you mentioned, nor would I put it to poor use.
I suspect you want to live. The simple fact is, it's that same desire to live and to continue enjoying life to the fullest that makes those of us with foresight interested in prolonging our healthy lives.