I'd argue it has more to do with widespread cultural taboos about what it's "acceptable" to challenge and what deviates too far from the norm.
I doubt humans as a whole will ever feel strongly that death is a negative force. However, improving quality of life is one of the easiest pitches to make, and doesn't necessarily disproportionally value the rich. In fact, the least worthwhile place to spend improving the quality of life would be people with enough money to dictate it already.
But hey—the idea of living for centuries is cool, I always wanted to be an elf.
I'd say it's fundamental, and on the short-term, we all understand that as a civilization. That's why every society protects its member from threats, including crime, fire, natural disasters, famine, war. It's not just about quality - you may live the happiest of lives, up until the point a bullet enters your brain[0].
I think there are three main moral reasons for fighting death:
- suffering in the process of death itself
- existential suffering of knowing your time is limited, and that of knowing you're about to die
- suffering of those who you leave behind
Efforts against #1 connect to quality of life, and with progress on that field, it could be resolved. #2 and #3 won't go away until we achieve (effective) immortality, and for many (myself included) they are the reason to support life extension. But maybe you're right, that a stronger pitch along #1 would help gather extra support.
Then there are economic debates about whether our societies could survive sudden doubling of expected lifespans, or whether we'll be able to offload people fast enough to off-world colonies. I say, we'll figure it out as we go along - it's a nice problem to have, as opposed to death.
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[0] - probably one of the most humane ways to die; one can hardly leave this world without suffering during the process of departure.
In my experience, this is largely limited to the young and sheltered. Mature people can proces death in healthy ways.
People stop dying. We stop losing a hundred and fifty thousand people forever every single day. The vast majority of resources that would go to health-related (and death-related) industries briefly get redirected to getting the cure to everyone, then get freed up for numerous other things. The state of science and human knowledge improves because we no longer lose experienced minds to age and infirmity. People start checking things off their "bucket lists", and adding many more to their life goals, realizing that they have all the time in the universe now. People stop having to mourn the losses of those they love. (There'd likely be more than a few points where people have to stop and re-mourn past deaths, once it truly hits them that death could have been eliminated much sooner.)
I would also recommend reading https://nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html .
> How would people vie for this immortality treatement?
Hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of people would dedicate everything they have to getting the treatment to everyone as quickly as possible, asking only for what resources that people can afford, and using all of those resources to accelerate reaching more people before it's too late.
> For food?
We have more than enough food for everyone. If you're attempting to imply overpopulation, that's been studied, and it's not an issue.
If people somehow magically stopped dying of old age tomorrow, would we choose to solve the resource problems that caused by re-implementing anything similar to death as it exists now? Say, for example, by executing everyone at the age of 75?
I think we'd be much more likely to prefer an alternative solution, such as restricting birth rates.
> I doubt humans as a whole will ever feel strongly that death is a negative force.
We (correctly) consider death a strongly negative force in every single situation that we don't consider it inevitable. The only thing special about "inevitable" death at the end of a typical modern day lifespan is that we can't do anything about it. This is suggestive, to put it mildly.
Is it inevitable? No. Is it worth “fighting”? Definitely not! What a waste of money. Get back to me when there is any path forward on this that doesn’t lead to increased social and economic stratification so rich people can live longer.
Death is useful to fear in that we make better decisions. It’s not useful to fear in that conquering it will not improve your life.
Btw the “death is good” philosophy you mock is just epicureanism.
And one day it will not be, and we'll be sad that it once was and so many people were lost forever as a result.
> Get back to me when there is any path forward on this that doesn’t lead to increased social and economic stratification so rich people can live longer.
You are assuming a great deal that is not in evidence. It's ridiculously hard to raise funds to cure aging and age-related degeneration. Demonstrate that a cure exists, and it'll be easy to raise funds to get that cure to everyone and make it more efficient to administer and distribute. The gap from "exists" to "universally available" will not last long.
> It’s not useful to fear in that conquering it will not improve your life.
On a scale from zero to non-zero, where death is zero, conquering it necessarily improves your life, by preserving it rather than allowing its senseless cessation.