There is the fear of death that also masks a more profound curiosity.
Is there anything beyond the life we see now?
All we can have in this life is faith that such a state exists. Knowing requires that the boundary be crossed.
However long we extend our lives, to eliminate pain we would have to shed all emotions.
A leper can feel no pain. This can lead to an unnoticed injury going septic.
Both Heaven and oblivion are painless.
The Demons of our own creation come only at our invitation.
Hell is a reflection of our fears.
Something more critical than the elimination of death, is the elimination of fear.
And in an overpopulated world there are bound to be a greater number of road fatalities.
...

There is the fear of death that also masks a more profound curiosity.
Is there anything beyond the life we see now?
All we can have in this life is faith that such a state exists. Knowing requires that the boundary be crossed.
However long we extend our lives, to eliminate pain we would have to shed all emotions.
A leper can feel no pain. This can lead to an unnoticed injury going septic.
Both Heaven and oblivion are painless.
The Demons of our own creation come only at our invitation.
Hell is a reflection of our fears.
Something more critical than the elimination of death, is the elimination of fear.
And in an overpopulated world there are bound to be a greater number of road fatalities.
A hundred years in the future seems like a long time, but when it is over it has no more substance than the previous second.
The older you get the more people you know have died. The same principle will apply over an extended lifespan, with many of those once known who were members of original groups, who had identical prospects to the survivors. Sounds like a recipe for paranoia (as if we don't have enough of that already.)
So you've lived for over a thousand years,
have you ever thought about death? -
Every day.
The phrase Rest in Peace is used because Living is emotionally and spiritually exhausting. There are some forms of exhaustion that can't be cured by a good nights sleep.
One of the most unpleasant prospects I can imagine, is being locked into this time stream.
Imagine a Prison where the prisoners were trying to lock themselves in.

Meancookie89, Life extension is not supposed to solve EVERYTHING. It is supposed to solve sickness, old age and death which according to the teaching of the Buddha are the roots of suffering. As to the rest, there is a bigger package that includes other solutions:

Over population: A clean earth can sustain many many billions of humans + perhaps once we live very long perhaps the population will not grow as much because we will not fear for our continuation as we do, so we will be less inclined to procreate.

Limited energy: we need clean renewable energy and lots of it with or without life extension. I believe it is on its way.

Wealth disparity: again has nothing to do with how long we liv...

Meancookie89, Life extension is not supposed to solve EVERYTHING. It is supposed to solve sickness, old age and death which according to the teaching of the Buddha are the roots of suffering. As to the rest, there is a bigger package that includes other solutions:

Over population: A clean earth can sustain many many billions of humans + perhaps once we live very long perhaps the population will not grow as much because we will not fear for our continuation as we do, so we will be less inclined to procreate.

Limited energy: we need clean renewable energy and lots of it with or without life extension. I believe it is on its way.

Wealth disparity: again has nothing to do with how long we live.

Unhappiness: If people get an opportunity to reflect longer they might learn what is important in life and eventually become happier.

Generation gap: I do not see a problem. Generation gap is what fertilizes human relations.

Removing old ways: We will have to undergo a profound psychological transformation.

Still the benefits are just huge.

If there's trouble enough getting humanitarian aid to countries in Africa to help prevent the spread of AIDS, and if these people willing engage in unprotected sex despite knowing the consequences, how is the promise of immortality going to keep people from unprotected sex, and therefore birthing more babies? It's not as if people engage in sex just for the sake of baby makin', people enjoy fucking. Often times (as could be gathered from America today), babies are just a possible consequence of sex, unplanned, not thought out, hardly a reasoned and logical thing.

And reason and logic are what nearly all advocates of immortality believe humans obey. Hardly so. There is a great gap of differ...

If there's trouble enough getting humanitarian aid to countries in Africa to help prevent the spread of AIDS, and if these people willing engage in unprotected sex despite knowing the consequences, how is the promise of immortality going to keep people from unprotected sex, and therefore birthing more babies? It's not as if people engage in sex just for the sake of baby makin', people enjoy fucking. Often times (as could be gathered from America today), babies are just a possible consequence of sex, unplanned, not thought out, hardly a reasoned and logical thing.

And reason and logic are what nearly all advocates of immortality believe humans obey. Hardly so. There is a great gap of difference between the ideal world of entirely rational humans, and the real world, where people are influenced by their impulses, instincts and drives, worship whatever unseen cosmic force, obey commercials, follow propaganda, and eat unhealthily even though they have reasoned that it'll harm them in the long run.

Firstly, naivete does not matter to me, so long as the naive person does not make some claim towards science or reason and logic being our savior. I'd be happier if one believed in The Rapture and made no claims to science, than to hear one claim rationality yet give absolutely no explanation for how these things might happen. Additionally, when asked honest and earnest questions concerning perceived problems with some posited notion, and insinuate through poor pop psychology (after having knowledge of somebody's character for all of three paragraphs worth), that this other person suffers from something irrational and backwards (primitive), "difficulties expressed" and "deeply ...

Firstly, naivete does not matter to me, so long as the naive person does not make some claim towards science or reason and logic being our savior. I'd be happier if one believed in The Rapture and made no claims to science, than to hear one claim rationality yet give absolutely no explanation for how these things might happen. Additionally, when asked honest and earnest questions concerning perceived problems with some posited notion, and insinuate through poor pop psychology (after having knowledge of somebody's character for all of three paragraphs worth), that this other person suffers from something irrational and backwards (primitive), "difficulties expressed" and "deeply ingrained irrational psychological inhibition", and "Taboo", for example. Such are ad hominem attacks, a place of refuge for the irrational, dogmatic, and the followers of fallacy, not the reasonable believers in progress. Is it "Taboo" to actually respond to somebody's questions without making personal attacks, and to actually back up one's claims?

Secondly, "Why is it that this idea is so horrifying?"
Where was it said that "this idea" is horrifying.
I say to you, it is not this idea that is so horrifying, but rather these unexplained beliefs attempting to mask themselves as reasonable. And not faith based. I've heard so many people, (lovers of science, mind you), claim that science and our superior human mind will solve everything, find cure alls (be they physical or social ills), hell, some downright miraculous claims. An issue here is, science is not this thing that works as if there were some magic words that guarantee things will be fixed, "necessity is the mother of invention", for example. Sometimes science has worsened problems, instead of fixing them, to think it only does one, well...

Ignore these thoughts too if you wish. They're not meant to be ad hominem, please don't think they are. Just trying to discern faith from reason is all.

Concern about population and resources will remain important because the exponential growth of replicators (such as people) can eventually overrun any finite resource base.

Long life also raises the threat of cultural stagnation. If this were an inevitable problem of long life, it is unclear what one could do about it - machine-gun the old for holding firm opinions, perhaps? Fortunately, two factors will reduce the problem somewhat. First, in a world with an open frontier the young will be able to move out, build new worlds, test new ideas, and then either persuade their elders to change or leave them behind. Second, people old in years will be young in body and brain. ...

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Concern about population and resources will remain important because the exponential growth of replicators (such as people) can eventually overrun any finite resource base.

Long life also raises the threat of cultural stagnation. If this were an inevitable problem of long life, it is unclear what one could do about it - machine-gun the old for holding firm opinions, perhaps? Fortunately, two factors will reduce the problem somewhat. First, in a world with an open frontier the young will be able to move out, build new worlds, test new ideas, and then either persuade their elders to change or leave them behind. Second, people old in years will be young in body and brain. Aging slows both learning and thought, as it slows other physical processes; rejuvenation will speed them again. Since youthful muscles and sinews make young bodies more flexible, perhaps youthful brain tissues will keep minds somewhat more flexible, even when steeped in long years of wisdom.

Imagine someone who is now thirty years old. In another thirty years, biotechnology will have advanced greatly, yet that thirty-year-old will be only sixty. Statistical tables which assume no advances in medicine say that a thirty-year-old U.S. citizen can now expect to live almost fifty more years - that is, well into the 2030s. Fairly routine advances (of sorts demonstrated in animals) seem likely to add years, perhaps decades, to life by 2030. The mere beginnings of cell repair technology might extend life by several decades. In short, the medicine of 2010, 2020, and 2030 seems likely to extend our thirty-year-old's life into the 2040s and 2050s. By then, if not before, medical adv...

Imagine someone who is now thirty years old. In another thirty years, biotechnology will have advanced greatly, yet that thirty-year-old will be only sixty. Statistical tables which assume no advances in medicine say that a thirty-year-old U.S. citizen can now expect to live almost fifty more years - that is, well into the 2030s. Fairly routine advances (of sorts demonstrated in animals) seem likely to add years, perhaps decades, to life by 2030. The mere beginnings of cell repair technology might extend life by several decades. In short, the medicine of 2010, 2020, and 2030 seems likely to extend our thirty-year-old's life into the 2040s and 2050s. By then, if not before, medical advances may permit actual rejuvenation. Thus, those under thirty (and perhaps those substantially older) can look forward - at least tentatively - to medicine's overtaking their aging process and delivering them safely to an era of cell repair, vigor, and indefinite life-span.

chiggles: Nothing is far from my intentions as any kind of personal attack. If anything of what I wrote was experienced as a personal attack, I truly apologize. What I am interested in is an informed debate and a fertile exchange of ideas. I do think that making a claim about science as a potential agency that might transform our lives as individuals and as a civilization, is perfectly legitimate. A savior is primarily an emotional concept I do not think it is a fit description of my claim. Of course I agree with you that technological advancement can go awefully wrong, and there is some substantial probability that it will. but then, so many things are going wrong these days, that I do not ...

chiggles: Nothing is far from my intentions as any kind of personal attack. If anything of what I wrote was experienced as a personal attack, I truly apologize. What I am interested in is an informed debate and a fertile exchange of ideas. I do think that making a claim about science as a potential agency that might transform our lives as individuals and as a civilization, is perfectly legitimate. A savior is primarily an emotional concept I do not think it is a fit description of my claim. Of course I agree with you that technological advancement can go awefully wrong, and there is some substantial probability that it will. but then, so many things are going wrong these days, that I do not find it constructive or very interesting to guess how everything can go wrong. I am very interested instead in trying to understand the trends, and how to make it right, how to use science (certainly not exlusively) in order to breakthrough the human condition.

Science is nothing but a vehicle. This vehicle needs a direction and for this we will need to make many choices. I would like these choices to be informed choices based on knowledge and clarity not prejudice and pop science.

I was perhaps too hasty in my expression "Why is it that this idea is so horrific?" It begs a longer explanation, so here it is: I raise the question of extreme life extension, first because it personally interests me. Death, and our controvertial relation to it, is deeply rooted in the collective mind, in our stories, myths, and our psychological foundations. It is a profound issue in so many dimensions. I must admit that the lion's share of the responses that I get, are on the spectrum between dismissive trivialization and outspoken reluctance even hostility. I came to wonder why it is so. I came to think that there is a taboo involved. Changing the fact of death will leave nothing in our inner lives the same. It touches the boundaries of both the individual and of society.