Pro-aging trance

According to de Grey, the pro-aging trance is the most reasonable explanation for the phenomenon that many people gloss over aging through irrational thought patterns. It basically says that the thought of one's own body slowly but ceaselessly deteriorating is so burdensome that it seems most sensible from a psychological point of view to try to put it out of one's mind until there is a realistic chance of being able to seriously do something about it.[2][3] Since aging has been present since the dawn of civilization, this coping mechanism would be deeply rooted in human thinking.[4] It is striking that, in defending their point of view, those affected often commit fallacies which, from experience, would not be expected of them in a different context.[5]

Pro-aging consists both in the belief that the aging process is almost inevitable and will not be prevented by future developments, and in the view that any success in the fight against aging would have mainly negative consequences. Examples cited include boredom, unresolved problems regarding current pension systems, and dictators living forever,[6] but there is no juxtaposition or weighing of these potential disadvantages with the benefits of eliminating aging (such as saving about 100,000 lives per day).[7]

This behaviour is sometimes compared to the Stockholm syndrome: Just as hostages sympathize with their captors after a certain period of time, people come to terms with the idea that they will age and eventually die.[8]

De Grey assumes that robust mouse rejuvenation will provide a paradigm shift in society in this regard.[9]

The social psychologist Tom Pyszczynski, one of the founding psychologists of terror management theory, explains the opposition against life-prolonging therapies with exactly this model. According to him, the cause of that opposition is paradoxically that the critics fear death and actually long for radical life extension. However, since they do not consider it feasible or likely in their remaining lifetime, they try to deal with the terror caused by their own mortality through investing in a cultural worldview in the hope of achieving literal or symbolic immortality. The actual possibility of life extension challenges the beliefs and values that serve them as their protector from death-related thoughts. It thus generates the need to defend them and object to treatments that would actually extend lifespan. This goes hand in hand with the mortality salience hypothesis.[10]

According to representatives of the anti-aging movement, learned helplessness could also play a role in why many people resign themselves to aging.[11] In 1967, the psychologist and behavioral scientist Martin Seligman showed that dogs that are exposed to mild electric shocks and realize that they cannot do anything about it tend to continue to endure the shocks after this phase, even if they have the opportunity to avoid them. The attitude of many people toward their own aging process is similar: They have learned that any attempt to fight against it is in vain and will therefore disregard new possibilities.[11]

The pro-aging attitude is a hurdle in the rapid development of anti-aging medicine because it takes time for people to break out of it and the result of lacking public support is low research funding.[12][13]

Furthermore, aging is not socially perceived as a disease to be fought,[9][13] which is why it is more difficult to get support for fighting it than for fighting cancer, Alzheimer's disease, or similar diseases. De Grey sees the reason for this in the rhetoric of many gerontologists during the 1950s, -60s, and -70s, who usually drew a line in public communication between age-related diseases and "aging itself", even though the former were merely late stages of aging and therefore should not be viewed independently of the aging process.[14] Moreover, he argues that a post-aging world is portrayed predominantly dystopian in fiction, hence reinforcing people in their assumption that defeating aging is undesirable.[15]

• Aging and society
• Longevity escape velocity
• The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant