There's nothing shameful about aging and dying any more than there's something shameful about being paralyzed or blinded, I've no desire to be either though. There's a big difference between recognizing a handicap doesn't fundamentally diminish a person and entering the delusional rationalization mode of assuming being blind or deaf is not undesirable. Same I'd rather be old than dead but I'd even rather be a hundred and still able to enjoy a good book and play tennis, there's nothing 'shameful' about the first two options but the third is preferable to me. Emphasis there, 'to me', I'd never dictate that to another but I also don't see anything shameful, sinister or crazy about wanting a much longer duration of healthy life than Mother Nature offered me, she's a crazy homicidal bitch who's opinion we ignore every time we vaccinate someone.
I don't object if you want to die at 80 with your mind if the alternative is to lose your mind at 80 and live another 40 years, I'd opt for the same. But that whole line of reasoning revolves around a specific scenario for longevity that is totally moot for other scenarios. If the 'magical pill' let you live in total mental and physical vigor till you were 100 then fall over dead your whole argument would be inapplicable, same if tech just lets us keep pushing things back so that a person who would be frail at 80 and dead at 90 now would be frail at 90 and dead at 100, then I don't see a downside of the sort you envision. We don't know what form such longevity methods might take so discussion of the morality of them is decidedly premature especially when one insists on taking the nightmare scenario and using that as the basis for determining the morality of the entire concept.
I swear it is like some people have Stockholm Syndrome with the Grim Reaper.
I never said or implied we should embrace any method that simply kept your heart beating one more year regardless of quality of life. I'm objecting to the implication that living longer in of itself might be considered immoral.
- Albert Einstein
King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod