There is a lot of arguing in the comments about what the ‘tradeoffs’ are for individuals in the scientific community and whether making those tradeoffs is reasonable. I think what’s key in the quoted article is that fraudsters are trading so much for so little. They are actively obscuring and destroying scientific progress while contributing to the norm of obscuring and destroying scientific progress. Potentially preventing cures to diseases, time and life-saving technology, etc. This is REALLY BAD. And for what? A few dollars and an ego trip? An 11% instead of a 7% chance at a few dollars and an ego trip? I do not think it is unreasonable to judge this behavior as reprehensible, reguargless if it is the ‘norm’.
Using peers in a field as a proxy for good vs. bad behavior doesn’t make sense if the entire field is corrupt and destroying value. If 100% of scam artists steal people’s money, I don’t forgive a scam artist for stealing less money than the average scam artist. They are not ‘making things better’ by in theory reducing the average amount of money stolen per scam artist. They are still stealing money. DO NOT BECOME A SCAM ARTIST IN THE FIRST PLACE. If academia is all a scam, then that is very sad, but it does not make it ok for people to join in the scam and shrug it off as a norm.
And being fraudulent in science is SO MUCH WORSE than just being an ordinary scam artist who steals money. It’s more like being a scam artist who takes money in exchange for poisoning the water and land with radioactive waste. No, it’s not ok because other people are doing it.
A few thoughts on why people dislike the idea of greatly extending human life:
1) The most obvious reason: people don’t understand the difference between lifespan and healthspan. They see many old, enfeebled, miserable people in old folks homes and conclude, ‘My God, what has science wrought!’ They are at present not wrong.
2) They don’t believe it could work. People as they get older start recognizing and coming to terms with mortality. It suffuses everything about their lives, preparations, the way they talk. The second half of a modern human life is mostly shoring things up for the next generation. Death is horrible. It needs to be made ok one way or another. If you dangle transhumanism in front of them, but they don’t believe it has any possibility of happening, then you are undoing years of mental preparation for the inevitable for no reason. People have mental protections against this kind of thing.
3) On some level people don’t want their parents to live forever. Modernly extended lifespans have already greatly extended the time parents exert influence over their children. Our childhoods essentially never end.
4) On some level people don’t want to live. That might be hard for you to understand, but many people are very miserable, even if they are not explicitly suicidal. The idea of a complete life, when they can say their work is done, can be very appealing. The idea of it never ending can sound like hell.