Elf Sternberg

(D) Life-extension methods will be purchased and used exclusively by the rich. Duh! They're the ones who (1) will be most able to afford them; and (2) at least here in the US, are arrogant and self-important enough to think that they should live forever, everyone else be damned.

Any given life extension method will at first be "purchased and used exclusively by the rich," because every major new technology starts out expensive. What always happens is that, as the technology develops further over time, suppliers bring the price down to expand their markets, until eventually (sometimes over generations) it becomes cheap enough for the middle classes and even the poor.

This or course assumes that the technology is not strangled by prohibitions. If that happens, then the process of mass production and distribution takes a LOT longer.

By the way, if life extension is outright banned, the super rich will still have it. It will be the Millionaire Next Door, and eventually YOU, PERSONALLY who will wind up dying younger than was necessary in order to satisfy the envious and spiteful who prohibited the technology's application.

And why, exactly, is it "arrogant" or expressing a philosophy of "everyone else be dammned" to try to stave off death as long as possible? Are you claiming that you are willing to die on statistical schedule, even if you know and can afford a means of avoiding it?