Extending Life is not “Cheating Death”
Uprooting a flawed phrasing
How often have you come across the phrase “cheating death” or “he tried to cheat death”? It certainly shows up with remarkable frequency in media stories about life extension and biostasis. Even in stories lacking hostility to the life extension project it inevitably shows up. No one wants to be thought of as a cheat. Using this phrase creates a mental framework that immediately colors our perception negatively.
Much usage of this phrase is probably just mindless repetition by someone who has heard it before. They use it without thought. And that is part of the problem with the phrase. It lulls people into a state of philosophical confusion and ignorance.
Others use the phrase intentionally. The goal is to cast a negative light on life extension – to poison the well. They may know there are well considered reasons for living longer by technological means. But they want to bypass a reasonable discussion and paint the goal as inherently wrong, unnatural, disrespectful, or hubristic.
Next time you hear something talking or writing about “cheating death,” remember the multiple reasons for rejecting that usage:
Life Extension and Biostasis Do Not Do Away with Death
Life extension treatments and biostasis far from guarantee keeping death at bay forever. They give us a way to live longer, perhaps much longer but we remain vulnerable to eventual death from accident, homicide, war, and other means. Granted, there may well be people in involved in life extension and biostasis who actually do believe they are “overcoming death” rather than postponing it. We cannot rule out the possibility of endlessly avoiding death if we grant the possibility of uploading, backup copies of the self, and the concept of partial survival. Yet it is clear that
Death Is Not a Person; It Has No Claim on Us
The metaphor of “cheating death” anthropomorphizes death—as if it were an agent we defy, a reaper with a schedule we are morally bound to obey. But death is not a being. There is no Grim Reaper, no Thanatos. Death is a biological process—the victory of entropy over order—not an entity with rights or claims. Anthropomorphism distorts the discussion, suggesting life extension robs someone, when it’s simply a human effort to delay an inevitable event. Since death is not a person it has no intention, no justice, and there is no “balance” to restore. Dying is not an act of moral symmetry—it is the cessation of the self, the collapse of all projects, thoughts, and relationships.
To call efforts at life extension “cheating” is to smuggle in a quasi-mystical view of death that serves no explanatory or ethical purpose. It implies that we owe something to the void. We do not.
“Cheating” Implies Unfairness—But to Whom?
A corollary point: To cheat is to gain advantage through deceit or to violate rules. But what rule is being broken by staying alive longer? Who is being wronged by the delay of death? Are cancer survivors “cheaters” because they defied a prognosis? Is a child born today, who may live to 120, unfairly “outliving” their ancestors? Longevity is not a zero-sum game. My extended life doesn’t steal time from yours. If anything, it creates more opportunities for connection, contribution, and meaning.
There is No Sacrosanct Life Span
To speak of “cheating” death implies that there exists a fixed, rightful time to die. But the human lifespan is not carved in stone—either biologically nor morally. Rather than lifespan being fixed and “divinely ordained” it is a product of evolution and environmental factors, not a cosmic mandate. The processes of aging and death result from genetic compromises, not destiny. Average life expectancy has risen by several decades over the last few centuries – especially the last 150 years – thanks to interventions such as antibiotics and sanitation. Some people die in their 30s or 40s while others live to 100 and beyond. The latter are not cheating, they are fortunate. Longer lifespans represent not cheating but a human-driven progression.
Life Extension Is a Continuum, Not a Category
We already push back against death through many practices: Vaccination, prescribing statins, chemotherapy, performing surgeries, cleaning up our environment, resuscitating people and bringing them back from clinical death. No one says that a person “cheats death” by undergoing heart surgery or taking insulin for diabetes. So why is biostasis, caloric restriction, or gene therapy treated differently? These are simply new means of extending life and health. To single them out as “cheating” is arbitrary and reflects emotional or cultural discomfort, not principled reasoning. This inconsistency highlights a cultural bias against “futuristic” methods, despite their shared goal of survival.
Biostasis Is a Logical Extension of Medicine
Biostasis is often dismissed as “cheating death” precisely because it challenges our intuitions about when death has occurred. As medical capabilities advance, the accepted definition of death has changed repeatedly. We no longer declare when breathing ceases. We no longer declare death when the heart stops. Biostasis extends emergency medicine. It is another step forward, pushing back the time when death takes us.
Biostasis challenges the notion of irreversibility. It proposes that a person declared dead by today’s standards might be revivable tomorrow, once the underlying damage can be reversed. This makes it not a denial of death, but a redefinition of what is medically treatable. It belongs on the same spectrum as CPR, ECMO, and therapeutic hypothermia—technologies once seen as outlandish. Positioning biostasis within medical continuity reduces the moral panic implied by “cheating.”
Extending Life Is Natural—Because Human Nature Evolves
It is sometimes argued that life extension is “unnatural” and that is why it is cheating death. This statement is absurd. It ignores that the drive to extend life is inherent to human nature. what could be more natural than the human impulse to survive, to improve, to explore? Our species has always sought ways to outwit illness and environmental hazard. Language, tools, agriculture, antibiotics, and vaccines are all forms of “unnatural” innovation by the standards of our evolutionary ancestors. Calling life extension and biostasis “unnatural” ignores that all medicine manipulates nature—for instance antibiotics defy bacterial evolution.
If anything, the drive to extend life is among the most deeply human instincts. To resist that impulse in the name of preserving some imagined “natural” balance is to misunderstand both nature and humanity.
Scientific Uncertainty, Not Moral Failing
“Cheating death” misrepresents a technical hurdle as an ethical breach. Calling cryonics “cheating” implies a moral judgment, but its challenges are scientific. Research focuses on cryoprotectants and nanotechnology, not defying fate. Similar objections were made to anesthesia or organ transplants, which were later accepted.
Empowerment vs. Defiance
I understand the desire to frame life extension as a rebellion against death. I have seen it that way myself. A better framing is to see it as a commitment to life – to preserving the richness of conscious experience, or memory, of love and creativity. We do not accuse a farmer of “cheating drought” by irrigating crops, or a parent of “cheating hunger” by feeding a child. Why then accuse those who seek to preserve life of cheating death? Life extension is not defiance of a higher power. It is a proactive choice. Seeing it this way reframes the act as self-determination, not trickery, resonating with modern values of autonomy and choice.
The phrase “cheating death” is a linguistic relic—dramatic, but distorting. It romanticizes decay and vilifies preservation. In truth, those who pursue radical life extension or cryonics are not outlaws. They are heirs to Hippocrates, to Pasteur, to the surgeons and scientists who have always refused to accept suffering and decline as final. To want more life is not to cheat—it is to care. And to try is not hubris – it is a courageous seizing of an opportunity to live with all the possibilities that brings.