The desire for immortality goes back at least as far as the epic of Gilgamesh. Medieval alchemists tried to achieve it. In China, Daoists attempted to dramatically lengthen their lives by various esoteric means. Tibetan Buddhism also has practices along these lines.
Conversely, in today's world plenty of people would like to lengthen their lives, without that being their primary goal. Just because someone wants to live longer does not mean that it's the only thing they care about; it's even possible that some larger purpose is a major reason they want to live longer.
From a Buddhist perspective, "if you are a practitioner of the Dharma, someone who is putting the teachings into practice, there is great significance to doing long-life practice."
Conversely, in today's world plenty of people would like to lengthen their lives, without that being their primary goal. Just because someone wants to live longer does not mean that it's the only thing they care about; it's even possible that some larger purpose is a major reason they want to live longer.
From a Buddhist perspective, "if you are a practitioner of the Dharma, someone who is putting the teachings into practice, there is great significance to doing long-life practice."
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Long_life_practice