"Curing death" :Longevity and the quest for immortality.

"Immortality is the negation of death. We do not usually speak about 'innatality' - about having not yet been born - yet this is something we would have to regard as the other aspect of the human soul. We are just as unborn as we are immortal" Rudolf Steiner

Reversing aging or curing death is the "new-new" thing in medtech/biotech space. The science itself is old, scientists have been researching aging for years. What is new is a new breed of hustling biotech/medtech entrepreneurs who are pushing unproven science to narcissists who crave immortality. It is not about anti aging creams anymore. It is about a molecular science they say. Billions of dollars are pouring in this fast emerging field of longevity.

“I think involuntary death is clearly morally bad, which makes the quest for longevity a morally noble thing to engage in,” Jaan Tallinn, Skype founder.

The quest to live forever is as old as the human race. Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China between 259 BC–210 BC sought immortality in his old age. He allegedly died of mercury poising after he had eaten too many mercury pills, prescribed by his court doctors to make him immortal. Everywhere from Mesopotamia, China and India people have being seeking the elixir of life.

One hundred years ago, in 1923, the average life expectancy in the United States was 53.6 years for men and 54.6 years for women. This is significantly lower than the average life expectancy today, which is 78.93 years. Modern medicine has extended life expectancy in a number of ways but that has peaked. Vaccines, antibiotics, advances in surgery and medical technology have made it possible for people to live longer. That was not enough for good people of silicon valley. Peter diamandis founded Human longevity, with a goal "...to build the world's most comprehensive database on human genotypes and phenotypes, and then subject it to machine learning so that it can help develop new ways to fight diseases associated with aging." Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Alphabet's Larry Page, Oracles Larry Ellison and Palantir’s Peter Thiel are just a few of the super-rich who have taken a keen interest in the fast-emerging field of longevity.

Some people have a different approach. Instead of prolonging life, "augmented eternity" plans to posthumous impression of our knowledge, opinions and even parts of our personality in digital form. A sort of bot that will represent you on this earth possibly forever.