The Immorality of Accepting Death

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”

– Carl Sagan <3

Carl Sagan, despite his occasional sentimentalism, was right about one thing. Love, properly understood as the admiration of values, gives meaning to existence. But if one truly loves their own existence, one does not surrender it. If one values the grandeur of the universe, one does not accept the arbitrary limits imposed by nature. To love existence is to fight for its continuation—not just in the abstract, not just for humanity, but for oneself.

And yet, for centuries, society has glorified the passive acceptance of mortality as wisdom and virtue. People call it natural, as if nature were some infallible authority rather than a chaotic, indifferent state to be shaped by the rational mind. Nature gave us plagues, droughts, and misery, yet we do not revere those as sacred. We combat them with science, industry, and the force of human intellect. Why, then, should we make an exception for death?

The Crossroads

You may have heard me joke about this before, but I believe there are two metaphorical paths ahead of us. One is a beautiful, blissful Star Trek communist utopia. The other, Mad Max.

Both famously do without money. One because post-scarcity abundance makes it irrelevant, the other because civilization collapsed and now people trade gasoline and human skulls.

But only one of these paths opens the door to the possibility of extending our lives. The other is about as compatible with the Don't Die ethos as an architect in a city where the most impressive structure is a pile of bones.

This post very optimistically assumes the Star Trek future, but I fully acknowledge that Mad Max—or worse—is on the table. The AI and synthetic biology wave is unstoppable, and I do not know what happens when humans can no longer provide value.

Maybe it is ironic that a capitalist like me wants Star Trek so badly, but I see it as the best possible outcome, and think human immortality depends entirely on whether civilization collapses in the nearish future. For the purpose of this post, let’s assume it does not. The only good thing about Mad Max is the aesthetics. Catch me at Burning Man 2025, maybe?

To anyone who has yet to meet me:

You should know that I’m not as certain about anything as I probably sound. In person, I’m softer, more curious, more open-ended.

And yet, every time I put my thoughts into words, they come out blaring.

So, with that said—

Accepting Death Is a Moral Failure

For most of human history, the idea of not dying simply didn’t exist. People accepted death like they accepted winter—just another brute fact of existence. No one in a Viking village was pondering immortality while charging into battle with 80% death rates on both sides. They weren’t dreaming of longevity—they’d spent their whole lives with a festering toothache and were probably just hoping to die before they had to chew another piece of smoked meat.

But the idea does exist now—and it's the obsession of some very smart people.

So, when we look at the great traditions of thought that justified death, we have to remember they were not reckoning with a choice between life and death like we are. They were reckoning with the guarantee of death and doing their best to make it sound profound rather than tragic.

The Philosophical Excuses for Dying

The Stoics: The original “it is what it is” crowd. Since they could not escape death, they decided the next best thing was to pretend it did not bother them. They preached acceptance, finding peace in surrender rather than victory. It was a practical stance for a time when medicine involved bloodletting and prayers, but it is hardly an argument against taking a more proactive approach today.

Religious Mystics: Death became a transaction. Suffer now and get your reward later. Human existence was rebranded as a probationary period for an afterlife that, to this day, remains as unverifiable as it is convenient for those in charge. By this logic, the best thing you can do with your earthly time is endure it. Not exactly an inspiring call to action.

Modern Fatalists: These are the people who claim that death gives life meaning. This is the grotesque inversion of values that insists destruction is necessary to justify creation. If that were true, then every artist should smash their best work and every great love should end in self-inflicted tragedy.

If death is a virtue, why does every major advancement in human history push us further away from it? The truth is, people do not actually believe death is good. They just need a story that makes it feel less awful.

The Morality of Life

One thing I want to clear up. Life is not about survival for the sake of survival. It is about expansion. It is about continual growth and improvement. If an individual seeks to live forever, it is not because they fear death but because they are committed to more. More knowledge, more love, more art, more exploration, more of everything that makes existence exhilarating. "Maxxing" as a philosophy, if you will.

The False Arguments of the Death Cult

The defenders of death, whether theologians, philosophers, or everyday cowards, offer a set of predictable objections. Let us dismantle them.

1. “Living forever would be boring.”

To claim that life would lose meaning if extended is to admit that one’s own existence is already dull. Boredom is the condition of a mind that has ceased to create and ceased to seek. If you fear eternity because you can think of nothing to do with it, that is your failure, not life’s.

2. “It is unnatural.”

Mhm. What does natural mean anyway? Unaltered by humans? Occurring in nature? We wrestled civilization out of the dirt and made it our own. If "natural" is your moral standard, go get nakey and live in a cave. I’ll be over here, extending my lifespan with the unnatural magic of human ingenuity :)

3. “Death gives life meaning.”

Ah yes, the philosophy of the parasite. The idea that something is only valuable if it is destroyed.

4. “Not everyone will have access to immortality, so it is unfair.”

Death itself is the most unfair phenomenon imaginable—it snatches people at random, without regard for merit or potential. The actual ethical choice is to race forward and innovate faster. That's how you expand access!

The Deathline

To reject immortality is to accept a contradiction: that your life is valuable, yet not worth preserving; that your mind is capable of solving great problems, yet unworthy of continuing to do so; that you seek happiness, yet are content to see it extinguished.

The rational and moral person does not accept contradictions. A great and terrible moment is approaching in human history, one where, for the first time, we may possess the means to free ourselves from the final tyranny.

Not everyone will make it. The first longevity treatments will likely be expensive, inaccessible, or locked behind networks of privilege. Some of us, perhaps even those who want it most, will be left behind. There will be a generation, the last to die before forever begins, and that is the real tragedy. Not for those who rejected it, but for those who fought for it and missed the cutoff.

And so, the only sane response is to run. If the race is on, you run. If you cannot be first, you make damn sure you are close enough for the door to still be open when it scales. If there is even a sliver of a chance, you claw at it with everything you have. Because the alternative is to go quietly, and if you were the kind of person to do that, you would not have read this far.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this post, you should probably try to meet me. Or interact with me on X. Or we can just wait and kick it in a million years!