Against the backdrop of the latest biotechnological achievements, for some, death is no longer considered an inevitable fate. The topic of immortality became even more relevant after the conversation between China’s leader Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin about rejuvenation strategies was made public.
“With the development of biotechnology, the constant transplantation of human organs may become possible, people may be rejuvenated more and more, and even achieve immortality,” Putin told Xi Jinping. He also added that there is a chance to live up to 150 years. But is this truly possible, and what would it mean for the world if authoritarian rulers were to live forever?
How is immortality imagined?
Over the last few centuries, public health and medical innovations have increased human life expectancy (longevity) to an unprecedented level. Despite these achievements, for a group of Silicon Valley billionaire investors and technologists—known as the Immortalists—biological death is no longer regarded as an unavoidable destiny. Their vision includes solving the problem of aging (treating ageing as a disease) and achieving eternal life, for which they push global infrastructure change and technological accelerationism.
Within the pursuit of immortality, several major and conceptually different directions can be observed:
Technological singularity and post-human existence
This approach, often associated with transhumanism, rests on the belief of highly intellectual, mathematically minded philosophers and computer scientists in the life-extending potential of technology.
- Mind Uploading: The idea involves scanning human consciousness as information, transferring it into a digital format, and integrating it into computer systems or artificial intelligence (AI). In this scenario, a person’s “essence” would exist independently of the physical body, thereby achieving factual, digital immortality. They view themselves as post-humans.
Slowing down aging through technological progress
This concept, based on biogerontology, aims to maximize both lifespan and healthspan.
- Belief in exponential progress: This direction, supported by political leaders such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, is based on principles similar to Moore’s Law—exponential growth in medicine and biotechnology.
Moore’s Law, proposed by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, states that the number of transistors on a microchip roughly doubles every two years, leading to exponential growth in computing power. A similar model of exponential growth is imagined in medicine and biotechnology.
The idea is that if scientific and technological progress accelerates the development of anti-aging treatments to the extent that every year the increase in life expectancy exceeds biological aging (e.g., each year adding more than 365 days of life), humanity will reach the point where all age-related diseases (dementia, diabetes, cancer) are curable before they appear. Thus, aging could be slowed, stopped, or even reversed, resulting in dramatic life extension.
Political and legal infrastructure changes
The third major dimension of the immortality project focuses not only on biological experiments but also on altering political and legal infrastructure. This approach is driven by techno-libertarian ideology, which demands the removal of global governance and regulatory barriers.
Prominent figures in this direction—including major investors and tech entrepreneurs—seek to weaken state oversight. Their primary target is regulatory bodies such as the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration). The goal is simple: to accelerate the market release of anti-aging treatments, including those still unproven but promising.
Thus, they aim to create an environment for the privileged, where cutting-edge life extension methods are available to the wealthy elite, effectively accelerating the creation of a “fountain of eternal life” for only the chosen few.
The ethical dilemma
Despite the Immortalists’ vision, which is oriented toward technological singularity and deregulation, their project faces serious ethical and scientific criticism. Many scientists involved in biogerontology, including Nobel laureates, criticize the engineering approach that treats aging as merely a “technical problem” that can be “fixed” through technology.
Critics argue that this is a mistake, since technologists ignore the complexity of human nature and social determinants. The human body is not a product or computer code that can be endlessly “improved” and regulated. Therefore, the ambition to defeat death requires humans to become more like machines, which risks the loss of human essence.
Added to this philosophical problem is a sharp social dilemma: the exacerbation of global inequality. Implementing this agenda requires the concentration of state resources on research, meaning funding would be restricted for healthcare programs for millions of elderly citizens. If life-extension therapies remain expensive and exclusive, this will cause a “biological class divide.” The wealthy elite may be able to “escape” death, while the majority of the population remains trapped by the old biological laws.
This risk is especially significant in the political context: if authoritarian rulers such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin obtain biological means of immortality, it would lead to the permanent consolidation of power and make any political change an irrevocable obstacle. In the end, the Immortalists are creating a future where people are considered nothing more than complex machines that can be repaired. Our choice is whether to embrace this ideology, or to prioritize the mortal reality of life here and now, where social equality matters more than the eternal life of the elites.
Source: The Guardian
