Welcome to Ever Not Quite—essays about technology and humanism.

This one is about the tech-entrepreneur Bryan Johnson’s much-publicized designs on biological immortality and the Don’t Die movement of which he is the founder and leader. With the help of the American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose 1973 book The Denial of Death has influenced a generation of readers from diverse disciplines, I interpret this new form of death-denial as a manifestation of modern mainstream cultural assumptions.

If you are interested in learning more about Becker’s ideas, I highly recommend a recent documentary called All Illusions Must Be Broken, which is a contemporization of Becker’s work for our technologically-mediated world of today.

As always, thank you for reading. If you’d like to support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber and/or sharing this essay around within your circles.