The Ends of Life: Catastrophism, Immortalism, Hope

The contemporary condition is experienced by many as despair. Whether as a response to climate change, the threat of nuclear war, or the possibility of AI Armageddon, many people—and especially young persons—no longer believe that they have any possible future. The response to these looming catastrophes is too often posed in technoscientific terms that not only threaten to hasten our collective demise but also provide no values around which hope could be enacted. This essay explores how secular immortalists offer an extreme example of just this approach and the pseudoconception of hope it expresses.