“This is a comment on fear. Today it’s like ‘They’re going to bomb the New York subway and there’s the avian flu and 50 million of us are going to die.’”

Physical immortalists today, those who think science will find a way to keep us young forever, would call Hanaya Yanagihara scenario the Tithonus error.

The military-industrial complex lubricates the mass-agriculture system with fossil fuels.

No one wants to live forever if it means becoming increasingly decrepit.

Like our ancestors, we act in ways that will bemuse future societies.

We’ve also always hoped that there might be a way to avoid dying.

If manufacturers are so sure there is nothing wrong with genetically modified foods, pesticides and cloned meats, they should have no problems labeling them as such.

They think they’ll find another way. I’m not so sure. It seems like her book views immortality as a dangerous desire.

Not everyone wants to live forever, but every culture has always desired immortality in one way or another.

Humans have always believed in the possibility of another life, of a second act.

Tons of heavy metals and other hazardous, even radioactive, waste is sprayed on American agricultural soil.

The term “cultural-universal” is a complicated one, but I’ve heard it come up on numerous occasions while researching immortality.

After all, cancer will kill one in every two men and one in every three women now alive, reports Samuel Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition.

We wanted to make fun of that fear-based culture we’ve been plunged into. And Halloweens the perfect metaphor for fear.