This obsession with mortality is probably unique to humans. It is only the accidental evolution of our brain and consciousness, and our development of language to communicate our fears, that has made our species so fixated on the end. The writer and editor Allison Arieff has pointed out the irony that the same Silicon Valley culture that produces gadgets designed to be obsolete and discarded every few years seems to be obsessed with living forever. She quotes the writer Barbara Ehrenreich, “You can think of death bitterly or with resignation and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or,
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