Goodbye Grim Reaper: Challenging the Historical Inevitability of Death [Video]

One lesson we all learn in life is to accept uncertainties. No matter how much planning, researching, or preparing one does, nothing is certain…except for one thing: death. Throughout humanity, death has always been the inevitable end point, thus turning life into a challenge. In order to beat death, we strive to produce the most out of life. Only recently, has this challenge begun to question inevitability: we have produced extreme advancements in technology, that put humanity on the path of defeating death.

In this quirky video from the Galactic Public Archives, death, in the form of the Grim Reaper, is having more and more trouble leading the deceased into the afterlife; people are not dying as easily as they used to. This video shows, where once death was certain, now technology looms and interferes. The path the Grim Reaper is used to following, is no longer direct, instead he is swayed by mobile defibrillators in 1960, the first human heart transplant in 1967, and an implanted artificial heart in 1982.

The advancements depicted in this video challenge us to explore the future. This video projects two different ways humanity is trying to overcome the inevitability of death. First is ‘longevity’, which hopes to control and eventually defeat the aging process, so that people can live forever within their given biological forms. Scientists, like Dr. Aubrey de Grey, have been working toward this goal. Within his work, Grey hopes to prove that aging is simply a disease that can be prevented with certain preemptive measures. He hopes to highlight the components that “disease” human tissue into aging, and eventually find cures for them, which will prevent aging and eventually push off death: thus promoting longevity of life.

Another approach to defeat death takes form in transhumanism, which hopes to preserve our intelligence independent of physicality. Neuroscientist Dr. Ken Hayworth’s work hopes to prove that in the future we will be able to “preserve our brains”, ultimately deeming the death of our physical body irrelevant. Hayworth believes that our brains are the essence of our existence, and by preserving our brains beyond ‘death’, we again challenge the inevitability of it.

Both of these thinkers are interfering in the Grim Reaper’s path. While watching this video, we hope people begin to consider all of the hurdles that Grim is being forced to jump, and that everyone, like de Grey and Hayworth, will think beyond the inevitable and realize: the inevitability of death may no longer be certain.