In December 2013, Gennady Stolyarov II, a transhumanist activist, published a book titled “Death is Wrong.”
"Death is Wrong" is a children’s book promoting “indefinite human life extension.”
Now, Stolyarov has begun an IndieGoGo campaign, which began this past February, to raise five thousand dollars in order to print and widely distribute “Death is Wrong,” to longevity activists who, he hopes, will pass it along to youth readers.
Stolyarov aims to debunk and refute “traditional … pro-death rationalizations,” by illustrating the possibilities and opportunities that come with prolonged existence, fostered by the rejection of “death-acceptance.”
“Death is Wrong” begins by reflecting back upon Stolyarov’s own childhood misunderstanding of the notion of time and the first time he recognizes the concept of death. “What happens when people grow up?” He asks his mother.
“And then?… And then?” He continues to inquire. Eventually, his mother gets around to death, which child-Stolyarov immediately writes off as “wrong”, apparently an instinctual inclination for the author.
He brings us on his journey of fear and sadness, shaped by his growing understanding of illness, war and the inevitability of dying. This initial rejection, he argues, is a sort of universal truth.
“…I got into far less trouble than most children because of my strong
desire to avoid death” Stolyarov says of his childhood.
He cites age five as when he began to “wage war on death,” blowing out his candles each year wishing not to die. Stolyarov takes a defensive tone against typical “justification(s) of mortality,” which he then explores. “Unfortunately, because death has become so widespread for so long, most people have developed excuses for it so that it does not feel so painful or scary.”
What about long living animals like tortoises he argues? If we lived forever we could meet our great-great-great-great grandchildren. Wouldn’t that be great?
The text rambles in different directions often repeating itself, acknowledging the inevitability of death only in light of the popular defeatist opinion of which he grows increasingly intolerant. Interspersed in the pages of his anti-death manifesto are illustrations done by his wife, Wendy, which features figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Benjamin Franklin, fellow life extension activists.
Also featured are facts and pictures of other animals, like tortoises, whose timelines exceed traditional expectation.
It ends with a call to action, and suddenly I remembered this was a children’s book.
“Death is wrong…” he asserts, “but, will you give into the wrong? Or will you fight it?” He asks his imagined child reader. He challenges the child to conquer death instead.
His goal, to “motivate them [children] to become part of the next generation of researchers, technologists, philosophers and activists, who will perhaps enable us all to avoid the great peril of death,” is arguably justified, but his tact is questionable. In his effort to promote research, he alienates all mainstream tendencies to normalize death in a world that is both increasingly technological and dangerous.
Furthermore, his narration is jumbled and self-serving, only taking into account his own perspective and fears which he disjointedly “proves” with miscellaneous quotations and animal statistics.
Promoting a generation of forward thinking innovators is one thing, but “Death is Wrong” is more of a promotion of fear than an inspiration of hope.
