Abstract

The slowing, elimination, or even reversal of human aging takes center stage in the transhuman project, either explicitly or implicitly, and for good reason. As a society, we have to deal with an aging population and all the challenges that come with it caused by better medical care and higher standards of living. Additionally, the idea that humans can somehow halt their own aging or achieve immortality has been around since ancient times and the tales of Gilgamesh, to name the most famous. However, ideas like these are still well and alive in modern fiction, only that mythical means, magic, and alchemy gave way to science. This article’s aim is to contextualize the fictional with the real and ask some important questions about the technologically and scientifically ever progressing world we live in. By critically examining twenty-first century works of authors like Margaret Atwood or Charles Stross, which employ numerous life-prolonging and society-altering technologies, this article looks at depictions of aging and its relation to the real-life transhuman project. This is framed by a Marxist reading of the texts. Ultimately, this article will show the important role fiction can play in asking the right questions of our society and its relation to scientific and technological progress.