Meet the Vitalists: the hardcore longevity enthusiasts who believe death is “wrong”

“Who here believes involuntary death is a good thing?” 

Nathan Cheng has been delivering similar versions of this speech over the last couple of years, so I knew what was coming. He was about to try to convince the 80 or so people in the audience that death is bad. And that defeating it should be humanity’s number one priority—quite literally, that it should come above all else in the social and political hierarchy.

“If you believe that life is good and there’s inherent moral value to life,” he told them, “it stands to reason that the ultimate logical conclusion here is that we should try to extend lifespan indefinitely.” 

Solving aging, he added, is “a problem that has an incredible moral duty for all of us to get involved in.”

It was the end of April, and the crowd—with its whoops and yeahs—certainly seemed convinced. They’d gathered at a compound in Berkeley, California, for a three-day event called the Vitalist Bay Summit. It was part of a longer, two-month residency (simply called Vitalist Bay) that hosted various events to explore tools—from drug regulation to cryonics—that might be deployed in the fight against death. One of the main goals, though, was to spread the word of Vitalism, a somewhat radical movement established by Cheng and his colleague Adam Gries a few years ago.

No relation to the [lowercase vitalism of old](https://mechanism.ucsd.edu/bill/teaching/philbio/vitalism.htm), this Vitalism has a foundational philosophy that’s deceptively simple: to acknowledge that death is bad and life is good. The strategy for executing it, though, is far more obviously complicated: to launch a longevity revolution. 

Interest in longevity has certainly taken off in recent years, but as the Vitalists see it, it has a branding problem. The term “longevity” has been used to sell supplements with no evidence behind them, “anti-aging” has been used by clinics to sell treatments, and “transhumanism” relates to ideas that go well beyond the scope of defeating death. Not everyone in the broader longevity space shares Vitalists’ commitment to actually making death obsolete.

“Vitalism” became a clean slate: They would start a movement to defeat death, and make that goal the driving force behind the actions of individuals, societies, and nations. Longevity could no longer be a sideshow. For Vitalism to succeed, budgets would need to change. Policy would need to change. Culture would need to change. Consider it longevity for the most hardcore adherents—a sweeping mission to which nothing short of total devotion will do.

To be clear, the effective anti-aging treatments the Vitalists are after don’t yet exist. But that’s sort of the point: They believe they could exist if Vitalists are able to spread their gospel, influence science, gain followers, get cash, and ultimately reshape government policies and priorities. 

[**Meet the Vitalists that argue we need a revolution—and more and more influential scientists, funders, and politicians are taking them seriously.**](https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/29/1131815/vitalism-longevity-enthusiasts-influence/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement)

Geezuz, the grift never ends. I guess when you’re a selfish shit human, you *really* don’t want to die, just in case there is indeed a reckoning.

Yeah ok, life is good but death is not necessarily bad because in order for me to live some things simply need to die. In return i will do what is neccessary and pay my end of the bargain by providing life for others as such is the circle of life… Basically this is what religions mean when they speak of the “afterlife” it simply is not as literal as they imply it to be

Denying death is childish and beyond selfish imo