The average lifespan of an American human being is currently 79 years. But there is a group of men who think that number is too low because that number is not “infinity.” In the latest display of human ignorance toward the planet we inhabit, a bunch of Silicon Valley techno-dudes want to live forever.

Under Brin’s aegis, Google has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Singularity University, where executives pay five figures for weeklong seminars about technology’s capacity to solve “humanity’s grand challenges” (including aging and death). Google recently hired the radical futurist Ray Kurzweil to be their director of engineering: he famously claims humans will merge with computers over the next few decades to become immortal superbeings.