There is no reason that human beings cannot live forever. Gompertz Law is not a law of physics, but a law of observation similar to Moore's Law. Medical and safety technology are also advancing exponentially. Barring a catastrophe that blasts us back to the stone age, one growth curve will eventually overtake the other.<p>The article uses a cops and criminals analogy to explain how our bodies degrade over time. Technology can allow us to produce artificial cops and conditions that make things more difficult for the criminals. The Methusaleh Foundation [1] is working on pieces of this problem right now, with a cash prize. There are many other research institutions working on different aspects of immortality. Once medical nanomachines become a practical reality we might be able to turn the work of Gompertz on it's head within a generation.<p>Many people, myself included, find the idea of effective immortality to be disconcerting. But all of the arguments have been made and rebutted: Just because we can't imagine immortality doesn't mean that isn't a good thing, if we were born into a world without death we wouldn't give it up for any of the advantages of mortality, we would have more productive time to solve the problems of overpopulation, etc and so forth.<p>If our species is able to continue on its current path then death is going to, well, die. The tragedy is that none of us will live to see it. That doesn't mean that we can't consider the implications and start preparing an infinite future for our descendants.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.mprize.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mprize.org/</a>