If one would be happy one must not be attached to things -- to material possessions, to those we love, to our nation or religion or ideology, not even to our own personal existence -- this is all because nothing is permanent and we therefore necessarily must suffer when they go away if we are attached to them.

This is good advice, if taken in moderation (another Buddhist rule, but really a common sense one that most religions have, the middle way) -- don't be grasping -- let go when the time comes and one suffers less.  I see the grief at death so common in the West that is just not expressed here -- people here do let go.  Hard to explain.

This is all fine and I am so immersed into this kind of thinking that I can't avoid bringing up Buddhism in this context, even though I think it, or at least it, as it is often interpreted, is wrong.  The prescription for happiness may be not to grasp, but maybe it doesn't so much say we shouldn't hold while we can -- why be unhappy just to be sure one is never unhappy?

This is however a digression from my point.  What I wanted to talk about is overcoming aging and ultimately death through technology and medicine and what I see holding up the research in these areas that is of a superstitious and religious nature -- that death is somehow "natural" or a good thing.  That barrier cannot be overcome until we realize that it is wrong, and evil, and in fact probably the greatest single evil in the world.