There is at Cambridge University a Centre for Existential Risk, the mandate of which is to examine and help to reduce the risks that could lead to human extinction or civilizational collapse. But perhaps the most dangerous risk for humanity lies in the idea that we can eliminate existential risk. Existence supposes risk. The phantasy of the abolition of death is the ghost that floats over the current pandemic politics or over the technocratic and transhumanist coup for the control of life. Saving and extending all lives at all cost is our most dangerous idea, now revealed to be dominant: if we are prevented from the possibility of risking our life to defend what we believe in, then, as shown by Hegel, we may all become slaves of our own fear and securitarism.