When Thomas Hobbes proclaimed that fear and he were twins, he probably never imagined that centuries later his intuition would remain so relevant. In our digital age, where we appear invincible behind Instagram filters and likes, fear continues to be the invisible engine driving much of our social and political behavior.

Currently, we live in a peculiar duality: on one hand, we have created incredibly sophisticated societies to protect each other; on the other, our social networks are plagued with content that celebrates eternal youth and denies mortality. The Hobbesian intuition about fear as an organizing force of society has evolved: we no longer fear violent death at the hands of others as much, but we have developed new existential terrors.

The modern social contract no longer just includes ceding power to a sovereign who protects us. Now it also implies voluntarily submitting ourselves to a system that promises, if not immortality, at least the illusion of control over our finitude. Advanced healthcare systems, life insurance, pension funds - these are the new swords of Leviathan, protecting us not from other humans, but from our own mortality.

What's fascinating is observing how this primordial fear has adapted to the digital age. We create digital avatars, accumulate followers, and obsessively document every moment of our lives, as if digital presence could guarantee us a form of immortality. The algorithm has become our new sovereign, promising us eternal relevance in exchange for our constant attention.

Contemporary frustration arises when this elaborate protection system shows its flaws. Likes cannot stop aging, followers cannot prevent death, and not even the most sophisticated metaverse can offer us true immortality. Modern anxiety isn't so much about dying violently, but about dying without having mattered enough.

What would Hobbes say about our modern attempts to dodge death? He would probably recognize in our digital and medical institutions the same desperate search for security that he observed in the politics of his time. The difference is that now our "state of nature" is not the war of all against all, but the constant struggle against irrelevance and oblivion.

The real revolution isn't in overcoming the fear of death, as that would be as impossible today as it was in Hobbes's time. The revolution lies in recognizing how this ancestral fear continues to shape our societies, our technologies, and our aspirations. By understanding this, we can perhaps build systems that not only protect us from death but help us live more meaningfully with its reality.

Hobbes's legacy isn't in having discovered the fear of death, but in having recognized its organizing power. In the end, we remain creatures driven by the same fundamental fear.