How Can Billionaires Like Jeff Bezos' Quest to Live Forever Benefit Humanity

Urian B., Tech Times 21 September 2021, 04:09 am

How can billionaires just like Jeff Bezos' quest to live forever benefit the whole of humanity?

There have reportedly been a growing number of tech billionaires that have all decided that they would like to use their huge wealth to help humans try to "cheat death."

Billionaire's Quest to 100 Years Old and More

According to the story by CNBC, Amazon's very own Jeff Bezos, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Alphabet's Larry Page, and even Palantir's Peter Thiel are just a few of the super-rich that have recently been taking a keen interest in the whole fast-emerging field of longevity.

This was according to books, interviews, and media reports.

While breakthroughs are still quite far from guaranteed, they all hope that various therapies, medicines, as well as other life science technologies will reportedly enable humans to live past 100 years old.

This could even potentially push humans to live to 200, 300, or maybe even longer.

A researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science who reportedly specializes in "effective altruism," Stefan Schubert, told CNBC that technologies that initially are affordable exclusively to the rich will then typically become more widely available with time.

This is indeed true of everything, coming from air travel to medicine and smartphones.

Co-founder of Skype, tech investor Jaan Tallinn, told CNBC that Silicon Valley's actual quest to live forever will then benefit humanity as a whole.

Tallinn noted that he thinks involuntary death is actually morally bad. This makes the actual quest for longevity a morally noble thing to help engage in.

How it Could Affect the Mass Market

It was noted that early adaptors always tend to pay even more and then take larger risks than the whole "mass market."

It was then stated that if therapies start off on the more risky or expensive side, this would then be expected. Jeff Bezos was one of the most high profile links to research on finding the "fountain of youth" in an attempt to help extend mortality.

Tallinn then added that he actually thinks that it is "counterproductive" to require that a brand new service be available to everyone even before anyone is allowed to use it.

He then said that he understands the instinct. Diet was noted as one of the things that weaken the immune system, and fixing one's diet could have a positive effect on their body.

Longevity Science

The co-director of Cambridge University's Center for the Study of Existential Risk, Sean Ó hÉigeartaigh, told CNBC that a lot of advances in longevity science could actually have some broad benefits.

They then added that they could reduce the whole occurrence or even severity of older age-related diseases even including dementia and heart health.

Ó hÉigeartaigh then noted that extending max lifespan significantly in the near-term actually seems very unlikely to him.

Identifying, as well as arresting aging-related factors that reportedly increase preponderance and even severity of certain age-related conditions is actually more plausible.

While there are a number of people that are concerned that the Earth's finite resources could actually come under strain if people would be able to live longer and healthier lives.

An article by The Financial Times also shares how Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, are investing in the research.

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Written by Urian B.