I was recently reading a post by reason at http://www.fightaging.org/ entitled:
Natural Death: We Should be Worried About It
This quote -
The greatest hope is that private individuals will step forward and fund the research directly, or through organizations established for that purpose. Maybe an eccentric, farsighted billionaire will want a chance at not dying.
- got me thinking: Why are there seemingly no super rich billionaires interested in funding longevity research?
I mean, as James Brown says "You can't take it with you", it just seems to me that if you had more money than you could spend in a lifetime that you would want to maybe invest in extending the time that had to enjoy it.
I could only think of a few possible explainations -
- They are not aware of the possibilities, the current state of longevity research and the difference that even a few hundred million dollars could make.
- They don't think that the promises of longevity research are feasible, or believe longevity research organisations to be a scam.
- They are content with living a naturally defined length of time and have no desire to live longer.
- The are religious and believe that they will have a superior or comparable existence in the afterlife.
- They have a "deathist" outlook and believe that funding longevity research is selfish, or would cause them to be perceived as such.
Edited by Link, 25 January 2013 - 04:37 AM.