[FD3SA]

I've always been baffled by the investment choices of billionaires. If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die. Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.).

At first, this might sound repulsive. The idea of a group of elites discovering and hoarding the fountain of youth for themselves while the masses suffer is dystopian. However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the money invested in achieving any significant life extension will have a massive public benefit. This is because combating aging requires curing almost every known disease at its source. Any progress made in this front will have massive benefits to healthcare worldwide.

So the question is, why do billionaires invest so irrationally? Why do they buy yachts and invest in hedge funds and social media companies? From the comment below, 113 billionaires out of 1426 are current members of the The Giving Pledge. What are the rest doing with their money?

P.S. I must be clear that I don't consider members of Bill Gates' Giving Pledge part of the group of "irrational billionaires". The Gates Foundation funds an incredible amount of basic research for a philanthropic organization.

[eli_gottlieb]

Because apparently even billionaires haven't managed quite the same form of sophomoricism as you, in which you trick yourself into believing that one cannot actually value things outside of one's own subjective experiences and personal lifespan.

They're not irrational, they just care about things outside themselves.

[mturmon]

Fascinating. I will have to perform significantly more logical introspection to understand this peculiar phenomenon.

[api]

Interestingly, living forever is not a common desire among humans. As we age, our desire for longevity generally diminishes. Having children also seems to satiate some kind of internal biological self-preservation instinct, reducing the fear of death. (Which makes biological sense.)

The simple fact is that we only fear death because our genes want to survive. Once that is accomplished -- or once we pass the age of reproduction -- the alien goddess of biology stops whispering that terror into our hindbrains. Myths of hells and grave-monsters and rotting corpses cease to haunt us so deeply. The desire to just be here becomes less intense.

I would like to extend my life, but not because I fear death. I have children. It doesn't scare me all that much, really, though I would of course be afraid if it were staring me in the face. But I'd like to extend my life so that I could experience a kind of extended late-life in order to pursue intellectual ventures of high value and long-term focus. I'd love it if after kids, after ordinary biological life, I could basically become a monk-academic-entrepreneur and dedicate a century or two to art, science, philosophy, etc.

Edit:

In addition, through Gates' philanthropy, his selfish genes are in fact increasing their fitness. All those people in Africa are walking around with 99.999999% the same genetic material that's inside Bill Gates. He is them from a genetic point of view. So his actions are "genetically rational" from a perspective of selfish-gene self-preservation.

Lots of human behavior makes more sense through this lens. Why, for example, do we exercise moderation in war? Because the enemy carries our genes. The whole point of war is probably evolutionary stimulation from a perspective of selfish-gene logic. My guess is that if we went to war against hostile aliens there would be absolutely no mercy or moderation. It would be all-out war, no holds barred.

I do not disagree with the parent poster though. Such investments would have follow-on benefits and the technology would trickle down to us eventually, so I wish there was more money being put into those areas.

[xenophanes]

Big SENS fan here. Good question.

A lot of the reason is that people do philanthropy to gain various types of status and reputation. It's often a social action. Investing in SENS wouldn't impress their friends in the right way, while various other causes optimize for social signaling.

Yachts and social media companies are a bit different. The yachts are for fun in addition to being a social signal that impresses some people. The social media companies are usually either to make money or to hang out in certain circles, but they do also have some signaling possibilities (you can tell your old stodgy rich friends that you're involved in more hip investments than them).

[exratione]

Jason Hope is demonstrating that you can generate status from funding SENS. More of this would be a good thing:

http://www.jasonhope.com

[xenophanes]

FWIW I'm not convinced that more appeasement of status signaling stuff would be a good thing, even if that kind of compromise got SENS some more money in the short term.

Living longer is great but living better is also very important. Social games waste so much of many people's lives.

[freshhawk]

"more appeasement of status signaling stuff", "Social games waste so much of many people's lives"

"appeasement"? Seeking social status is what primates do. It's not even "human nature", it's lower level than that. It's not cultural, it's primate genetics.

The disconnect in the conversations in this thread? Two groups talking past each other? It's because some people are talking about how homo sapiens behave and some people are talking about how homo economicus [1] behaves.

It's not like you are wrong, it's just two conversations happening at once. One is based in reality and another based in fantasy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus

[pistle]

A couple people do philanthropy because they care. But the rest are just trying to impress friends.

[streetnigga]

Yachts are also good for committing manslaughter[0]. This is coming from the wealthy man who thinks focus on the wealthy means a Kristallnacht.

"Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its 'one percent,' namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich," Perkins, a founding member of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers, wrote in a letter to the editor in The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

[0] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/5-things-to-know-about-the-k...

[xenophanes]

He didn't say that yachts are good for manslaughter or that manslaughter is good.

I don't want to debate politics with you because you don't come off as seeking a rational open-minded discussion.

I'm commenting primarily to make it clear that I do not agree with you. I didn't want to leave that ambiguous since both your and my comments about the rich were primarily negative in this thread.

[streetnigga]

If the topic is use of wealth, 'social signals' then monies spent on Yacht races by owners like the one linked is applicable. I do not think there could be a bigger waste of resources than 'social signalling' by the wealthy with Yacht based fundraisers.

Essentially I would go the more direct route, not with events that allow you to use your toys. Not sure where you getting signals of irrationality or lack of open minded discussion. Is it because the word Yacht brings up images of extreme waste instead of philanthropy, resulting in me linking to the likes of Mr Kristallnacht? How well is that social signalling going if this happens to people?

[gms7777]

>If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die. Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.).

By claiming that the only rational investment would be life extension, you're making the implicit assumption that your life and experiences are worth something (otherwise, why bother extending your life?). If we agree there, why are hedonistic pursuits that (arguably) increase the quality of your life, any less rational than investments that increase the quanitity of life?

[enraged_camel]

Do hedonistic pleasures increase the quality of life? In my experience, they simply provide temporary distractions from the lack of such quality.

[dror]

"Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.)."

No. You make a false assumption that everyone's main goal in to live as long as possible. Different people have different goals, and Gates clearly cares about making a major impact on other people.

[enraged_camel]

If you live longer, you can make a bigger impact. Especially if you're someone like Bill Gates.

Imagine if the great thinkers and inventors of past times were still alive today.

Imagine if someone like Elon Musk could live forever.

edit: gotta love it when drive-by downvoters just cast their vote without adding anything to the discussion.

[gnaritas]

People tire of life, not everyone would want to live longer. I would, as would many, but many wouldn't even if they could. I'm sure even billionaire’s get tired of life.

[akurtzhs]

On the other hand, imagine Kim Il-sung living and ruling over North Korea forever.

I'm in favor of SENS, but the idea of having the established elite be permanently on top worries me.

[nostromo]

Having kids is the old-school form of immortality. I imagine many of those other billionaires are thinking about their dynasty.

[xenophanes]

Their kids will need SENS ~30 years after they do.

I get that the typical plan is to have a dynasty via grand kids, great grand kids, etc, but it's dumb to ignore SENS.

[at-fates-hands]

Just as an FYI - I believe you're using SENS as in:

"SENS stands for Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, a detailed plan for reversing human aging. It is an engineering approach that seeks to slow and then halt aging processes that are the side effects of our body's metabolic cycles"

source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-sens.htm

Correct?

[xenophanes]

Correct.

[chc]

It's not dumb to ignore it if you believe it to be a fool's errand.

[rayiner]

You're defining rationality pretty narrowly. You're assuming that the only thing that is rational is living as long as possible. People invest for the happiness it brings them while they're alive. If I were a billionaire, I would derive much more joy, in the present, from seeing the real reduction in suffering and increase in human joy that can be achieved with my investment, than I would from spending that same money for a marginal chance of extending my own life.

Maybe because it's because I'm only 30, but I'm not afraid of death. Indeed, I find the idea of life extension horrific. It would destroy the vitality of society to have old generations, with their decades of entrenched perspectives and power, cling on in perpetuity. I don't want to hang around consuming resources and overshadowing my children. I want them to have their own time in the sun.

[tptacek]

Give it a few years. Paralyzing fear of death sinks in at age 32.5.

[benched]

I realize this is at least partly tongue-in-cheek, but at 36 I'm not really afraid of death. I am, however, rather terrified of aging further, since that's a thing that's happening right now. It's become very current in the last couple of years. And 'dying', since that's basically the very worst phase of aging.

[tptacek]

I'm 37, not paralyzed by mortality, but sickened by the purported invincibility of 30 year olds. :)

[dctoedt]

> I'm 37, not paralyzed by mortality, but sickened by the purported invincibility of 30 year olds. :)

It starts long before age 30. Just wait till your kids get older, Thomas ....

[namenotrequired]

I wish this was how all billionaires thought. I hope it's how I would think, if I were a billionaire. They probably think[1] however that there's realistically little they can do even with their billions to significantly lengthen their life within their lifetime. So they'd rather make their life better instead.

There might also be some (perhaps cultural) selection bias - people who want yachts try to become billionaires, people who want to improve the world focus on improving the world themselves rather than on becoming rich.

[1] I wrote "realise" first, but I have no way to know if they are right or not.

[mmxiii]

Life extension is only rational in a very limited sense.

In the greater scope of the universe, all things must die. The rational outlook is to see our position in this context. Our mortality establishes the constraints in which we look for meaning and purpose, so that we may not be wearied by an incalculable infinite.

And then we may understand it is what we do and express about ourselves that imbues life with meaning, and not in the hope a monument may immortalize an empty phrase. For in all finite existence, the most we can say, and what we must say, is "we are here".

[sliverstorm]

That might seem rational, until you ask how far away effective life extension technologies might be. If you are a 75-year-old billionaire, those technologies would have to be really close over the horizon. So it probably looks like a non-option to many.

[xenophanes]

If they care about their kids, that's plenty of reason to fund SENS!

[sliverstorm]

My parent was not arguing they should be funding SENS to do good. My parent's premise was, why are these people not acting selfishly? Further, that funding SENS would be the most rational selfish choice.

Funding SENS for the sake of your children is not selfish, so it's irrelevant to the question of why are billionaires not investing in SENS to extend their own lives, as the rational selfish choice

[xenophanes]

If you care about your children, then hugely benefitting them is both selfish (changes the world in a way you personally prefer) and rational. Whatever the OP meant I think it's important.

[jonmrodriguez]

I think most billionaires are not scientists and don't realize that life extension is any more possible than magic.

Once some steps toward life extension start happening without billionaire's help, and start to become part of popular culture, then billionaires will realize it's a thing.

Also, inertia. You probably strive to live a similar lifestyle as your parents and your friends, rather than (for example) selling your possessions and spending your life backpacking the world, even if the latter might rationally be a better option if it occured to you.

[hmsimha]

I wanted to point out that investing in AI research could be viewed by many as more lucrative than investing in anti-ageing research and life extension technology. If we solve AGI, we will have a super-human intelligence capable of solving health and ageing problems for us (and hopefully inclined to do so).

[kamaal]

Plus providing us facilities to upload our minds to the cloud and then live on there forever.

[drewcrawford]

> Your experiences of the world will cease to exist. Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies

It is certainly not the "only" rational investment. It might be the only rational investment for a person who shares your views on the importance of staying alive and your optimism for SENS research, but there are plenty of people who fail one or both criteria, and they're not all irrational. They're just optimizing for different criteria.

[pizza234]

Well, first of all, research attemps to extend life are not like solving engineering problems - it's not somthing clear cut.

Minimal advances for example may take years and years.

And especially, how do you know that those advances are going to apply to the person who's founding the research?

What if one is at risk of heart attack? Should he still invest in life extension?

The concept of "curing [almost] every known disease" doesn't make any sense.

In this perspective, investing in life extension looks more like gambling to me, because we're dealing with non-deterministic contexts. So much for rationality.

Luxury commodities are an entirely different thing. As people pointed out, they satisfy some different needs.

[tsotha]

>If you accept an empirical view of the universe, no matter what you do, you will eventually die.

Perhaps you're overestimating the extent to which billionaires accept that view.

>Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.).

Or maybe the ultra-rich have done enough research to conclude these sorts of technologies won't be mature in time to help them. So why bother?

[baddox]

> Therefore, the only rational investment would be in life extension technologies (SENS, advanced prosthesis, etc.).

No, the only rational investment would be in things that give you utility, or in loose terms, make you happy.

[zasz]

Because there are people suffering right now who could use some help.

[melling]

Why wouldn't you invest in superior artificial intelligence? Once we create that, it could solve all of our problems.