There's a type of cynical thinking that I've sometimes seen when the topic of medical research comes up, especially with research into aging and longevity but I've also seen it with things like cancer research, that goes something like "this kind of research is bad actually, because any results will just be reserved for the billionaires and denied to everyone else, making them live a long time without helping common people".

I have long detested this line of thought. What will happen when the current generation of evil billionaires dies? Their wealth passes to their kids and we get a new generation of evil billionaires. Their lifespan is effectively irrelevant to the power of their class, because that power does not really come from the work of the billionaires as individuals, but from the greater structure of society that concentrates wealth into existing piles of wealth.

If you want to deal with billionaires, "wait for them to die" is not a solution, and as such their individual lifespan is irrelevant to that, there must be changes to the economic and social systems that lead to wealth compounding wealth. And if those changes were made, then the problem of "immortal billionaires is irrelevant due to there being no billionaires, so, whether or not they are dealt with, their individual lifespan isn't the source of any problem beyond what we already have.

Meanwhile, historically speaking, medical advances have not generally been kept exclusive to the ultra rich as a class. The medical care available to the average human today is more sophisticated than what was available to the average human before much of our current medical technology was invented, and at no point in that period did we solve the problem of " rich people hoard resources and power". Even before capitalism itself existed, equivalent types of people, like kings and feudal nobility, existed, and it isn't like the descendants of such people are the only ones to have access to current medicine. Based on that, I see no reason to conclude that any given line of medical research that eventually results in something useful, will not help people broadly.

Sorry for ranting, I'm just so tired of reading about somebody's work to improve people's lives being met with some equivalent to "eugh, but that will improve the bad people's lives", and something the most convenient way to deal with that kind of frustration is to put the thoughts to words.

Maybe we should "infect" billionaires with stuff without a cure, do they'll start pouring money into the research

Some stuff is obviously harder, but many cancers seem to be linked with viruses, so we can maybe go that route.

Alzheimer's, Parkinson's will be a lot harder, but I'm open for suggestions

Yeah stop vaccines and other medical treatments, they help billionaires!!!

/s