> “What I do may sound extreme, but I’m trying to prove that self-harm and decay are not inevitable”
Taken literally, it seems that he is starting from the conclusion and working backwards, and may be thoroughly disappointed. The question posed in scientific terms would be more akin to "Are self-harm and decay inevitable?"
It's also a little bit pathetic how some of the ultrawealthy seem to have the hardest time confronting their own mortality.
The wealthy are the only people who meaningfully can, and they're the only people who have a reason to. Being poor sucks. There's no point to life; if I was hit by a bus or jumped in front of a car while on break today at my miserable, entry-level job, it'd be okay for the world and I wouldn't feel like it was a loss for me. It'd actually be better. I wouldn't be wasting all daylight hours working a job I can't stand and being too exhausted when I get off of work to even read.
I was only afraid of death when life had hope. Now that I'm pretty much poverty-trapped, at least for the next few years, I'm fine with death.
Death is for the miserable people in the world. If you have the means to avoid it, your life is good enough to justify avoiding it. Life is great when you have time and low stress, so there's no reason not to try and preserve it.
"The wealthy are ... the only people who have a reason to".
IME what matters more than wealth is having health and energy. Exploring ways to reduce your exhaustion might be the best use of your time. You can increase your energy by getting a "win" in some way. That can be as simple as successfully introducing one new good habit in your life.
The more I make the more I have to think about is it worth my time to do stuff myself vs spending the money to save the time.
I'm not gonna say it's ruined my hobbies and forms of recreation as my career progresses but having that range of decisions to make instead of just being able to default to low cost doesn't make them more enjoyable.
> There's no point to life; if I was hit by a bus or jumped in front of a car while on break today at my miserable, entry-level job, it'd be okay for the world and I wouldn't feel like it was a loss for me.
There have been a couple of times when I felt that way in my life, but then I remember this is the only life I will get, and then I'll cease to exist. I was lucky to be born among the dominant species of this planet, so I better enjoy it while it lasts.
Eventually, against my initial expectations, life got gradually better.
> There's no point to life; if I was hit by a bus or jumped in front of a car while on break today at my miserable, entry-level job, it'd be okay for the world
the world would be OK, regardless of anyone going missing. Don't think anyone has such importance that they would cause the world to not be OK by dying.
This is untrue for some definitions of "world." For me, "world" can consist of a few things.
"World" can mean your immediate environment. Plenty of people can claim their death would not be "OK" for those in their immediate environment.
"World" can consist of your society at a regional or national level. Again, plenty of people can claim their death would be harmful at this level. Look at the Huey Long assassination, or the spike in suicide rates after Robin Williams ending himself due to dementia.
"World" can consist of all the people in the world. If Stanislav Petrov died prior to him preventing the end of (most of) the world, this level of the "world" would not be OK. If Gates had died decades ago, millions more each year would be dying of malaria. His death would leave the "world" "not OK."
"The world will always be okay" as a mindset is only true if your idea of the world is the rock itself. I find it hard to care about the rock itself.
This isn't meant to trivialize what you're saying here, or to deny that a lot of parts of life can be pretty miserable for people who are poor. But what you're describing here sounds only partly like "I'm poor and life is hard": a lot of it also sounds like some pretty significant mental health challenges. Not that I'm in any way a professional! But if a friend of mine were talking this way, I'd encourage them as strongly as I could to find an expert to work with to help them find more positive ways of engaging with life.
Being poor does genuinely suck, and a lot of modern society seems to deliberately lean in to that. But I know quite a few poorer folks who still find joy in life, each in their own way. Human beings have always been resilient in difficult circumstances: I don't think we would have lasted through generations of evolution if a difficult life routinely led to despair.
> It's also a little bit pathetic how some of the ultrawealthy seem to have the hardest time confronting their own mortality.
Putting one's resources to best use isn't "pathetic".
If you do anything to maintain your health and longevity, proportional to your resources, then you are doing the same as a rich person with a private doctor.
I expect natural biological death won't be so inevitable long before the end of the century. Sometimes rich people are like everyone else, but living just a little further into the future.
I think a certain proportion of the rich and poor alike fear death. But only the rich have the means to (try in vain to) do anything about it. And of course only the rich pay news outlets to write puff pieces about themselves.
While I do agree that this much fear of mortality likely warrants mental rather than anti-aging therapy, commercial applications like these are likely to motivate more research that generates actionable insights for your average person.
Taken literally, it seems that he is starting from the conclusion and working backwards, and may be thoroughly disappointed. The question posed in scientific terms would be more akin to "Are self-harm and decay inevitable?"
It's also a little bit pathetic how some of the ultrawealthy seem to have the hardest time confronting their own mortality.