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Comment by dajohnson89 | Hacker News Reader

I really don't understand this line of thinking. Are old people incapable of spending money? Is what they chose to do with capital of less consequence? Even if they do have one foot in the grave, they have a right to legacy.

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I think the point was that he was already a wealthy famous actor, and at 86 the difference between "many millions" and "many more millions" is not that material.

The line of thinking on age is as follows: As you age, you have a probably smaller number of future years for which you need to worry about survival costs. And by "probably" I mean the probability is pretty well established based on millions (billions?) of data points. Death is coming for your ass. If you're 102 years old, you might live another 20 years, but I'm not wagering heavily on that. And if you're 15 you might die tomorrow in a car wreck, but the odds are that you can "expect" your "life" to be a certain length - your life expectancy.

This comment is only on survival costs and age. Legacies are outside the scope of this comment. William Shatner's survival costs, having been paid-for long ago, are outside the scope of this comment.

I believe the line of thinking is that assuming they would have the same yearly expenses of a younger person, they have less total expenses because they have, on average, less years left to live and thus spend money on.

It's not really about his age, it's that he has enough money where he really doesn't have to give a damn.

Plus, he's Kirk. He can still get the public's attention when he wants to.

They have less time to spend it themselves. Sure, they can give it to some charity, or their kids, but when you have a lot of money when you're young, you have far more time to do stuff with that money yourself. Someone with one foot in the grave doesn't. No one's saying they don't have a right to the money if they earn it, just that they likely won't be able to make as much use of it.

> Are old people incapable of spending money?

What are they going to spend money on? William Shattner is 86 years old.

> Even if they do have one foot in the grave, they have a right to legacy.

Uh... Who cares? You are talking about something that has no value.

I'm sure shattner would trade all of his money to be 20 years old again.

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