Many people would give up their entire life fortune, any inheritance to their children, just to live for a few more years. People have been killing and dying searching for the fountain of youth for centuries.
Everyone is going to die eventually, yet the extremes people go to extend life is unlike any normal supply and demand curve.
I'm not sure there's anything more overestimated and over-hyped than longevity.
You're very much mistaken.
The National Institute of Health gets $31B of government funds every year for research. The NSF gets $8B, NASA gets $20B, and DARPA gets around $3B. So healthcare research gets roughly 50% of the entire U.S. public research budget, and that's not including private investment.
It's difficult to pull accurate numbers, but meat substitutes, VR, and even super-hot AI get far less every year, it's nowhere near healthcare research.
Extending life has been a priority of the US government for many years, largely because it's politically popular. Everyone rich or poor wants to live longer.
This is very different from what longevity research (like in the article) is tackling, and almost non of that money (public or private) is invested there.
If you're searching for a cure for cancer, heart failure, or any of fatal health ailment, you are by definition trying to extend people's lives. The entire purpose of healthcare is to extend both the length and quality of people's lives.
Many people, however, won't even do something simple and enjoyably like frequent moderate exercise to improve their longevity.
The poster I was responding to claimed "yet the extremes people go to extend life is unlike any normal supply and demand curve. I'm not sure there's anything more overestimated and over-hyped than longevity." -- and I think the is transparently untrue because a great many people do not act as though it is incredibly important to them.