What Would Elon Musk Do? Would He Give Up?

[AVIYT]

Today I had a thought... What would happen if Elon Musk suddenly woke up with tinnitus one day? Would he just give in and say "It was a good life, but oh well." Or would he never even entertain the idea of giving up?

I think the latter. He's a billionaire, so they're already thinking in terms of everything differently. If it was a large enough problem, he'd throw his money + his friends / family and encourage investors to throw money towards a solution.

I don't want anybody to get tinnitus, but I know it will happen to more people in the future. Every single day, probably every few minutes, someone is experiencing tinnitus for the first time. Many will get depressed.

I think since there'll be more billionaires now than ever before, over 3,000, the chances of one of them getting tinnitus or knowing somebody deeply affected by it grows greater each day. I think if a billionaire's son were to experience suicidal thoughts, he'd donate great sums of money to try and reach a cure.

Mark Zuckerberg donated $3BN+ after his daughter was born to try and cure all diseases within this century. Obviously that's a grand goal, but now with AI and better tech, in the next 5-10 decades it could be possible for many diseases. We already nearly wiped out Polio and we've found some solutions to Hep. B and HIV whereas before people were just DOOMED. We're still far from understanding tinnitus, hearing loss, hyperacusis, depression, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and many more horrible conditions... but we're approaching a point of singularity. It could be 10 or 20 years from now. But eventually things will get better.

I don't wish for more people to get tinnitus, but it's inevitable. I think all it will take is really just 1 person with vast sums of wealth to get REALLY PISSED OFF and there could be a cure within a year or two. Currently the field is dealing in terms of 7 or 8 figures per company that's trying to solve this problem. But if suddenly 10 figures was donated to various organizations... it could get the ball rolling.

 

[threefirefour]

Billionaire worship needs to stop, that's what's wrong with Americans.

 

[Strife_84]

Why don't you ask him on Twitter? He might even respond.

 

[lucy_snow]

His girlfriend Grimes has tinnitus.

 

[Clint Azzopardi]

But you know what, how come all these rock stars who most of them are loaded never donate big lumps of money for a cure?

 

[Allan1967]

You could achieve the same if the tinnitus community would get off its arse and start donating.

 

[Markku]

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Elon Musk didn't donate tons of money to tinnitus research even if he got tinnitus - assuming it's the mild variant that so many people are blessed with (in contrast to the severe, intrusive hell).

In any case, Elon Musk is already aware of tinnitus, because his (ex?) girlfriend Grimes is afflicted with it - and has talked about it in public. She's even had to cancel some gigs because of her issues in the past.

That's the case with most celebrities with tinnitus as well. If they have donated, they have done it anonymously.

There are a few exceptions, I remember Steve Martin gave ATA $10,000 (which is much more than the average donation, but not really mega bucks).

Anyway, passing the buck to the mega wealthy people is a bit short-sighted. The change should start from within the tinnitus community - but it probably never will.

If the tinnitus community is this apathetic, why would the mega rich be any different?

Just thinking how much work we put into something like the Tinnitus Talk Podcast, and how we currently have only one Patreon, it just shows how little people generally care about supporting causes like ours. But then again, we don't directly fund research, so there's that. But I'd like to think our work has some value as well.

 

[New Guy]

It depends on the severity. That's the determining factor.

It's foolish and stupid to say someone is weak because tinntus kicks them in the butt and they have a difficult time rebounding.

I don't care how tough, driven, focused, motivated you are, until you get tinnitus no one knows how you will respond and I don't wish that on anyone.