Not only do many of the super-rich want immortality, but a good number of them are doing something about it.
Yes, thats what I said before:
Nowadays wealthy people are spending their money in science projects because they fear dying as well.
Hundreds of years ago, the only thing wealthy people could to was to prey and give donations to Church, but nowadays they are spending their money to at least lengthen life, and at most to achieve immortality.
I find this a very interesting topic, I learned about it listening to Jose Luis Cordeiro, who talks about the death of death. He also talks about Cryogenics and transferring your brain.
Life lenghtening and immortality would bring other problem, like how we feed all those people, the ones that dont die and the others that are born. But the optimistic scientists like Cordeiro believe that Science and Technology will solve these problems.
your last statement seems to have some element of truth but I would like to to know that in every technological or scientific breakthrough the point is not the adverse effect of the breakthrough but rather the level it will advance human society so I believe life extension will create new problems but it will propel human society to new unexplored areas