Thiel seems to hope and expect technological progress to improve people's lives, and this seems to be the main drive for his interest in technology. But isn't

Thiel seems to hope and expect technological progress to improve people's lives, and this seems to be the main drive for his interest in technology. But isn't it possible to be interested in technology for the sake of it, for the "wow" factor only? I mean, for instance he's very much into medicine, including anti-ageing medicine. And it seems that the slow pace of progress in this area, when compared to progress in IT, frustrates him. Me, I don't care much about medicine. Maybe it's because I'm relatively healthy, but I believe it's also because most people are healthy, so if suddenly everybody was, it would only be a quantitative change, not a qualitative one. A healthy human body is not something new. So, staying young and healthy until you reach say 100? Meh. If the goal is to improve life, there are other ways to do that rather than waiting for technological miracles. Money, for one. I mean, the life of a wealthy person nowadays is, I suppose, absolutely awesome, and it does not require very advanced tech to be so.