6 ms·

In the end, is it truly that much different than the prevailing economic structure disproportionately forcing the poor into high-risk or hard-labor occupations

In the end, is it truly that much different than the prevailing economic structure disproportionately forcing the poor into high-risk or hard-labor occupations that result in significantly degraded lifespan and/or quality of life? Putting organs on the market might make certain ethical dilemmas about economic inequality more obvious to the casual bystander, but the same sort of ethical quandaries are already structurally woven into the global economic system.

xherberta 9y ago
There's only one place I'm aware of on earth where organs can be sold: Iran. Here's an interview with an economist who helped set up that market, which does seem to function fairly efficiently and has some safeguards in place to prevent coersion. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/09/tina_rosenberg.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/09/tina_rosenberg.html Edit: specifically, this is about kidney donation from living donors, not after-death donation.
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>In the end, is it truly that much different than the prevailing economic structure disproportionately forcing the poor into high-risk or hard-labor occupations that result in significantly degraded lifespan and/or quality of life? It's not different at all. We're not different from the Aztecs: our economy has become an elaborate system of human sacrifice to false gods.
- ashark 9y ago
  Especially Moloch. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    Especially Yahweh
tn135 9y ago
> In the end, is it truly that much different than the prevailing economic structure disproportionately forcing the poor into high-risk or hard-labor occupations that result in significantly degraded lifespan and/or quality of life? You are right but I am unable to see why might think it is bad. Poor people taking more risks to come out of poverty is very natural and should be encouraged. Why do you think I left my homeland, left my parents, friends and Gods to come to Silicon Valley ? If you are not going to allow poor people to take risks and make hard choices you are keeping them in perpetual poverty.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  You're taking risks to advance your own economic power by serving the interests of a system that is an aspect of the very thing that keeps you poor int he first place. Liberation is something that begins in the mind, not the pocketbook; economics is a useful theory but it's far from being a totalizing philosophy.
  - tn135 9y ago
    > interests of a system that is an aspect of the very thing that keeps you poor int he first place. Seems other way round to me. It is the restrictions on organ trade that is keeping poor.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >If you are not going to allow poor people to take risks and make hard choices you are keeping them in perpetual poverty. Only in a world where getting rich is about "taking risks" and not about being ruthless, luck, connections, and inheritance.
  - tn135 9y ago
    > being ruthless, luck, connections, and inheritance. All those are important but then risk is also one way to get rich faster.
- awkwardtortoise 9y ago
anigbrowl 9y ago
Putting organs on the market will make those existing structural ethical dilemmas (which I fulminate about here pretty regularly, going back a long time) more obvious because it makes them worse. Making things worse is not, in my experience, the first step in making things better. How many innocent people do you propose to sacrifice on the altar of your intellect in order to persuade the 'casual bystanders' to adopt your position? This sounds little different than the failed Marxist strategy of 'sharpening the contradictions of capitalism' in hopes of awakening class consciousness among the proletariat. Your eschatology seems to suffer from some glaring ethical flaws from where I'm sitting.
- sithadmin 9y ago
  You're reading my commentary as a defense of the practice, which it isn't.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    You're normalizing it, a;beit unintentionally, by equating a chronic loss of economic agency with an acute loss in the form of a single transaction.

xherberta 9y ago

There's only one place I'm aware of on earth where organs can be sold: Iran. Here's an interview with an economist who helped set up that market, which does seem to function fairly efficiently and has some safeguards in place to prevent coersion. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/09/tina_rosenberg.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/09/tina_rosenberg.html Edit: specifically, this is about kidney donation from living donors, not after-death donation.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

>In the end, is it truly that much different than the prevailing economic structure disproportionately forcing the poor into high-risk or hard-labor occupations that result in significantly degraded lifespan and/or quality of life? It's not different at all. We're not different from the Aztecs: our economy has become an elaborate system of human sacrifice to false gods.

ashark 9y ago
Especially Moloch. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
- InitialLastName 9y ago
  Especially Yahweh

tn135 9y ago

> In the end, is it truly that much different than the prevailing economic structure disproportionately forcing the poor into high-risk or hard-labor occupations that result in significantly degraded lifespan and/or quality of life? You are right but I am unable to see why might think it is bad. Poor people taking more risks to come out of poverty is very natural and should be encouraged. Why do you think I left my homeland, left my parents, friends and Gods to come to Silicon Valley ? If you are not going to allow poor people to take risks and make hard choices you are keeping them in perpetual poverty.

anigbrowl 9y ago
You're taking risks to advance your own economic power by serving the interests of a system that is an aspect of the very thing that keeps you poor int he first place. Liberation is something that begins in the mind, not the pocketbook; economics is a useful theory but it's far from being a totalizing philosophy.
- tn135 9y ago
  > interests of a system that is an aspect of the very thing that keeps you poor int he first place. Seems other way round to me. It is the restrictions on organ trade that is keeping poor.
coldtea 9y ago
>If you are not going to allow poor people to take risks and make hard choices you are keeping them in perpetual poverty. Only in a world where getting rich is about "taking risks" and not about being ruthless, luck, connections, and inheritance.
- tn135 9y ago
  > being ruthless, luck, connections, and inheritance. All those are important but then risk is also one way to get rich faster.
awkwardtortoise 9y ago

anigbrowl 9y ago

Putting organs on the market will make those existing structural ethical dilemmas (which I fulminate about here pretty regularly, going back a long time) more obvious because it makes them worse. Making things worse is not, in my experience, the first step in making things better. How many innocent people do you propose to sacrifice on the altar of your intellect in order to persuade the 'casual bystanders' to adopt your position? This sounds little different than the failed Marxist strategy of 'sharpening the contradictions of capitalism' in hopes of awakening class consciousness among the proletariat. Your eschatology seems to suffer from some glaring ethical flaws from where I'm sitting.

sithadmin 9y ago
You're reading my commentary as a defense of the practice, which it isn't.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  You're normalizing it, a;beit unintentionally, by equating a chronic loss of economic agency with an acute loss in the form of a single transaction.