7 ms·

Speaking of morals, is it really moral to not promote and invest in kidney transplants rather than have the federal government pay for dialysis for 5+ years bef

by posguy 9y ago

Speaking of morals, is it really moral to not promote and invest in kidney transplants rather than have the federal government pay for dialysis for 5+ years before a person dies (due to the failed kidneys usually)? We could easily get most people off Dialysis, and allow them to live much healthier and longer lives if we allowed patient collectives (akin to Iran) to reward donors with cash and healthcare for the rest of their lives. Why do we choose to let this chunk of our population die slowly and at great expense, rather than do a (relatively) inexpensive & safe transplant? Seems twisted and sadistic on society's part to basically tourture this segment of the populace.

tudorw 9y ago
I sympathise with your aim, more donors is a good thing, however some of the restrictions on sourcing donors are in place to protect vulnerable people from abuse, so it's not a clear cut decision, if AI is to replicate human thinking it would need to have these kind of discussions, I don't think we really want or need AI, faster and smarter calculators yes; the idea that this is 'intelligence' is akin to attributing intelligence to trees because we have libraries.
seanp2k2 9y ago
"""It is a sad indictment of the human condition that wherever there is a market, people will strive to find a profit margin even when this results in human exploitation.""" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291132/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291132/ Because having a market for everything with no bounds isn't a good thing.
- icebraining 9y ago
  "It is a sad indictment of the human condition that wherever there is a market, people will strive to find a profit margin even when this results in human exploitation. This is true of all markets, though. Plenty have been and are exploited in labor markets of all sorts. If the mere possibility of exploitation is sufficient to justify outlawing a market, then we must illegalize the hiring of miners, fruit pickers, construction workers, even office secretaries, which are occasionally sexually exploited by their bosses. Because having a market for everything with no bounds isn't a good thing. Sure, but why shouldn't the bound be after this? Certain markets would still be illegal. - By the way, I'm not necessarily convinced that it should be a market, I just find these arguments weak.
  - ue_ 9y ago
    It's interesting to note that Marx's concept of exploitation (which is a much, much broader one than the examples you're using here, though they certainly qualify) does say that it would be within the best intersts of the working class as a whole to rise up against such a system and indeed to illegalise (well, prevent in some way) hiring.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Sure (though the concept of wage-slavery is older than Marx), and I'm not necessarily opposed to that either, but it doesn't really justify the status quo.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    True - and it's not by accident - a market exists only because exploiters do. The very purpose and mechanism of markets is to limit the degree (not prevalence) of exploitation by forcing exploiters to compete with each other. That's what markets are, that's the whole idea. Where you want to make exploitation illegal (say drugs, prostitution) you don't want a market - but you lose it's benefits, too. For example by reducing competition and increasing the price of entry, thus greatly enriching the most successful criminal gangs. (Especially true re drugs.)
Barraketh 9y ago
I have at various times wanted to start a non-profit that would provide benefits similar to veteran benefits (paid college tuition, paid health insurance, etc) to people who donate kidneys to strangers at the top of the transplant list. The fact that the kidney goes to the person at the top of the list solves the potential issues of the rich getting better health outcomes because they can pay. Also, we as a society have already accepted these benefits as being acceptable reward for risking life in order to (ostensibly) save American lives in a military context - this simply extends the concept.
babyrainbow 9y ago
>Speaking of morals, is it really moral to not promote and invest in kidney transplants... This is not an easy subject, but I think there is nothing immoral about letting a human being die if their organs fail...It can be thought of as being sad. But not immoral or evil. Also, since death is inevitable, I think in most cases, it is better not to drag it out. And on the whole, it is better not to provide alternatives like this. People, out of obligation, won't let a family member go, (even if they are of old age). So in the end, even people who are not financially sound will be forced to pay huge sums of money... Just wait until hospitals build a market around this, and you can bet that it will be followed by immense social pressure (perpetuated by these markets), to follow this norm. In the end, the net suffering increases... There is also another thing another user pointed out by another user when this topic came up before. When this has become norm, then you will be expected to pay things via your organs. If you are not financially sound, then your son/daughter will probably expect you to pay for their higher studies via your organs..People will ask, hey why don't get a car, so and so companies have schemes based on the health of your kidneys...(unthinkable today, but hey we are talking about how morals change, right?) The thing is, for most people, leading a poor (as far as you are not starving) life is better than having some temporary prosperity by selling a kidney and leading degraded life till the end.... Now. That is evil.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  I disagree vehemently with your viewpoint. I fear that you've been trapped by the vivid image of an impoverished, innocent, victimized person being blackmailed in a dark alley into selling their kidneys (picture someone like Fantine from Les Misérables) and try to stop that at all costs. That's wrong, though: Nothing is worth stopping at all costs, that denies the meaning of the word "cost". We need to objectively weigh the costs of that image against the vague tragedy of early death in a hospital bed multiplied by the 18 million people currently dying in need of a transplanted kidney. And added against that sum, consider that the vast majority of donors would not be victims at all. A few points which I think deserve consideration are: > This is not an easy subject, but I think there is nothing immoral about letting a human being die if their organs fail...It can be thought of as being sad. But not immoral or evil. It is most certainly evil if there is a perfectly good spare kidney just sitting around in a nearby abdomen, and someone dies because they don't have access to it. Human life is intrinsically valuable because of the consciousness and experiences of the mind which is enabled by functioning organs. If the organs cease to function, that does not reduce the value of that life, or imply that the 'time was right': every death is a tragedy. > Also, since death is inevitable, I think in most cases, it is better not to drag it out. Death is temporarily avoidable (evitable?). It cannot be infinitely extended (yet), and you can talk about weighing the costs of people suffering for extended periods of time at great cost in hospital beds or from mental illness against the happy people who made unlikely recoveries....but this weighing does not reasonably extend to kidney failure. Kidney replacement often takes people who were otherwise healthy and happy from suffering an unnecessary early death into many more years of happy, healthy life. When death can be avoided with this level of success, it should be. > The thing is, for most people, leading a poor (as far as you are not starving) life is better than having some temporary prosperity by selling a kidney and leading degraded life till the end.... Now. That is evil. Three responses to this: First, this will not be the epidemic you describe. Second, the life of the donor is not degraded as you describe. Third, consider the recipient. Demand in this market will have a very small cap. You can't sell more kidneys than there are people who need transplants. There are currently about 20 million people worldwide who need transplants, so only 1 in 350 people will have an opportunity to profit from this market. You won't have a large class of society who depend on the ability to fund their children's education with one parent's kidney and buy a retirement home with the other. The donor of a kidney will be unlikely to suffer a degraded life. Most people really don't need two kidneys to survive. Kidney donation is a very safe procedure, and donors typically live a full life after donating. It's prudent to perform regular check-ups, and there is a slightly increased risk of needing a transplant (after all, you only have one kidney left!) - but in a world where kidneys are available to those who need them, that's less of a problem. Also, remember that temporary prosperity used to, as you describe, fund an education may lead to permanent prosperity, and that poverty often does result in a reduced lifespan and sometimes in starvation. Finally, even though these donors are a small population, are not negatively affected by donating and could in fact be positively affected by it, consider the recipients. Even if there were a significant negative result to the donors, it might result in more positive utility overall. The people in need of a kidney could, in one world, suffer in a hospital bed on a dialysis machine for the short remnant of their life. In the other, they could live many more happy years with a transplanted kidney.
DougWebb 9y ago
That's the first step on a bad road. Step 1: Reward volunteer donors with cash, healthcare Step 2: Reward 'volunteer' donors with welfare, housing Step 3: Reward 'volunteer' donors with reduced criminal penalties Step 4: Reward 'volunteer' donors with reduced prison sentences Step 5: Make donation a compulsory sentencing option Step 6: Compel criminals to donate both kidneys Now you're China.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Ha! Fun game. We can make up junk and make anything look bad! How about: 1: go to church 2: compel others to go to church 3: lock the doors and burn the place down
  - DougWebb 9y ago
    What you're missing is that China is already executing prisoners in order to harvest their organs. This isn't hypothetical. So anyone who wants to advocate for selling human organs for transplant need to address how to avoid abuse of powerless victims who may be compelled to donate.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Speculative? They're using kidneys from prisoners, once they are executed. To turn around cause and effect is disingenuous. You can guess that that may be happening; to state it as fact is quite a stretch.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- raldi 9y ago
  Step 1: Trim your fingernails Step 6: Chop your arms off

by posguy 9y ago

tudorw 9y ago

I sympathise with your aim, more donors is a good thing, however some of the restrictions on sourcing donors are in place to protect vulnerable people from abuse, so it's not a clear cut decision, if AI is to replicate human thinking it would need to have these kind of discussions, I don't think we really want or need AI, faster and smarter calculators yes; the idea that this is 'intelligence' is akin to attributing intelligence to trees because we have libraries.

seanp2k2 9y ago

"""It is a sad indictment of the human condition that wherever there is a market, people will strive to find a profit margin even when this results in human exploitation.""" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291132/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291132/ Because having a market for everything with no bounds isn't a good thing.

icebraining 9y ago
"It is a sad indictment of the human condition that wherever there is a market, people will strive to find a profit margin even when this results in human exploitation. This is true of all markets, though. Plenty have been and are exploited in labor markets of all sorts. If the mere possibility of exploitation is sufficient to justify outlawing a market, then we must illegalize the hiring of miners, fruit pickers, construction workers, even office secretaries, which are occasionally sexually exploited by their bosses. Because having a market for everything with no bounds isn't a good thing. Sure, but why shouldn't the bound be after this? Certain markets would still be illegal. - By the way, I'm not necessarily convinced that it should be a market, I just find these arguments weak.
- ue_ 9y ago
  It's interesting to note that Marx's concept of exploitation (which is a much, much broader one than the examples you're using here, though they certainly qualify) does say that it would be within the best intersts of the working class as a whole to rise up against such a system and indeed to illegalise (well, prevent in some way) hiring.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Sure (though the concept of wage-slavery is older than Marx), and I'm not necessarily opposed to that either, but it doesn't really justify the status quo.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  True - and it's not by accident - a market exists only because exploiters do. The very purpose and mechanism of markets is to limit the degree (not prevalence) of exploitation by forcing exploiters to compete with each other. That's what markets are, that's the whole idea. Where you want to make exploitation illegal (say drugs, prostitution) you don't want a market - but you lose it's benefits, too. For example by reducing competition and increasing the price of entry, thus greatly enriching the most successful criminal gangs. (Especially true re drugs.)

Barraketh 9y ago

I have at various times wanted to start a non-profit that would provide benefits similar to veteran benefits (paid college tuition, paid health insurance, etc) to people who donate kidneys to strangers at the top of the transplant list. The fact that the kidney goes to the person at the top of the list solves the potential issues of the rich getting better health outcomes because they can pay. Also, we as a society have already accepted these benefits as being acceptable reward for risking life in order to (ostensibly) save American lives in a military context - this simply extends the concept.

babyrainbow 9y ago

>Speaking of morals, is it really moral to not promote and invest in kidney transplants... This is not an easy subject, but I think there is nothing immoral about letting a human being die if their organs fail...It can be thought of as being sad. But not immoral or evil. Also, since death is inevitable, I think in most cases, it is better not to drag it out. And on the whole, it is better not to provide alternatives like this. People, out of obligation, won't let a family member go, (even if they are of old age). So in the end, even people who are not financially sound will be forced to pay huge sums of money... Just wait until hospitals build a market around this, and you can bet that it will be followed by immense social pressure (perpetuated by these markets), to follow this norm. In the end, the net suffering increases... There is also another thing another user pointed out by another user when this topic came up before. When this has become norm, then you will be expected to pay things via your organs. If you are not financially sound, then your son/daughter will probably expect you to pay for their higher studies via your organs..People will ask, hey why don't get a car, so and so companies have schemes based on the health of your kidneys...(unthinkable today, but hey we are talking about how morals change, right?) The thing is, for most people, leading a poor (as far as you are not starving) life is better than having some temporary prosperity by selling a kidney and leading degraded life till the end.... Now. That is evil.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
I disagree vehemently with your viewpoint. I fear that you've been trapped by the vivid image of an impoverished, innocent, victimized person being blackmailed in a dark alley into selling their kidneys (picture someone like Fantine from Les Misérables) and try to stop that at all costs. That's wrong, though: Nothing is worth stopping at all costs, that denies the meaning of the word "cost". We need to objectively weigh the costs of that image against the vague tragedy of early death in a hospital bed multiplied by the 18 million people currently dying in need of a transplanted kidney. And added against that sum, consider that the vast majority of donors would not be victims at all. A few points which I think deserve consideration are: > This is not an easy subject, but I think there is nothing immoral about letting a human being die if their organs fail...It can be thought of as being sad. But not immoral or evil. It is most certainly evil if there is a perfectly good spare kidney just sitting around in a nearby abdomen, and someone dies because they don't have access to it. Human life is intrinsically valuable because of the consciousness and experiences of the mind which is enabled by functioning organs. If the organs cease to function, that does not reduce the value of that life, or imply that the 'time was right': every death is a tragedy. > Also, since death is inevitable, I think in most cases, it is better not to drag it out. Death is temporarily avoidable (evitable?). It cannot be infinitely extended (yet), and you can talk about weighing the costs of people suffering for extended periods of time at great cost in hospital beds or from mental illness against the happy people who made unlikely recoveries....but this weighing does not reasonably extend to kidney failure. Kidney replacement often takes people who were otherwise healthy and happy from suffering an unnecessary early death into many more years of happy, healthy life. When death can be avoided with this level of success, it should be. > The thing is, for most people, leading a poor (as far as you are not starving) life is better than having some temporary prosperity by selling a kidney and leading degraded life till the end.... Now. That is evil. Three responses to this: First, this will not be the epidemic you describe. Second, the life of the donor is not degraded as you describe. Third, consider the recipient. Demand in this market will have a very small cap. You can't sell more kidneys than there are people who need transplants. There are currently about 20 million people worldwide who need transplants, so only 1 in 350 people will have an opportunity to profit from this market. You won't have a large class of society who depend on the ability to fund their children's education with one parent's kidney and buy a retirement home with the other. The donor of a kidney will be unlikely to suffer a degraded life. Most people really don't need two kidneys to survive. Kidney donation is a very safe procedure, and donors typically live a full life after donating. It's prudent to perform regular check-ups, and there is a slightly increased risk of needing a transplant (after all, you only have one kidney left!) - but in a world where kidneys are available to those who need them, that's less of a problem. Also, remember that temporary prosperity used to, as you describe, fund an education may lead to permanent prosperity, and that poverty often does result in a reduced lifespan and sometimes in starvation. Finally, even though these donors are a small population, are not negatively affected by donating and could in fact be positively affected by it, consider the recipients. Even if there were a significant negative result to the donors, it might result in more positive utility overall. The people in need of a kidney could, in one world, suffer in a hospital bed on a dialysis machine for the short remnant of their life. In the other, they could live many more happy years with a transplanted kidney.

DougWebb 9y ago

That's the first step on a bad road. Step 1: Reward volunteer donors with cash, healthcare Step 2: Reward 'volunteer' donors with welfare, housing Step 3: Reward 'volunteer' donors with reduced criminal penalties Step 4: Reward 'volunteer' donors with reduced prison sentences Step 5: Make donation a compulsory sentencing option Step 6: Compel criminals to donate both kidneys Now you're China.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Ha! Fun game. We can make up junk and make anything look bad! How about: 1: go to church 2: compel others to go to church 3: lock the doors and burn the place down
- DougWebb 9y ago
  What you're missing is that China is already executing prisoners in order to harvest their organs. This isn't hypothetical. So anyone who wants to advocate for selling human organs for transplant need to address how to avoid abuse of powerless victims who may be compelled to donate.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Speculative? They're using kidneys from prisoners, once they are executed. To turn around cause and effect is disingenuous. You can guess that that may be happening; to state it as fact is quite a stretch.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
raldi 9y ago
Step 1: Trim your fingernails Step 6: Chop your arms off