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I'll play devils' advocate here. Why is this harmful? Say you're a middle class gentleman, rich but humane cannibals offer you 5 million dollars if they can ha

I'll play devils' advocate here. Why is this harmful? Say you're a middle class gentleman, rich but humane cannibals offer you 5 million dollars if they can have a surgeon remove your arm, so they can eat it. Losing and arm will be tough, without that $5 mill it'd be very tough, especially to keep work. Since you're rich you're not going on disability or anything, so really it's self-sustained. The only person out anything is the person who lost the arm. How is this harmful to society? I'm not certain it is, I'm not saying it's right either... I mean obvious it's not normal, but is it really "harmful"?

dTal 5y ago
This extremely unlikely situation hinges on profound wealth inequality. Only someone staggeringly, fantastically, mind-bogglingly rich (and also completely nuts) would blow 5 million on eating a human arm. And only someone who is really struggling in life would contemplate such a huge sacrifice for mere money. Since the actual variation in human ability, and therefore economic potential, follows a tame bell curve as opposed to the radically skewed distribution of wealth that this scenario requires (and that we actually see), this represents a market inefficiency. If we permit this transaction to take place, the economic potential of the formerly-armed takes a huge hit, while Cannibal Jeff Bezos does not enjoy a corresponding gain. Thus not only is the transaction negative-sum, but the inequality (and hence the inefficiency) is exacerbated.