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> Quoting scientific studies that show the risk of dying as a result of making a kidney donation to be only 1 in 4,000, he says that not making the donation wou

> Quoting scientific studies that show the risk of dying as a result of making a kidney donation to be only 1 in 4,000, he says that not making the donation would have meant he valued his life at 4,000 times that of a stranger, a valuation he finds totally unjustified. Well that's some real dodgy use of numbers, right there. In "1 in 4000", "1" is the number of people who died as a result of donating a kidney and "4000" are the number of people who didn't, counted over some sample of living kidney donors. These two numbers, "1" and "4000" have no obvious relation to the value one places on one's life compared to the lives of others. For example, "4000" is not the number of others lives saved by donating one kidney. By donating one kidney one can "save" one other person's life at most (and it's not really "saving" as it is delaying the inevitable). Equally dodgy is the calculation of "1/3,000 risk of death in surgery is like sacrificing yourself to save 3,000 people" earlier in the article. Where does this dodgy statistical thinking (like magical thinking, but with statistics) come from I know not, but, anecdotally it's very common in discussions about doing good with numbers and it seems to be designed to shut down debate by claiming "sciense says". Btw, if I wanted to know how much I value my life over that of a stranger all I'd have to do is ask myself: how many people would I sacrifice to save my life? I am guessing that for the majority of people on the planet the answer is "0". Simple question, simple answer, and no dodgy "maths".

sohdas 4y ago
I think it comes from the statistical expectation. Like, if you were able to donate your kidney any amount of times, you would on average expect to lose your life on the 3,000th donation. So the question is, do you want to be the kind of person who would do that at the cost of your own life?
civilized 4y ago
You've used a lot of value-laden words here (dodgy, magical) and made a lot of meta-claims about how bad this kind of thinking is, but I don't think you've shown any actual fallacy in the person's thinking. These folks are saying they see an opportunity to save a life at very low risk to themselves. I don't see the specific problem with this reasoning. Yes, the donation is not guaranteed to save a life and everyone still dies, but these are not compelling objections from a starting point of 1 in 4,000.
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  > These folks are saying they see an opportunity to save a life at very low risk to themselves. No, that's not what they 're saying. One says that "not making the donation would have meant he valued his life at 4,000 times that of a stranger" and the other is saying that "1/3,000 risk of death in surgery is like sacrificing yourself to save 3,000 people". "They see an opportunity to save a life at very low risk to themselves" is your interpretation of what they are actually saying. It might be true, but I'm discussing what was actually said. Do you want to discuss what was actually said, or your interpretation of it?
  - civilized 4y ago
    These claims are based on what would happen if many people donated kidneys and the statistics held true. If 4,000 people donated kidneys to people who needed them to survive, on average, one person would die and 4,000 lives would be saved. From an expected value perspective, one person donating a kidney is like 1/4000th of this. If you base moral decisions on expected value, as effective altruists try to do, this calculus is straightforward.
    - cheese_goddess 4y ago
      The calculation is "not making the donation would have meant he valued his life at 4,000 times that of a stranger". That doesn't follow from the "expected value perspective". The "4000" is swapped, slight-of-hand like, between unequal, orthogonal values. One is the number of people who donate a kidney, the other is the value of a human life. It's counting 4000 apples and then saying "I got 4000 oranges". It's the old switcheroo, and it means nothing. Btw, you say "From an expected value perspective, one person donating a kidney is like 1/4000th of this." "Of this" what? What is "one person donating a kidney" 1/4000'th of? I am asking because I honestly have no idea what you mean. Sorry if my tone sounds combative, but in this I'm just confused.
      - civilized 4y ago
        I think my post is pretty clear. There are four sentences. There is only one sentence the "this" can refer to, and it's the one that comes right before. Could you read it again?
jefftk 4y ago
>These two numbers, "1" and "4000" have no obvious relation to the value one places on one's life compared to the lives of others. If you think donating a kidney has a 1:4000 chance of killing you, and a 1:1 chance of saving someone else's life, then I do think deciding not to do it is saying that you value your continued existence 4000x someone else's. We can argue about the specific numbers, and about whether this is the best way to apply your life to helping others, but I don't think the interpretation is wrong. > For example, "4000" is not the number of others lives saved by donating one kidney. I don't think see anyone claiming that? > By donating one kidney one can "save" one other person's life at most Often you're able to save more than one: it is reasonably common for altruistic donors to be able to facilitate donation chains that would not otherwise happen. The situation is that there are many people who are willing to give a kidney to help a specific person they know, but who are not compatible donors. One way that can work out is that I give my kidney to your friend, and you give your kidney to my friend: no altruistic donor needed. But often this doesn't quite work out in terms of compatibility, and having an altruistic donor can make multiple transplants happen that wouldn't otherwise. >it's not really "saving" as it is delaying the inevitable That's right. Especially considering that even post transplant the recipient is going to be on immunosuppressive drugs and is not likely to have the same duration or quality of life as the typical person. Often when talking about this, people use the concept of a QALY: how many quality-adjusted life years is it? > Equally dodgy is the calculation of "1/3,000 risk of death in surgery is like sacrificing yourself to save 3,000 people" earlier in the article. Why is this calculation dodgy? (While I strongly admire people who have donated kidneys, I don't think it is a very good trade-off of cost to yourself versus benefit to others, and personally I still have both kidneys)
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  > "4000" is not the number of others lives saved by donating one kidney. Why did you leave out the "For example" preceding that sentence in my comment? Leaving "For example" out completely changes the meaning of my comment. It doesn't look like you're interested in a honest conversation. > (While I strongly admire people who have donated kidneys, I don't think it is a very good trade-off of cost to yourself versus benefit to others, and personally I still have both kidneys) I don't, and I suggest you keep both of yours because you are going to need them.
npilk 4y ago
To play EA's advocate: if you assume that donating the kidney will "save" a life, then if you had 4,000 kidneys, you could, on average, sacrifice yourself to "save" 4,000 lives. Of course you don't have 4,000 kidneys, but the intuition is that the decision is the same whether you're sacrificing 1/4,000th of your life to save one person, or your whole life to save 4,000. However, I agree with your point that this isn't really "saving" a life as much as "extending" or "delaying the inevitable". In terms of QALYs (Quality-Adjusted Life Years), the benefit may be much smaller while the risk remains the same. And I especially agree with your conclusion in the last sentence.
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  > To play EA's advocate: if you assume that donating the kidney will "save" a life, then if you had 4,000 kidneys, you could, on average, sacrifice yourself to "save" 4,000 lives. No, see, this is what I mean when I say that maths are being misapplied. We know how many kidneys you can donate before you die: two. Or three if you have three. Some people even have four. So what does the "4000" have to do with that? The "4000" is the number of different people who each donated one kidney, so it doesn't tell us anything about one person donating 4000 kidneys. And anyway, if you need to imagine a person with 4000 kidneys before you can figure out the value of live kidney donation, then you don't have a good way to figure out the value of live kidney donation. Which is my point.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Actually the assumption is that you have an endless quantity of kidneys and the expected number of donated kidneys until you die is 4000.
  - cheese_goddess 4y ago
    That alone should help to see why it's all a completely absurd idea.

sohdas 4y ago

I think it comes from the statistical expectation. Like, if you were able to donate your kidney any amount of times, you would on average expect to lose your life on the 3,000th donation. So the question is, do you want to be the kind of person who would do that at the cost of your own life?

civilized 4y ago

You've used a lot of value-laden words here (dodgy, magical) and made a lot of meta-claims about how bad this kind of thinking is, but I don't think you've shown any actual fallacy in the person's thinking. These folks are saying they see an opportunity to save a life at very low risk to themselves. I don't see the specific problem with this reasoning. Yes, the donation is not guaranteed to save a life and everyone still dies, but these are not compelling objections from a starting point of 1 in 4,000.

cheese_goddess 4y ago
> These folks are saying they see an opportunity to save a life at very low risk to themselves. No, that's not what they 're saying. One says that "not making the donation would have meant he valued his life at 4,000 times that of a stranger" and the other is saying that "1/3,000 risk of death in surgery is like sacrificing yourself to save 3,000 people". "They see an opportunity to save a life at very low risk to themselves" is your interpretation of what they are actually saying. It might be true, but I'm discussing what was actually said. Do you want to discuss what was actually said, or your interpretation of it?
- civilized 4y ago
  These claims are based on what would happen if many people donated kidneys and the statistics held true. If 4,000 people donated kidneys to people who needed them to survive, on average, one person would die and 4,000 lives would be saved. From an expected value perspective, one person donating a kidney is like 1/4000th of this. If you base moral decisions on expected value, as effective altruists try to do, this calculus is straightforward.
  - cheese_goddess 4y ago
    The calculation is "not making the donation would have meant he valued his life at 4,000 times that of a stranger". That doesn't follow from the "expected value perspective". The "4000" is swapped, slight-of-hand like, between unequal, orthogonal values. One is the number of people who donate a kidney, the other is the value of a human life. It's counting 4000 apples and then saying "I got 4000 oranges". It's the old switcheroo, and it means nothing. Btw, you say "From an expected value perspective, one person donating a kidney is like 1/4000th of this." "Of this" what? What is "one person donating a kidney" 1/4000'th of? I am asking because I honestly have no idea what you mean. Sorry if my tone sounds combative, but in this I'm just confused.
    - civilized 4y ago
      I think my post is pretty clear. There are four sentences. There is only one sentence the "this" can refer to, and it's the one that comes right before. Could you read it again?

jefftk 4y ago

>These two numbers, "1" and "4000" have no obvious relation to the value one places on one's life compared to the lives of others. If you think donating a kidney has a 1:4000 chance of killing you, and a 1:1 chance of saving someone else's life, then I do think deciding not to do it is saying that you value your continued existence 4000x someone else's. We can argue about the specific numbers, and about whether this is the best way to apply your life to helping others, but I don't think the interpretation is wrong. > For example, "4000" is not the number of others lives saved by donating one kidney. I don't think see anyone claiming that? > By donating one kidney one can "save" one other person's life at most Often you're able to save more than one: it is reasonably common for altruistic donors to be able to facilitate donation chains that would not otherwise happen. The situation is that there are many people who are willing to give a kidney to help a specific person they know, but who are not compatible donors. One way that can work out is that I give my kidney to your friend, and you give your kidney to my friend: no altruistic donor needed. But often this doesn't quite work out in terms of compatibility, and having an altruistic donor can make multiple transplants happen that wouldn't otherwise. >it's not really "saving" as it is delaying the inevitable That's right. Especially considering that even post transplant the recipient is going to be on immunosuppressive drugs and is not likely to have the same duration or quality of life as the typical person. Often when talking about this, people use the concept of a QALY: how many quality-adjusted life years is it? > Equally dodgy is the calculation of "1/3,000 risk of death in surgery is like sacrificing yourself to save 3,000 people" earlier in the article. Why is this calculation dodgy? (While I strongly admire people who have donated kidneys, I don't think it is a very good trade-off of cost to yourself versus benefit to others, and personally I still have both kidneys)

cheese_goddess 4y ago
> "4000" is not the number of others lives saved by donating one kidney. Why did you leave out the "For example" preceding that sentence in my comment? Leaving "For example" out completely changes the meaning of my comment. It doesn't look like you're interested in a honest conversation. > (While I strongly admire people who have donated kidneys, I don't think it is a very good trade-off of cost to yourself versus benefit to others, and personally I still have both kidneys) I don't, and I suggest you keep both of yours because you are going to need them.

npilk 4y ago

To play EA's advocate: if you assume that donating the kidney will "save" a life, then if you had 4,000 kidneys, you could, on average, sacrifice yourself to "save" 4,000 lives. Of course you don't have 4,000 kidneys, but the intuition is that the decision is the same whether you're sacrificing 1/4,000th of your life to save one person, or your whole life to save 4,000. However, I agree with your point that this isn't really "saving" a life as much as "extending" or "delaying the inevitable". In terms of QALYs (Quality-Adjusted Life Years), the benefit may be much smaller while the risk remains the same. And I especially agree with your conclusion in the last sentence.

cheese_goddess 4y ago
> To play EA's advocate: if you assume that donating the kidney will "save" a life, then if you had 4,000 kidneys, you could, on average, sacrifice yourself to "save" 4,000 lives. No, see, this is what I mean when I say that maths are being misapplied. We know how many kidneys you can donate before you die: two. Or three if you have three. Some people even have four. So what does the "4000" have to do with that? The "4000" is the number of different people who each donated one kidney, so it doesn't tell us anything about one person donating 4000 kidneys. And anyway, if you need to imagine a person with 4000 kidneys before you can figure out the value of live kidney donation, then you don't have a good way to figure out the value of live kidney donation. Which is my point.
imtringued 4y ago
Actually the assumption is that you have an endless quantity of kidneys and the expected number of donated kidneys until you die is 4000.
- cheese_goddess 4y ago
  That alone should help to see why it's all a completely absurd idea.