>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 kidn

>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)