jsomae

They should be well informed. The risk of dying is around one in ten thousand -- less than the risk of death giving birth.

I'm... glad to be of service?

I'm saying that this new fox can be trained to guard the hen house under a strict and reliable ethics code.

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying.

It’s almost as though the end goal of a legal kidney market isn’t to facilitate simple familial donations at all.

Exactly! I want to see everyone who needs a kidney get one, and those who don't want to give up their kidney not be coerced into it. There is an extremely large space of people who are (a) not in poverty and (b) never seriously considered donating their kidney, and this is a great way to tap into that pool.

An incomplete list:

Leftism

• structural racism/sexism/etc. exists and is a serious problem that needs to be addressed
• police as a concept needs to be completely rethought
• we should tax the rich and give to the poor
• free healthcare, maybe UBI even
• The U.S. needs to stop interfering in the political systems of other countries

Libertarianism:

• Privacy should be a human right
• The DMCA is a disaster, DRM is evil, and copyright terms are way too long

Thanks for the welcome! I'm not trying to argue in bad faith. I think this scheme would help minorities and the poor disproportionately, so I'm hopeful I can convince leftists that despite the dollar signs involved this is actually a very good plan.

It seems to me that the monetary blood donation reward is poorly thought out and has a lot of problems that this kidney-selling system is trying to sidestep. In particular, I think this kidney system isn't going to encourage poor people to donate their kidneys at all -- it will only give a monetary reward to people who pay lots of taxes (the middle class+).

I have a low opinion of NYT also. I was onboard with (carefully) monetarily rewarding kidney donations already.

That's absurd. You're merely applying the general principle that capitalism is bad in all circumstances. Sure, let's tear down capitalism -- but if we live in a capitalist society, you can't just draw a circle around what look to me like comparatively ethical capitalist practices and say "that's ghoulish."

What if kidney donors were awarded with a doctor's note for paid time off work? Would that then be unethical? How about if the award is being bumped up to the top of the kidney donor's list? (That's real and already happening! Isn't that ghoulish?)

Just because some people have harvested organs in inhumane ways does not mean there is no ethical way to encourage people to donate kidneys. I could probably point to barbaric instances of praxis for any philosophy. Same thing with "if we can't even do blood donation ethically."

Fairly well-off middle-class people aren’t going to donate anything if they can purchase [...] organs on a secondary market Why would somebody who wants to purchase a kidney want to donate a kidney in the first place? I think you may be confused about this whole scenario.

How could it "not matter how it's designed"? Do you realize how limiting that statement is? You're saying there's literally no way to ethically encourage people to donate their kidneys no matter how hard you try.

I've seen these dentures. It's impossible to look at them without being struck by the harrowing provenance of those teeth.

This kidney harvesting scheme is nothing like what those slaves went through. It is a way to encourage fairly-well-off middle-class people to donate their kidneys.

I'll admit I don't know much about American taxation, but in Canada someone who earns $10k a year pays $0 in taxes, and therefore would gain $0 from selling their kidneys under this scheme.

I reckon this option would mostly be considered by people who earn $80k a year or more. We should encourage more people in this bracket to be donating their kidneys.

"The holocaust was also a carefully considered plan" is a fully-general rebuttal to any carefully considered plan.

A move like this will definitely decrease the suffering of people who lack functioning kidneys. It will not affect the suffering poor and desperate.

Obviously, we should abolish capitalism entirely, because capitalism causes suffering. I'm not advocating for capitalism here.

Yes. I'm definitely interested in learning more about leftism. I would identify as 50% liberal, 45% leftist, maybe 5% crazy libertarian.