Isn't there a law that says once you start life saving procedures you can't stop until the patient is legally declared dead by a physician at a hospital?
I would like to exclude anyone who identifies as a member of the Tea Party from receiving my valuable organs. I would much rather see my stuff go to someone useful.
I would like to exclude anyone who identifies as a member of the Tea Party from receiving my valuable organs. I would much rather see my stuff go to someone useful.
People would also like to exclude their tax dollars from certain activities. We don't let them individually do so. ;^)
People would also like to exclude their tax dollars from certain activities. We don't let them individually do so. ;^)
If more people were computer-types and were constantly connected and such, we could do things like what Portal 2 is doing right now.
Basically we would have no taxes whatsoever. There would just be some sort of site that everyone would go to. It would have progress bars for everything that needs funding, and people could voluntarily put money into the different progress bars to make them go up. If a bar didn't fill up by a certain date, then that service would disappear. Then people would suffer the consequences of their own greed. Failed to fill up the local police budget? Time to move! Good job. Failed to fill up the military budget. Oh look, we got invaded. Well, thankfully it was Norway that invaded. Now everything is happy times!
If more people were computer-types and were constantly connected and such, we could do things like what Portal 2 is doing right now.
Basically we would have no taxes whatsoever. There would just be some sort of site that everyone would go to. It would have progress bars for everything that needs funding, and people could voluntarily put money into the different progress bars to make them go up. If a bar didn't fill up by a certain date, then that service would disappear. Then people would suffer the consequences of their own greed. Failed to fill up the local police budget? Time to move! Good job. Failed to fill up the military budget. Oh look, we got invaded. Well, thankfully it was Norway that invaded. Now everything is happy times!
That is one of the most ridiculous ideas I have ever heard in my entire life. Seriously, that is bafflingly stupid.
If more people were computer-types and were constantly connected and such, we could do things like what Portal 2 is doing right now.
Basically we would have no taxes whatsoever. There would just be some sort of site that everyone would go to. It would have progress bars for everything that needs funding, and people could voluntarily put money into the different progress bars to make them go up. If a bar didn't fill up by a certain date, then that service would disappear. Then people would suffer the consequences of their own greed. Failed to fill up the local police budget? Time to move! Good job. Failed to fill up the military budget. Oh look, we got invaded. Well, thankfully it was Norway that invaded. Now everything is happy times!
If, hypothetically, you have a 1% chance of harvesting in a situation where you would have lived otherwise and a 100% chance of saving a life with your organs, then that comparison is equivalent to giving your life away to save 100 lives.
Sure, that's a great hypothetical. Too bad the situations are never that clear-cut. Ever. And getting numbers that clear-cut is impossible in most public health situations.
I don't disagree with you in principle, but your ideas do not translate into anything even remotely practical. Organ donation is a practical problem, not one that can be resolved with the application of statistics. There are simply far too many variables, and the odds calculations are dependent on so many minute factors - some of which simply can't be known before actually going forward with a procedure - that applying a mathematical model is effectively useless.
You may not even apply an explicit mathematical model, but that's beside the point. At the very least, you have to try to make your intuitions conform to the idea of expected value, which humans do very poorly indeed. You have to at least mimic the notion of multiplying likelihood by value of outcome (expected value), even if you don't do explicit calculations. You have to try to get a hold of the idea that if harm is ten times less likely, then it's the same as it being ten times smaller in magnitude.
The potential for improper harvesting is indeed "little cost", because it's not very likely. In an overall sense, mandatory organ donation has great benefit at little cost, because it would result in vastly more lives saved than premature deaths.
More specifically, I'd presume that most, if not all, tests for viability of the organs occur before they are harvested, not after. Consequently, if your organs are harvested, then there would already be quite a good chance of those organs actually being useful. On the other hand, I'd say that the majority of people whose organs are harvested are, with regards to current medical methods, irreversibly dead.
People would also like to exclude their tax dollars from certain activities. We don't let them individually do so. ;^)
If more people were computer-types and were constantly connected and such, we could do things like what Portal 2 is doing right now.
Basically we would have no taxes whatsoever. There would just be some sort of site that everyone would go to. It would have progress bars for everything that needs funding, and people could voluntarily put money into the different progress bars to make them go up. If a bar didn't fill up by a certain date, then that service would disappear. Then people would suffer the consequences of their own greed. Failed to fill up the local police budget? Time to move! Good job. Failed to fill up the military budget. Oh look, we got invaded. Well, thankfully it was Norway that invaded. Now everything is happy times!
That's hilarious, though I admit the idea is not without some degree of merit.
People would also like to exclude their tax dollars from certain activities. We don't let them individually do so. ;^)
If more people were computer-types and were constantly connected and such, we could do things like what Portal 2 is doing right now.
Basically we would have no taxes whatsoever. There would just be some sort of site that everyone would go to. It would have progress bars for everything that needs funding, and people could voluntarily put money into the different progress bars to make them go up. If a bar didn't fill up by a certain date, then that service would disappear. Then people would suffer the consequences of their own greed. Failed to fill up the local police budget? Time to move! Good job. Failed to fill up the military budget. Oh look, we got invaded. Well, thankfully it was Norway that invaded. Now everything is happy times!
That's hilarious, though I admit the idea is not without some degree of merit.
Sounds almost exactly like donorschoose. Except for scope, of course.
The biggest problem I can see with this is that, basically, as few people as possible would pay, leaving the more altruistic/intelligent to pay more and more each cycle. The altruistic/intelligent people know they have to keep paying or the system will collaspe so they turn larger and larger amounts of money in; the selfish/stupid will soon figure out that the altruistic/intelligent people will refuse to let the system collaspe and just stop paying. As a result, assholes will have larger disposable income and reasonable people will basically be slaves for the state. Within a few years it will settle into a situation where the unwritten social contract is that the reasonable people better pay up, or else the moment the police budget runs out the assholes will rough them up.
The biggest problem I can see with this is that, basically, as few people as possible would pay, leaving the more altruistic/intelligent to pay more and more each cycle. The altruistic/intelligent people know they have to keep paying or the system will collaspe so they turn larger and larger amounts of money in; the selfish/stupid will soon figure out that the altruistic/intelligent people will refuse to let the system collaspe and just stop paying. As a result, assholes will have larger disposable income and reasonable people will basically be slaves for the state. Within a few years it will settle into a situation where the unwritten social contract is that the reasonable people better pay up, or else the moment the police budget runs out the assholes will rough them up.
You may not even apply an explicit mathematical model, but that's beside the point. At the very least, you have to try to make your intuitions conform to the idea of expected value, which humans do very poorly indeed. You have to at least mimic the notion of multiplying likelihood by value of outcome (expected value), even if you don't do explicit calculations. You have to try to get a hold of the idea that if harm is ten times less likely, then it's the same as it being ten times smaller in magnitude.
The potential for improper harvesting is indeed "little cost", because it's not very likely. In an overall sense, mandatory organ donation has great benefit at little cost, because it would result in vastly more lives saved than premature deaths.
More specifically, I'd presume that most, if not all, tests for viability of the organs occur before they are harvested, not after. Consequently, if your organs are harvested, then there would already be quite a good chance of those organs actually being useful. On the other hand, I'd say that the majority of people whose organs are harvested are, with regards to current medical methods, irreversibly dead.
While you could be right in the realm of highly controlled situations, the sheer number of possibilities for every variable for which you would need to account is well beyond the capacity of any human to manage, particularly in the time constraints needed to administer emergency care. You can fit your ideas to certain expected values, but medical science is subject to countless variables that are unknown to emergency responders and which greatly affect the outcome of treatment. Biological systems are really fucking complicated, and often confound attempts to fit to even the loosest of mathematical models.
You're dealing with things which are dynamic. By its very nature, biology is a field where the rules change.
And you really need to read that article. "Irreversibly dead" is not a cut-and-dry, easily-defined term.
Scott, try your tax idea as a board game. Don't pay enough military, and the goths fuck everyone up. See how often anyone pays. ;^)
A board game is very much different from the real world. Board games are explicitly zero-sum and you're supposed to be 100% selfish. Neither of those things holds in the real world.
Regardless, I do agree that Scott's idea wouldn't work on the whole, but I think there is some merit to that kind of funding as long as you don't use it for absolutely all government functions.
Regardless, I do agree that Scott's idea wouldn't work on the whole, but I think there is some merit to that kind of funding as long as you don't use it for absolutely all government functions.
Honestly, I'm in favor of trying new things that seem like a bad idea anyhow. The consequences will still be interesting and worthy of study.
Regardless, I do agree that Scott's idea wouldn't work on the whole, but I think there is some merit to that kind of funding as long as you don't use it for absolutely all government functions.
Honestly, I'm in favor of trying new things that seem like a bad idea anyhow. The consequences will still be interesting and worthy of study.
Moving on, a point I would like to raise is; Given the option would you subscribe to a system that either benefited those that had already contributed to the hypothetical state, or those that had the potential.
You may not even apply an explicit mathematical model, but that's beside the point. At the very least, you have to try to make your intuitions conform to the idea of expected value, which humans do very poorly indeed. You have to at least mimic the notion of multiplying likelihood by value of outcome (expected value), even if you don't do explicit calculations. You have to try to get a hold of the idea that if harm is ten times less likely, then it's the same as it being ten times smaller in magnitude.
The potential for improper harvesting is indeed "little cost", because it's not very likely. In an overall sense, mandatory organ donation has great benefit at little cost, because it would result in vastly more lives saved than premature deaths.
More specifically, I'd presume that most, if not all, tests for viability of the organs occur before they are harvested, not after. Consequently, if your organs are harvested, then there would already be quite a good chance of those organs actually being useful. On the other hand, I'd say that the majority of people whose organs are harvested are, with regards to current medical methods, irreversibly dead.
While you could be right in the realm of highly controlled situations, the sheer number of possibilities for every variable for which you would need to account is well beyond the capacity of any human to manage, particularly in the time constraints needed to administer emergency care. You can fit your ideas to certain expected values, but medical science is subject to countless variables that are unknown to emergency responders and which greatly affect the outcome of treatment. Biological systems are really fucking complicated, and often confound attempts to fit to even the loosest of mathematical models.
My main point in this regard is that human brains are very bad when it comes to assessing risks, and it's highly important to take this into account when thinking about them. See this TED talk.
You're dealing with things which are dynamic. By its very nature, biology is a field where the rules change.
I'm not denying the complexity or the difficulty of the issue. It's possible that your organs will be taken prematurely, and it's hard to estimate how likely it is for that to happen, but that alone does not make a good argument in the least.
"Irreversibly dead" is not a cut-and-dry, easily-defined term.
I don't doubt that. Out of context I'd likely take it to mean irreversible in principle, in which case it translates into information-theoretic death; that idea is reasonably well-defined, but not very useful (except in the case of cryonics), since the organs would be entirely useless by the time information-theoretic death occurs. On the other hand, a pragmatic idea of "irreversible death" is obviously much more complicated, since it would depend on what kind of medical methods are currently available, and of course none of them are guaranteed to work.
and it's hard to estimate how likely it is for that to happen
It's not just that it's hard - I'm making an argument that sufficient control of all the relevant variables is literally impossible. The problem goes back to biological systems being dynamic, and you can't actually know how those variables will interact until you start the experiment, because you don't necessarily know all the variables.
This is the reason that biology is the softest of the hard sciences; our systems are both complex and ever-changing. It'd be one thing if we were trying to dissect a static situation. We're not. We're trying to understand a system while the system itself is changing.
This is also why most medical science boils down to "throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks."
This is further compounded by the fact that medicine is an applied science, so the final test of any framework must be in its ability to be feasibly implemented in a way that solves the problem. If your mathematical modeling doesn't fit the reality of crisis treatment, it might as well not exist in the first place.
Obviously that tax idea isn't for serious. However, with one slight modification, it could be for serious.
What if you had a required amount of money you had to put in, the amount you would normally pay in taxes. Yet, you were free to choose its allocation as you see fit. If you chose not to allocate manually, it would just be distributed equally across the board.
Scott this bad medicine will affect you. It will also most make you rather angry.
The suffering of those who don't deserve it will be balanced by laughing at the suffering of those who do. Also, a large enough percentage will learn their lesson, and the bad times will end. The medicine tastes bad, but it does work.
Comments
Basically we would have no taxes whatsoever. There would just be some sort of site that everyone would go to. It would have progress bars for everything that needs funding, and people could voluntarily put money into the different progress bars to make them go up. If a bar didn't fill up by a certain date, then that service would disappear. Then people would suffer the consequences of their own greed. Failed to fill up the local police budget? Time to move! Good job. Failed to fill up the military budget. Oh look, we got invaded. Well, thankfully it was Norway that invaded. Now everything is happy times!
The potential for improper harvesting is indeed "little cost", because it's not very likely. In an overall sense, mandatory organ donation has great benefit at little cost, because it would result in vastly more lives saved than premature deaths.
More specifically, I'd presume that most, if not all, tests for viability of the organs occur before they are harvested, not after. Consequently, if your organs are harvested, then there would already be quite a good chance of those organs actually being useful. On the other hand, I'd say that the majority of people whose organs are harvested are, with regards to current medical methods, irreversibly dead.
You're dealing with things which are dynamic. By its very nature, biology is a field where the rules change.
And you really need to read that article. "Irreversibly dead" is not a cut-and-dry, easily-defined term.
Regardless, I do agree that Scott's idea wouldn't work on the whole, but I think there is some merit to that kind of funding as long as you don't use it for absolutely all government functions.
Just sayin'.
Moving on, a point I would like to raise is; Given the option would you subscribe to a system that either benefited those that had already contributed to the hypothetical state, or those that had the potential.
It's possible that your organs will be taken prematurely, and it's hard to estimate how likely it is for that to happen, but that alone does not make a good argument in the least. I don't doubt that. Out of context I'd likely take it to mean irreversible in principle, in which case it translates into information-theoretic death; that idea is reasonably well-defined, but not very useful (except in the case of cryonics), since the organs would be entirely useless by the time information-theoretic death occurs. On the other hand, a pragmatic idea of "irreversible death" is obviously much more complicated, since it would depend on what kind of medical methods are currently available, and of course none of them are guaranteed to work.
This is the reason that biology is the softest of the hard sciences; our systems are both complex and ever-changing. It'd be one thing if we were trying to dissect a static situation. We're not. We're trying to understand a system while the system itself is changing.
This is also why most medical science boils down to "throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks."
This is further compounded by the fact that medicine is an applied science, so the final test of any framework must be in its ability to be feasibly implemented in a way that solves the problem. If your mathematical modeling doesn't fit the reality of crisis treatment, it might as well not exist in the first place.
What if you had a required amount of money you had to put in, the amount you would normally pay in taxes. Yet, you were free to choose its allocation as you see fit. If you chose not to allocate manually, it would just be distributed equally across the board.