Free organ market (was: Kidney-nappers)

Arjen Kamphuis (mountain@knoware.nl)
Tue, 9 Sep 1997 15:52:17 +0200


Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> writes:
>:-) Just be careful - some people react badly when they realize they
>have been wrong. Which is itself an interesting area of study in applied
>memetics.

He didn't get too mad, anyway it's good for my profile right ;-)
I'd like to explore this further but using my work as a lab might result in
termination of my employement ;-)

>> I'm still having some difficulty with the free market solution to a
problem
>> like this (the ethics of an abundant amount of artificial replacements are
>> so much easier).
>> I agree with you for the most part but something is nagging me about all
>> this.
>> Maybe it just takes some getting use to ;-)
>
>Yes, it is a somewhat touchy question. I'm still not 100% convinced that
>a free market solution is ideal, but so far I have found more problems
>on the non-profit side than the market side. Perhaps there is a third
>way?

The typical Dutch awnser would be 'the middle road' try to combine the best
of both in a mixed model of free market (for efficient allocation of
resources) and some centralised control (I'll refrain from using the G-word
here ;-) to make sure everybody can have acces to a high standard of
medical care.
I think the addition of the right to sell your organs/tissue's, like Lee
Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> suggests (before or after you die) could be
some improvement. It remains trick though, I don't think we want people
having babies for the sole purpose of selling the parts (young/fetal
nervetissue could be very valuable for Parkinsons Disease patients).
The push for animal/artificial solutions is a nicely clean, technical,
problem compared to this.

Just another thought:
"There is nothing in the middle of the road
besides yellow stripes and dead armadillo's" (anyone know who said this?)

Arjen Kamphuis
mountain@knoware.nl

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