From: Arjen Kamphuis (mountain@knoware.nl)
Date: Mon Sep 08 1997 - 17:27:53 MDT
Anders Sandberg wrote:
>You have fallen for an urban legend. Actually, the posted text is extremely
>typical for urban legends (friend of a friend stories, many themes which
>recur in other urban legends, a horrifying but unusual theme, suggestions
>that sin (drinking, girls or drugs) are involved, "realistic details"
>like the 911 number etc). See any standard textbook about urban
>legends.
I've never understood what is sinful about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll :-)
Heinlein: "The only sin is hurting other people unnecessarily. Hurting
yourself it not sinful, just stupid" (could not have said it better
myself)
Thanx for putting me straight on this, I think - I'll check the URL's later.
I'll also inform the director of security ;-), I would love to see the look
on his face when he reads this.
It was stated in another post earlier: a little humiliation can be
educational, both for me and for the DirSec ;-)
"if it doesn't kill you, you can learn from it"
(mountaineering principle)
I'll be folowing the "META: Psuedo Science" threasd with extra attention.
>If you think about it, the story falls apart completely. Organ
>transplants have rejection problems, which means you can't transplant
>an organ from a random donor to a patient. Using random people you
>have not tissue-typed will likely lead to rejection, not to mention
>the risks of spreading disease. So while there might be unscrupulous
>people who might be willing to sell others organs, there would be
>few buyers who would want them.
is this not 'merely' a matter of having a large & varied supply, and the
ability for storage? (How long can you store a kidney?)
>I have been thinking about the current bans on selling organs. The
>idea is that it is unfair of selling life-saving organs and that they
>should be donated (and perhaps also to prevent poor from selling their
>organs). Does it do more good than harm? While I'm certainly not
>as market-happy as many (most?) extropians, this is one area where
>I have seriously considered a free market solution.
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 ;-)
>[Newsflash: Anders is taking a stand in a controversial
>question! Flame war expected! Pictures at 11. :-)]
let's try to keep things relaxed and more or less rational and informative ;-)
Thanks Anders, for all the info and for the way you presented your viewpoint.
Greetings,
Arjen Kamphuis
mountain@knoware.nl
-------------------------------------------
Don't be afraid to go out on a limb...
that's where the fruit is."
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