121–130 of 199 posts
It's simply the absence of an opt-out system that leads to either organ shortages or forced donations. An opt-out system fixes all of this immediately.
Opt-out system fixes the forced extraction of organs from dissidents and prisoners? Please, do explain how?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Chinese government itself has admitted that this was done in the past but they promised to no longer allow it to happen...on multiple occasions. That China did this isn’t really in doubt, the argument is only about whether they still do it. The central government has a hard time getting rid of this practice because they aren’t as omnipotent as they appear, there is a lot of vested interests that localities contin…
They admitted to having used organs from prisoners with relatively "valid" death sentence in so far that there is any such thing as a fair trial in China. What is alleged here is much worse: Prisoners of Conscience (and not drug traffickers or murderers) are particularly selected for their histocompatibility and executed "on demand". Therefor I think these allegations need further proof. Extraordinary claims require…
«hundreds of Chinese scientific papers might be compromised due to their reliance upon thousands of unethically sourced organs.» This is like saying that theses people died or were killed, and now some dumbsters will take away even the slightest hope that their death was somehow useful for the rest of us. If I were dying in a concentration camp from the experiments of Doctor Mengele, knowing that my death would contr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing Mengele contributed to science, unintentionally, was the Nuremburg Code. A set of ethical principles for human experimentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code
Even Wikipedia objects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
His medical defence was specifically denied as he did nothing to contribute to the Nazi war effort.
He did none of the valid, but unethical, Nazi research like the well known hypothermia experiments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah that's totally ridiculous. Death is as serious a punishment as possible and can never be appealed once delivered, there should never be any incentives to deliver the death sentence besides seeing that justice is done.
Let me be clear that I'm not advocating for capital punishment at all, I'm staunchly against it. But honestly, if we're going to decide that we're allowed to kill people in the name of justice, it's arguable that the deceased's bodies should be used to help save lives.
A hard line stance on China’s human rights abuses, currency and trade manipulation, and intellectual property theft will be a top requirement for my support of 2020 US presidential candidates.
When I returned from Xinjiang, I thought about it a lot and the only conclusion I could come to in the end is that human beings in aggregate are for the most part scum and cowards. It's conclusion that gives me no hope in the future but I cannot avoid it.
Taking into account the scale but not the novelty (genocide/ethnic cleansing as a form of statecraft, in fact I am reminded of Japanese experiments on Chinese in WW2, the irony of the oppressed eventually becoming the oppressor). I have to conclude that given the right circumstances, anyone can do just about anything. It takes constant vigilance and self-courage to be a consistently good person, most of us in the developed west have just never been put into a situation where we are compelled to do something real shitty.
There is something brilliant about using a group of people who intentionally keep their organs in the best possible condition (Falun Gong does exercise, avoids alcohol, smoking, and some foods, etc.) as your oppressed-minority-live-organ-banks. OTOH, I think the only reason they were hated was due to being popular and somehow offending or scaring someone in power. They were tolerated or even supported for a long time…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an interesting perspective, but faced with an immediate painful death I doubt science would be on your mind. Not to mention that it's not known if the research obtained is useful at all. There's already a serious crisis in Chinese science in terms of falsified results.
I bet you watched Tim Cook's commencement address, applauded the closing sentence "...you can’t take it with you. You’re going to have to pass it on." but did not realize the scope of it.
I think you are applying utilitarianism to a point where it is no longer useful. Sure, I guess if a dissident is executed we might as well make good use of it, right? But this misses the forest for the trees. An ethical climate like this makes for a worse society overall, since people will naturally be inclined to do worse things out of their own subjective interpretation of utilitarian value. In a place where people try to aim for abstract and idealistic moral values, you paradoxically have a situation where life gets easier as there is an additional mental block against poor incentive cycles such as arresting more dissidents and destroying more families to have more organs.
There's a reason why abstract moral frameworks like abrahamic religion have enjoyed a good evolutionary run. Ultimately calculating utility in a helpful way is an almost impossible task for a group humans with different aims. That's why the satisfaction of coming up with edgy utilitarian conclusions is in fact a red herring.
I have no way of knowing if this particularly is true. I am Chinese myself and lived overseas for most of my life, a year or so ago I backpacked around Xinjiang so I can certainly attest to the police state over there. When I returned from Xinjiang, I thought about it a lot and the only conclusion I could come to in the end is that human beings in aggregate are for the most part scum and cowards. It's conclusion that…
I also spent time there, and I don’t think that’s a fair conclusion at all. Most people aren’t cowards and scum, most people follow and focus their energies on their survival and that of their kin. The less they have in terms of wealth the less time and head space they can devote to anything else. We’ve seen here on HN studies that show poverty changes the way you think.
Of the few that lead, there are good and there are bad. However I think the leaders and followers tend to be disjoint sets and it’s unfair to project the morality of one onto the other. It neglects the realities of human behavior. I think you’re inferring some broader mission or value statement that doesn’t exist from largely self serving small scale actions.