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My Left Kidney

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Re: My Left Kidney

#21

Post by FinchNova12 »

monero-xmr wrote: post #19
caturopath wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you've interacted with some nasty folks who were EAs - I don't think this was a typical cross-section of EAs. Sorry to hear about your bad experiences

As one example, a friend of mine lost over $20 million to SBF / FTX, which funded said castle. However he did not sell his claim and is optimistic he will get most of it back. Money seems like a number on a page until you see how it affects real people! As another example, I had an EA VC investor nuke one of my seed investments in order to have a different one of his portcos acquire the IP for scrap because he had a…

No, you can blame EAs for making stupid decisions and being generally bad people if they are making stupid decisions and being generally bad people. I'll second that I'm sorry for the bad experiences you've had with EAs.

In my experiences, lots of them are simply good people trying to do more good. I hope you can have better experiences with them in the future.

Re: My Left Kidney

#22

Post by monero-xmr »

FinchNova12 wrote: post #21
monero-xmr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one example, a friend of mine lost over $20 million to SBF / FTX, which funded said castle. However he did not sell his claim and is optimistic he will get most of it back. Money seems like a number on a page until you see how it affects real people! As another example, I had an EA VC investor nuke one of my seed investments in order to have a different one of his portcos acquire the IP for scrap because he had a…

No, you can blame EAs for making stupid decisions and being generally bad people if they are making stupid decisions and being generally bad people. I'll second that I'm sorry for the bad experiences you've had with EAs. In my experiences, lots of them are simply good people trying to do more good. I hope you can have better experiences with them in the future.

I won't have better experiences with them in the future because the moment I discover someone is an EA I no longer have experiences with them, period.

Re: My Left Kidney

#23

Post by matisseverduyn »

"But looking more closely at the increased deaths, they were mostly from autoimmune diseases that couldn’t plausibly be related to their donations."

Kidneys make calcitriol. One kidney means you'll make less, and if you don't supplement, you'll become deficient. Deficiency would (possibly) lead to autoimmune diseases.

Also EPO (erythropoietin). One kidney means less, and less (possibly) means fewer new red blood cells, then (possibly) anemia. Anemia wreaks havoc.

And bicarbonate.

To be clear, if you want to donate a kidney, then do it if it's the right choice. It's very kind. Just know what to pay attention to to keep yourself in good health.

Re: My Left Kidney

#24

Post by caturopath »

cvalka wrote: post #11
the_shivers wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

If your spouse does not oppose your decision to donate your kidney to a random person, get a divorce asap.

This is why no firefighters are married: people don't want their spouse to take any risks to save others' lives.

Re: My Left Kidney

#25

Post by lispisok »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #8

I respect the British organizers’ willingness to sacrifice their reputation on the altar of doing what was actually good instead of just good-looking. Surely their reputation is a factor in their ability to do good? Optics sometimes necessitate sacrificing the "mathematically superior choice" for one that's worse in the name of not pissing off a ton of people the support of whom you rely upon.

This stuck out to me too. If Effective Altruism is about using math to figure out how to do the most good they seemed to have ignored higher order effects of their actions. What if buying the castle hurt Effective Altruism's reputation so less people got into EA so less people donated money to buy mosquito nets or malarial regions in Africa resulting is less overall good?

Re: My Left Kidney

#26

Post by elromulous »

Can anyone (with a better understanding of radiation risks) confirm the math for the added mortality risk from a single CT? I know a CT is a lot of radiation, but the mortality risk seems very high.

Re: My Left Kidney

#27

Post by sashank_1509 »

This does honestly kind of shock me, it’s respectable that he did something like this for a random person but I could never imagine myself doing it for anyone except close family.

I used to think EA was some kooky AI safety Cult but if so many EA folks donate their kidney, my opinion of them has improved far more. They at least have balls!

Re: My Left Kidney

#28

Post by unholiness »

elromulous wrote: post #26

Can anyone (with a better understanding of radiation risks) confirm the math for the added mortality risk from a single CT? I know a CT is a lot of radiation, but the mortality risk seems very high.

His footnote says as much as I could:

> Maybe. Kind of. Our knowledge of how radiation causes cancer comes primarily from Hiroshima and Nagasaki; we can follow survivors who were one mile, two miles, etc, from the center of the blast, calculate how much radiation exposure they sustained, and see how much cancer they got years later. But by the time we’re dealing with CAT scan levels of radiation, cancer levels are so close to background that it’s hard to adjust for possible confounders. So the first scientists to study the problem just drew a line through their high-radiation data points and extended it to the low radiation levels - ie if 1 Sievert caused one thousand extra cancers, probably 1 milli-Sievert would cause one extra cancer. This is called the Linear Dose No Threshold (LDNT) model, and has become a subject of intense and acrimonious debate. Some people think that at some very small dose, radiation stops being bad for you at all. Other people think maybe at low enough doses radiation is good for you - see this claim that the atomic bomb “elongated lifespan” in survivors far enough away from the blast. If this were true, CTs probably wouldn’t increase cancer risk at all. I didn’t consider myself knowledgeable enough to take a firm position, and I noticed eminent scientists on both sides, so I am using the more cautious estimate here.

Re: My Left Kidney

#29

Post by dkural »

A man has so much cognitive dissonance, has to donate kidney to align internal narrative to create resonance with castles again.

Re: My Left Kidney

#30

Post by eutropia »

monero-xmr wrote: post #4

[flagged]

HN isn't really the place for this kind of vitriolic diatribe, because it's not all that conducive to thoughtful commentary.

That Aside,

> As if you can reduce "societal benefit" to some quantifiable number

I assume your business doesn't mark any Goodwill value or other non-tangibles in its GAAP-compliant financial statements then?

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