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My Left Kidney

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Re: My Left Kidney

#221

Post by Suzuran »

Waterluvian wrote: post #208
ryanbrunner wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transplanted kidneys generally go lower in your belly than your "native" kidneys and they aren't swapped, the original kidneys are left in and they add another. Anyone who's had a transplant most likely has 3 or even 4 kidneys inside them.

This is probably the most concrete “I had no idea it worked that way” this year for me. So you can collect kidneys!

They only remove them if they have some kind of immediate risk of damage to the body - Necrosis or similar. On top of that, while your original kidneys won't have enough function to sustain life, any function they do have will take some burden off of the transplant kidney(s).

Re: My Left Kidney

#223

Post by lr1970 »

illys wrote: post #107

The author states: "the risk of dying from the screening exam was 1/660" And demonstrates with: "This involves a radiation dose of about 30 milli-Sieverts. The usual rule of thumb is that one extra Sievert = 5% higher risk of dying from cancer, so a 30 mS dose increases death risk about one part in 660." Sorry but there is a flaw here: calculation seems good but conclusion is completely wrong. Calculation: increased…

> Conclusion: this is not your risk of dying, but the increase of your risk of dying.

No, it does not increase your risk of dying. Your risk of dying was 100% before the procedure and is 100% after it. We all die at the end with certainty. Risk of dying is only meaningful when you qualify it with a timeframe (let say next 5 years) or cause (let say getting terminal cancer).

Re: My Left Kidney

#224

Post by Suzuran »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #72
kushan2020 wrote: post #56

It's human nature to feel good about themselves by doing certain "altruistic" things. Make no mistake the donor benefits more than the recipient.

You almost make it sound like a bad deal for the recipient.

Speaking as a kidney transplant recipient it is most certainly not a walk in the park. I mean that literally; I cannot walk in the park without taking precautions against covid/influenza and my increased risk of skin cancer...

Re: My Left Kidney

#226

Post by coldtea »

matisseverduyn wrote: post #23

"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 cell…

>they were mostly from autoimmune diseases that couldn’t plausibly be related to their donations

Sounds extremely brittle logic. Why couldn't they be "related to their donations"?

For starters, the donations could make their immune system weaker (and thus make any autommune diseases they already have more impactful) or make it go haywire to combat the post-operation stress...

Re: My Left Kidney

#227

Post by woodruffw »

reducesuffering wrote: post #183
woodruffw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant more the accelerationist and AI derisking contingents, not political donations. Both are explicitly reactionary in the most basic sense (and accelerationism is also reactionary in the far-right sense).

> Both are explicitly reactionary in the most basic sense In the most basic sense, as a reaction? Are weapons regulations "reactionary?" I think it's well established what using the term "reactionary" is, and it doesn't apply to X-risk concerns. Also Eliezer Yudkowsky has been "reacting" against AI X-risk since you were a toddler, in case you thought this was some recent phenomena...

The idea that we should plow charitable donations into various low-value and ill-conceived projects because the moral calculus of doing so versus a malicious general AI strikes me as reactionary.

That’s independent of (but connected to) Yudkowsky’s whole thing, which to my understanding never really attempted to apply the logical extreme here.

Re: My Left Kidney

#228

Post by ryanbrunner »

Suzuran wrote: post #220
ryanbrunner wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transplanted kidneys generally go lower in your belly than your "native" kidneys and they aren't swapped, the original kidneys are left in and they add another. Anyone who's had a transplant most likely has 3 or even 4 kidneys inside them.

Mine is located on my right side just above the midline of my pelvis.

Yup, same here! Mine is (somewhat unfortunately) pretty superficial so you can even see a small bulge where it is.

Re: My Left Kidney

#229

Post by Waterluvian »

Suzuran wrote: post #221
Waterluvian wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably the most concrete “I had no idea it worked that way” this year for me. So you can collect kidneys!

They only remove them if they have some kind of immediate risk of damage to the body - Necrosis or similar. On top of that, while your original kidneys won't have enough function to sustain life, any function they do have will take some burden off of the transplant kidney(s).

It makes complete sense once I think about it. My mental framing is too often based on technology. Ie. there’s two kidney slots that you can populate with one kidney each.

Re: My Left Kidney

#230

Post by ben_w »

sfn42 wrote: post #171
TeMPOraL wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it's very reasonable to think "AI" is more of an existential threat than global warming and nuclear weapons. In fact I'd say that's a ridiculous claim. AI x-risk is effectively a superset of global warming, nuclear war, engineering bioweapons, grey goo scenario, lethal geoengineering, and pretty much anything else that isn't just Earth winning the cosmic extinction lottery (asteroids, gamma ray bursts…

This is mostly hypotheticals. I can't argue against hypothetical problems, so all I'm going to say is I'm not convinced this is a danger. I also don't agree that helping humans make scientific progress is a danger. We already have the tools to wipe ourselves out, adding more of them doesn't really change much. It might well help us discover ways to improve things, and whatever we discover it's up to us how we use it.…

> We already have the tools to wipe ourselves out, adding more of them doesn't really change much

We do already have the tools, but they're mostly in the hands of people responsible enough to not use them that way, or bound into larger systems that collectively act like that.

A friendly and helpful assistant that does exactly what you ask for without ever stopping to ask "why" or to comment "that seems immoral" is absolutely going to put those tools in the hands of people who think genocide is big and clever.

The two questions I have are: (1) When does it get to that level? (2) Can we make an AI-based police force to stop that, which isn't a disaster waiting to happen all by itself?

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