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My Left Kidney

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Re: My Left Kidney

#81

Post by TheDong »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #78
woodruffw wrote: post #64

I know a few people who have donated kidneys (both to friends and strangers), and I find it admirable (and supererogatory). At the same time, I think this post demonstrates a kind of selective unawareness that I’ve seen members of the EA community demonstrate. A significantly less charitable summary of Scott’s situation is “our prospective kidney donor is newly-married high-stress professional with a history of SSRI…

What’s the "community/cult" here? I’m apparently missing context.

Effective Altruists. See also SBF/FTX, and https://time.com/6252617/effective-altruism-sexual-harassmen...

Re: My Left Kidney

#82

Post by woodruffw »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #78
woodruffw wrote: post #64

I know a few people who have donated kidneys (both to friends and strangers), and I find it admirable (and supererogatory). At the same time, I think this post demonstrates a kind of selective unawareness that I’ve seen members of the EA community demonstrate. A significantly less charitable summary of Scott’s situation is “our prospective kidney donor is newly-married high-stress professional with a history of SSRI…

What’s the "community/cult" here? I’m apparently missing context.

Effective altruism, which is both a general (and not especially objectionable) variant of act utilitarianism, and also a specific community that has (fairly, to my eye) been accused of diverting money towards a particular set of reactionary worldviews held by its leadership.

Re: My Left Kidney

#83

Post by ckdot2 »

There are so many unknowns and unknown unknowns in medical sciense, especially regarding the human body. Did evolution really keep two kidneys if you actually just need one? I doubt it. When considering a donation you should also not only think about if you might die. There are more factors like quality of life. In the end, a whole organ will be removed from your body. This will have some effect.

Re: My Left Kidney

#84

Post by DoreenMichele »

woodruffw wrote: post #64

I know a few people who have donated kidneys (both to friends and strangers), and I find it admirable (and supererogatory). At the same time, I think this post demonstrates a kind of selective unawareness that I’ve seen members of the EA community demonstrate. A significantly less charitable summary of Scott’s situation is “our prospective kidney donor is newly-married high-stress professional with a history of SSRI…

He was officially rejected due to mild childhood OCD. If you take that stated reason at face value, his rant about it is completely reasonable.

If their "real reason" is more like your description, perhaps they should have found a way to try to say that.

Re: My Left Kidney

#85

Post by taylorius »

unholiness wrote: post #38
lispisok wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's hard to trust a community who claims to focus on effectiveness but then it turns out puts great effort into looking good. That kind of deception is more damaging than a bit of bad press. There's plenty of charities with great marketing. EA doesn't need to be another one.

But the point is, you're just asserting that. I think the parent poster was observing that, as effective altruists, they might attempt to quantify the pros and cons of such reputational factors (some game theoretic calculation, perhaps?) and include it in their determinations.

Re: My Left Kidney

#86

Post by reducesuffering »

rolisz wrote: post #60
raverbashing wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, fixed. But the groups have some overlap

Do they? Aren't EAs mostly doomers? I haven't followed the debate closely.

EA and e/acc have a lot of overlap in being free market, pro technology, urban, fairly online groups. The "doomer" and charity parts are the difference. EA's mostly believe that current trajectory of AGI will "paperclip maximize" humans, regardless of our suffering. While e/acc believe that heralding in AGI is the next frontier of tech, and that more tech is always good, that tech = positive progress. EA like to donate towards helping humanity. E/acc believe in getting really rich through tech and by markets, this helps other people too, via Randian market prosperity.

Re: My Left Kidney

#87

Post by woodruffw »

TheDong wrote: post #80
woodruffw wrote: post #64

I know a few people who have donated kidneys (both to friends and strangers), and I find it admirable (and supererogatory). At the same time, I think this post demonstrates a kind of selective unawareness that I’ve seen members of the EA community demonstrate. A significantly less charitable summary of Scott’s situation is “our prospective kidney donor is newly-married high-stress professional with a history of SSRI…

We have a long waiting list for recipients, and we don't have an excess of donors to be picky with. Why are you assuming Scott was not "able to see" the explanation you laid out, when in all likelyhood that thought has crossed his mind (he's thought about this far more than you, a commenter who speculated that in 5 minutes)? Perhaps he thought of it, and decided saying it would be even meaner to the hospital... which…

> We have a long waiting list for recipients, and we don't have an excess of donors to be picky with.

That’s not how this works. Organ donation is inherently picky and fallible: without that pickiness, you get coerced organ donation and people undergoing mental crises seeking a form of salvation.

I don’t understand where the moral judgement or grudge determination came from: everything I’ve said is a prima facie plausible reason to reject a donation candidate on basic medical ethics grounds.

Re: My Left Kidney

#88

Post by [deleted] »

mpreda wrote: post #76
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…

About erythropoietin (EPO), I understand it's a hormone whose amount is regulated by the need for oxygen in the blood (i.e. a feedback loop which regulates the amount of red blood cells to be just what is needed to satisfy the oxygen needs of the body). So EPO is not limited by the ability of the kidneys to produce it (I expect, by a large margin). So one kidney would just as well be able to produce all the EPO you m…

[deleted]

Re: My Left Kidney

#89

Post by laserlight »

> People got so mad at some British EAs who used donor money to “buy a castle”. I read the Brits’ arguments: they’d been running lots of conferences with policy-makers, researchers, etc; those conferences have gone really well and produced some of the systemic change everyone keeps wanting. But conference venues kept ripping them off, having a nice venue of their own would be cheaper in the long run, and after looking at many options, the “castle” was the cheapest. Their math checked out, and I believe them when they say this was the most effective use for that money. For their work, they got a million sneering thinkpieces on how “EA just takes people’s money to buy castles, then sit in them wearing crowns and waving scepters and laughing at poor people”. I respect the British organizers’ willingness to sacrifice their reputation on the altar of doing what was actually good instead of just good-looking.

When other organizations do so, they are wasting money that could have been well-spent. When effective altruists do so, they are “sacrificing their reputation for a good cause”.

Re: My Left Kidney

#90

Post by woodruffw »

the_shivers wrote: post #74
woodruffw wrote: post #64

I know a few people who have donated kidneys (both to friends and strangers), and I find it admirable (and supererogatory). At the same time, I think this post demonstrates a kind of selective unawareness that I’ve seen members of the EA community demonstrate. A significantly less charitable summary of Scott’s situation is “our prospective kidney donor is newly-married high-stress professional with a history of SSRI…

You make a good case, but I cant help but wonder if the people who will die from lack of a transplant agree with UCSF's decision.

I’m absolutely positive they don’t. That’s why they don’t get to choose other peoples’ organs, and why we don’t let the families of victims determine the suitable punishment for the criminal.
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