Comments on: Austerity creates an organlegging bubble

By: jtegnell

jtegnell — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 03:24:00 +0000

Must ask for sauce.

This isn’t at all unbelievable, but still, it’s a bold claim, and it warrants something.

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 17:10:00 +0000

A reasonable living is just as easy to provide for people and would end organ markets. If making lives better is the goal, DO THAT and don’t imagine that organ markets are anything other than grotesque.

By: Carlos Sismeiro

Carlos Sismeiro — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 11:55:00 +0000

A famous Trekie has been saying something like that for a while, but people dismiss him ’cause he is not the head of a bank or anything, all he has is a Nobel.

By: Scott Carney

Scott Carney — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 05:05:00 +0000

Thanks for the shout out Cory. Not a month goes by where I don’t learn about another market for human bodies or body parts. The recent scandals in eastern europe are just part of a troubling pattern of technology outpacing ethics. One thing that I’ve learned after six years studying organ markets is that no matter what human flesh always moves upwards, never down, the societal hierarchy.

By: info

info — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 23:40:00 +0000

As a matter of fact, I’d double-check this story.

Point is, I live in Italy and, our lurid press notwithstanding, there hasn’t been any report of stolen organs at all – not even in the sleaziest magazines and websites. Given this, I would tend to doubt the reports from other countries as well…

By: Joseph Grace

Joseph Grace — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 23:40:00 +0000

There are extensive arguments for legal organ markets that have roots in the practical benefits and protection for both the sellers and receivers of organs. Prohibiting market activity in something for which there will always be a demand has proven tragic for a product as harmless as marijuana. The results are (while not on the same scale) even more tragic when the product literally represents a life or death for all the same reasons.

Unrelated to the above argument I think that it is important to point out that it’s a perennial fallacy people make, in thinking that by taking away someone else’s terrible option that they make their lives better and not more desperate.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 21:29:00 +0000

Lose your sight in one eye or starve to death.

I was at work once when a messenger came up and handed me two specimen containers, each one holding an eye labeled 8 year-old girl bicycle accident.

By: Mitchell Glaser

Mitchell Glaser — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 20:07:00 +0000

And China will execute a prisoner who has been type-matched to you in order to deliver a fresh kidney on demand. Japanese people have been going to China for this for a long time, as the organ donation rate in Japan is very low due to cultural prejudice.

By: Mitchell Glaser

Mitchell Glaser — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 20:03:00 +0000

Thanks Rob, you saved me the trouble. Niven also predicted the idea of flash mobs, and many other things on their way to becoming true.

By: Gary61

Gary61 — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 19:44:00 +0000

I’d give my right nut to make money off this ….
and yeah, Larry Niven wrote about ‘organlegging’ years and years ago ….

By: JonCarter

JonCarter — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 19:24:00 +0000

I like how Cory associates everything with “austerity” now.

This organ trade has been going on for many, many years and has nothing to do with Europe now trying to within its means.

By: Palomino

Palomino — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 18:35:00 +0000

People donate corneas while they are still alive? And if so, they are choosing to be blind? Or do they donate just one? I don’t understand. I have bilateral transplants, donated by the parents from their 6 year old son who died in a car accident.

By: millie fink

millie fink — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:52:00 +0000

Thanks. I see it even has its own Wiki page–

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organlegging

By: Rob Bos

Rob Bos — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Organlegging is probably a reference to the Larry Niven short stories, the first of which postulated that capital punishment would be instituted, on behalf of the rich, for ever-more minor offenses until (as the story had), running a red light would get you harvested for parts.

By: millie fink

millie fink — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:43:00 +0000

I like it.

Language is always evolving, and part of that process is the morphing of words into new ones, and their movement away from original meanings.

I also like Corey’s portmanteau term, organlegging, because of its euphonious echo of a relevant, well-known term, organ doning (which is also called organ donation, but not always).

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:26:00 +0000

Friends in high places, and a religious belief in neoclassical economics…

By: Hamish Grant

Hamish Grant — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Organlegging is a weird compound to come up with. Bootlegging referred to sneaking booze in to camp strapped to your leg inside your boot so it would be more difficult to detect.

Organ bootlegging would be more accurate although the picture it paints in one’s mind is a bit unsanitary.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:11:00 +0000

Come on DARPA when is Skynet going live? We need a horrific external global problem to unite mankind…cause obviously our own societies failing around us isn’t going a good job of it.

By: millie fink

millie fink — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Jonathan Swift came to mind for me. It’s not eating babies, yet, but it’s almost as horrific an example of the sick, ghastly state of the masses, thanks to the ever-fatter fat cats who occasionally look down at the rest of us from their cozy balconies. (Who ARE those fucking people anyway, and why is so little being done to take back what they continue to steal?)

By: MikeKStar

MikeKStar — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:44:00 +0000

Capitalism is a bitch ain’t it? Free markets and all….

I’m waiting for the return to Dickensian times so I can start a body removal service - “Bring out yer dead!”