I hope there hasn’t been much depreciation in an older body, because I’m thinking just selling off one kidney would get a whole lot of us out from under some legal debt.
All the other defendants are younger and their body parts are probably worth more, but if I sold off an organ, I’d also have some left over to get a fancy new microscope for the lab. They’d probably use the excess for something youthfully frivolous.
By the way, while we wait for a decision on the Minnesota case, the next step is a hearing in the Arizona case, in which Carrier, acting as his own lawyer, gets to depose the woman he harassed, which is all kinds of fucked up. Isn’t it nice how the legal system enables his ongoing harassment?
I think your opponents have already sold off their brains.
Clearly, they weren’t using them, anyway, but still they got FAR FAR more than they were worth.
Is there anything we can collectively do on behalf of some Ukrainian or Russian oligarchs? That oligarch money is pretty yummy!
I always hated this (though I see the point in context). It’s very sad to think of your value in terms of parts. The value of being human is to be alive, conscious, and open to experience.
It’s also a good reason we don’t live in a libertarian fantasy of legal organ sale. People make the wrong call on things like this all the time. Actually, living with one kidney isn’t too bad, but there could easily be a lifetime loss of well-being more than $138k. At the very least, there’s a small risk of complications in the surgery itself. Your eGFR will go down. It’ll be tolerable when you’re young and healthy, but you won’t have any reserve left when you’re older and need it. (I strongly support live kidney donation, but you have to know what you’re getting into). Plus, if there was a legal market, there would not be a chance of getting that $138k, and you might find a lot of the money applied to medical expenses if the surgery is to be done safely.
Of course, $138k could seem like a lot to a rational economic actor under very desperate circumstances where they need the money right now. It is also a lot to many in the developing world who make not make that much in decades of work, not to mention the poor in the US. Again, if there was any question, this is how markets expose people to exploitation.
Sign in a local garage:
“Parts are like oats, if you want fresh, new oats they come at a premium price.
Used oats come at a considerable discount.”
I’m going to do another auction friday.