What are your favorite things to do with friends that are cheap, easy and instantly fun?

Noedel · 2012-05-23T16:29:59.480614+00:00

There was one called Broken Picture Telephone. I loved it. But alas, the website has been down for a couple of years now.

G1oves · 12 days

Well, the organ donation happened there, but we're not exactly talking about that. I must say that I do not know enough about UK culture and inequalities to speak authoritatively about this, but I do know about the US. If we were talking about the UK this whole time, I apologize for being uninformed.

G1oves · 12 days

Well, I thought we were talking about this practically. In the US, this policy is harmful until we can administer health care equally. There are barriers to healthcare, further barriers into the organ market, and significant barriers to having a successful transplant. The lack of equality here can be tied to race, class, and other socioeconomic issues. These things make it more likely that the less powerful will get organs, but more likely that they will give organs.

In a country where significant inequality doesn't exist yes, this policy can be ethically applied. Otherwise, the organs will tend to flow upward in the hierarchy of power.

G1oves · 12 days

Because without equal access to the organ market, it is a form of institutionalized racism. The body parts of powerless people will be given to the more powerful. They will not receive equal recompense. I don't think that's a fair policy, no matter the result.

But if you just see it as a fair trade, then I guess I don't have an argument for you.

G1oves · 12 days

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Unless the country already has socialized medicine, this policy would be harmful.

G1oves · 12 days

Well, yes. You don't pay for organs, but one does pay for healthcare in the US, and as long as there is unequal access to health care, there will be unequal access to the pool of organs.

And there won't BE a glut of organs. More people need organs than can come from the pool. The experiences of other countries that have presumed consent laws show this. So some people will go without.

G1oves · 12 days

Well, while respecting religious beliefs is the most common argument against presumed consent, it is not the only one and by far the weakest.

G1oves · 12 days

Additional stuff! Sorry, I'm on my phone.

Essentially, the problem is that organs will flow from the disadvantaged to the advantaged parts of the population. Presumed consent only works if you also have health care for everyone, so everyone has a chance at getting an organ. No one will give organs to the homeless black woman without healthcare, but if she is more likely to die violently, then the system is unfair, even if she chooses to opt in.

G1oves · 12 days

I know that this is a somewhat popular idea, and I used to support it, but I have too many qualms about the way it would practically be implemented. If it could be implemented nearly perfectly, then yes. But it can't.

There are some religious issues with it. Some people for religious issues, must be buried intact and/or rather quickly. And, although I do not have any faith myself, I do still think that it's important to respect the faiths of others.

The way this becomes involved is that if someone dies and is somewhat hard to identify, this person's body then becomes property of the state under presumed consent law. It would be nearly impossible to ascertain one's preferences.

There are other problems too, and one is race-related. Black Americans, for example, are more likely to die in ways that might be conducive to organ donation. Therefore there will be more of their organs on the "market."

Who gets more of these organs? The people in power and that have money and health insurance. Organ donation costs a lot, since you have to take pills forever. The people who can receive organ donations will be dis-proportionally white.

Also, there are class issues. Like it or not, some people will not understand how to opt out. That may be people who are immigrants and do not speak English, or people who are illiterate. These people are also likely to be poor. Their organs, once again, will be more likely to go to those wealthier individuals who can afford to do so.

I've never posted on SRS anything before; please forgive me if I've been a jerk. I promise to listen carefully to any advice you may have about ways to talk about this in the future.

nomdeweb · 12 days

For those of you in the US who have mentioned getting an organ donor stamp on your license, do that, but please remember that it is actually significantly more important that you discuss your wishes with your family.

An organ donor stamp carries zero legal weight. Very commonly, people's wishes are overridden by those of distraught relatives who are unwilling to consent for various reasons.

The true heroes in this story are the parents, who respected their daughter's wishes even though it may have been difficult to do so.

vegetable_offender · 12 days

You're actually conflating two things, "generous" and "long-term." As Krugman argues in his textbook, Macroeconomics, generous and long-term benefits seem to have the effects he describes. The fact that something is long-term does not necessarily make it generous, and the fact that something is generous does not make it long-term.

He is clearly using generous in terms of the amount of money being received. You are using it in terms of "isn't that a nice thing to do, providing income for this period of time." This is equivocation.

Edit: I'm not even necessarily saying that you're wrong, but that the evidence you're using may not apply in this situation. What comparisons can be made between the two benefit systems except that they have both lasted a while? Its implied that the unemployment rate remains steady under the European system, and you've used this quote to imply that our system is having a similar result. But the evidence shows that this is not the case; these states are being removed from the program because their unemployment rate has gone down despite the long-term benefits.

vegetable_offender · 12 days

That doesn't seem to change too much though. Is there evidence that the economy is being harmed by continuing to provide benefits, harmed more than the economy will be by dumping 200,000 more people into it all at once with zero safety net?

Have we reached that limit? Are the benefits being provided too generous? Perhaps give less then, but not zero.

And yes, I see that you're using Krugman, who has written a textbook called Macroeconomics. I understand that he is an authoritative source. But that quote doesn't seem to necessarily apply in this situation. He is talking about generous and long term benefits. This situation has one, but not the other.

vegetable_offender · 12 days

Well that seems to indicate that substantial benefits may have that effect. This doesn't seem to indicate anything about having benefits at all. The people affected by this will not drop from having "generous" benefits to less generous benefits, but from having some sort of income to having none at all.

It seems unlikely that with so many people losing benefits in a week, that all or even the majority of them will be able to immediately enter the workforce. So what happens then?

nomdeweb · 12 days

Actually, if you're in the US, having an organ donation label on your ID does nothing. You need to let your family know that you'd like to be an organ donor.

Unfortunately, those little stickers/laminates carry zero legal weight, and people's wishes are very commonly overridden by their distraught loved ones.

katieya · 13 days

There are actually quite a few books by that name. Who is the author?

wang-banger · 22 days

You are a very strange duck. Why are you reposting this thing so many different places?

wang-banger · 22 days

At that level, I cannot tell you. I am a voter, not an election worker. I know there are mechanisms in place, but I do not know what they consist of.

wang-banger · 22 days

I can't tell you if it works differently in other places, but in Texas, you register with the government ahead of time and then it does some stuff where it checks to see if you've got other registrations. If so, it cancels those and issues you a new voter registration card for your new place.

I seem to remember some sort of paper list being involved at the place. However, I do know that most states have different processes. I do not know how they all work and how one is prevented from doing so, but I do know that the system is supposed to be"one man, one vote," and that one is at least theoretically supposed to be prevented from casting ballots twice.

wang-banger · 22 days

You can only register in one place to prevent people from being able to vote twice, which does constitute voter fraud.

wang-banger · 22 days

I'm not saying that this is the only issue, but it might be extremely important for students to be able to vote on the laws that affect them. A presidential vote is highly visible, but it's the local laws that really affect the way one lives.

Students spend the better part of 4 years living in a place and may have no input on the local laws. The vote can't just be restricted to people who have lived in a place for a certain period of time. Students are legal adults who contribute to the economy of whatever town they live in. And in some cases, they may constitute one of the largest minorities in college towns.

They should be able to vote on things that affect them at the local level.

arte_misia · 1 month

Unfortunately, as safe as the butchering process is, there will always be some problems with sanitation during captive-bolt gunning, entrails removal and general being an animal-ness. Animals aren't always clean. No matter what precautions are taken, there are too many ways for possible contaminants to enter the system. As in most food-processing cases, the accepted process is to limit the spread of contaminants, and not their entrance entirely. Fecal matter is also not at all the only source of biological contamination.

The problem is that these contaminants will enter the food chain occasionally. There is no perfectly sanitary growth/slaughter/butchering process. The key is to limit the spreading and growth of these things. One of the best ways to do that is to limit the mixing of so many different animals into one product.

arte_misia · 1 month

Ammonia cannot treat against prions, because they're a mutated protein. And ammonia is not 100% effective against other contaminants, which would normally not be a big deal, but in such heavily-processed foods, the contaminant level is expected to be significantly higher, so a larger proportion will survive the process.

arte_misia · 1 month

Prion diseases and biological contaminants are significantly more likely to enter the food chain through mechanically separated meats. Some of these, like prions, you cannot cook out or "kill." As well, the processing method allows one contaminated animal to contaminate potentially thousands of individual servings. Basically, meats manufactured like this are time bombs. That's why you see recalls of ground beef all the time, but comparatively rarely for intact muscle products.

As a "finely-textured" product, this food has been processed even more heavily than ground beef and has an even greater potential to contain contaminants.

ihateirony · 1 month

Six apricots? What are these? I don't remember them and googling doesn't bring up anything that looks relevant. I'm fascinated.

p_U_c_K · 1 month

Wait. Maritime archaeology and historic cooking? What in particular are your specialties? Where/how did you study this? You fascinate me.

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