I’m not a fan of the accellerationist-ish argument of “you shouldn’t mitigate the problem now because by keeping it pressing you create more incentives to solve it for good” because, well, while technically that can happen, it’s an incredibly powerful, catch-all “do nothing and feel really smug about it” argument that can apply to almost anything. In practice, I doubt you could see such an influx of voluntary donors to threaten the usefulness of having vat-grown organs.
But yeah, if people think that donating a kidney will just be some kind of cool one-off altruistic gesture, that seems misguided to me. It’s obviously something that will be taxing on your body (and the surgery isn’t risk-free to begin with!). This means possibly taking the slightly selfish “I’d rather my quality of life be better than someone else’s life be saved” but there are tons of other, less irreversible quality-of-life sacrifices we can make that will produce better marginal returns so I think it’s pretty fair if people want to hang onto their bodily integrity and health as long as they can. Our body is the most personal of possessions, I don’t think anyone should be expected to or guilt-tripped into letting go of any part of it. That said, if you want to make the sacrifice, go for it—just be sure you really know what you’re getting yourself into, and what is it that you’re sacrificing.
I’m not a fan of the accellerationist-ish argument of “you shouldn’t mitigate the problem now because by keeping it pressing you create more incentives to solve it for good” because, well, while technically that can happen, it’s an incredibly powerful, catch-all “do nothing and feel really smug about it” argument that can apply to almost anything. In practice, I doubt you could see such an influx of voluntary donors to threaten the usefulness of having vat-grown organs.
But yeah, if people think that donating a kidney will just be some kind of cool one-off altruistic gesture, that seems misguided to me. It’s obviously something that will be taxing on your body (and the surgery isn’t risk-free to begin with!). This means possibly taking the slightly selfish “I’d rather my quality of life be better than someone else’s life be saved” but there are tons of other, less irreversible quality-of-life sacrifices we can make that will produce better marginal returns so I think it’s pretty fair if people want to hang onto their bodily integrity and health as long as they can. Our body is the most personal of possessions, I don’t think anyone should be expected to or guilt-tripped into letting go of any part of it. That said, if you want to make the sacrifice, go for it—just be sure you really know what you’re getting yourself into, and what is it that you’re sacrificing.