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vileru wrote:
To digress, now that your location says Pasadena, I have begun to wonder whether you work at either Caltech or JPL... or both.
You really know a lot about universities and laboratories, don't you? I'm currently at Caltech.
magamo wrote:
You really know a lot about universities and laboratories, don't you? I'm currently at Caltech.
That's pretty awesome. Caltech is a great school. And I remember laughing a lot reading the office dynamics of Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and their secretary (Feynman recounts these himself a bit in books, as does Leonard Mlodinow, and some others have given anecdotes in various places).
Last edited by Tzadeck (2012 October 02, 11:57 pm)
magamo wrote:
vileru wrote:
To digress, now that your location says Pasadena, I have begun to wonder whether you work at either Caltech or JPL... or both.
You really know a lot about universities and laboratories, don't you? I'm currently at Caltech.
Pure envy. Please say hi to all the Nobel laureates for me.
qwertyytrewq wrote:
That's going to cause a stir to Libertarians who don't want Government intervention/regulation in the market but I think this is an idea that is probably best forced into action by the Government because the free market itself won't go down that path out of its own free will.
In theory, the Government will create this law forcing supermarkets to give perfectly edible albeit past its due date food to authorized charity groups who in turn, can give it to the needy, the poor and the disadvantaged. Theoretically, this shouldn't harm the company's bottom line because the recipients of the "waste" would not have bought it from the store anyway.
All in all, the Government will make sure that the food goes to the people who need it and not to those who don't. The Government will also create a group or subsidize the company so that the Government organization or the company-created group can do the proper quality checks, making sure that the "wasted" food are edible and has no adverse effects on health when consumed. This ensures that nobody can sue the corporation who are the source of the food.
Everyone's happy: the charity groups are happy because they can do a better job with the increase in resources. The poor are happy because their standards of living have increased a bit. The supermarket corporation is happy because now they can give away food without harming profits or getting sued, and since they don't have to throw it away, they can sleep better at night knowing that they are doing something good for the world. The government is also happy because they're doing what they're supposed to be doing: creating a better and more happy society.
There's still one group of people who are not happy though: Anti-government Libertarians living with the knowledge that the Government actually has the capability of doing something good, instead of just bad. And it's not like their beloved corporations are getting hurt by this arrangement either.
Do you know why the market doesn't go down that path? Because it doesn't make economic sense to do so.
Companies get tax write offs for charitable donations so if a company could get rid of it's unsold stock via charitable means in a manner that actually made economic sense it would definitely be doing just that. The fact that they don't means that for anyone to try such a plan would actually cost the system more which in the end means you would only be hurting people, not helping them, even though I'm sure many people could ignorantly pat themselves on the back because they would only look at the food being given to the homeless part while ignoring the economic reality of the program. I'm sure you understand that rounding up and distributing unsold stock effectively to homeless people without it spoiling would cost a significant amount of money right? If the money you take out of the system is less than the productivity you are generating then you are simply hurting society, not helping it, and I'm almost positive the expenses of such a food re-distribution program would do exactly that.
Or in other words charity groups would likely spend more money gathering food from convenience stores than they would simply buying food themselves meaning that your program would most likely cause LESS needy people to be fed, not more.
Last edited by activeaero (2012 October 04, 12:53 am)
where would such massive costs come from?
Just have a period at the end of the day when homeless or otherwise economically struggling people can come and pick up the food.
Even if you needed to use a van to distribute to a local charity where people could come to pick up food, there is absolutely no way the cost of petrol and an hours pay for someone would come to more than the total cost of the food to be wasted.
The real question here is whose costs these should be. You are assuming that it should be at the charities cost, whereas i would say that dealing with waste ethically should be at the cost of the company every time. If dealing with waste ethically is too expensive for them, they have no right to be producing such waste. In that case, it might turn out that they would prefer to forego the extra profit buying too much stock gives them.
the thing is, the konbinis are open 24 hours. when would that period be that they start giving away the food? 1 hour before expiry? 2 hours? There is a chance right up until expiry that the product sells. I know because sometimes when the clerk scans the item at the register they find out it has passed the expiry date. What is the konbini meant to do? Can you imagine the outcry if konbinis started giving away expired food to the homeless?
So what do you do? force konbinis to give away their product for free? They already do reduce the price on certain items as it approaches expiry, and there is nothing stopping charities from buying these cut price foods.
The figure of 10,000-15,000yen in waste quoted by Surreal isn't really that big considering the amount of business done each day by a konbini. But for a business there is incentive to find ways of reducing it, though it not necessarily a priority.
activeaero wrote:
Do you know why the market doesn't go down that path? Because it doesn't make economic sense to do so.
Well, these are two different issues: economic issues (a corporation deciding whether doing something has net financial benefits or net financial costs) and "doing the right thing".
I don't know whether my hypothetical policy is a good idea or not, that's for experts to decide. However, if doing the right thing makes no financial sense, then that is an example of inherent market failure. These two articles are relevant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem
When there is a market failure, then the Government has to force it to be correct like forcing companies to pay for their pollution.
activeaero wrote:
I'm sure you understand that rounding up and distributing unsold stock effectively to homeless people without it spoiling would cost a significant amount of money right? If the money you take out of the system is less than the productivity you are generating then you are simply hurting society, not helping it, and I'm almost positive the expenses of such a food re-distribution program would do exactly that.
Or in other words charity groups would likely spend more money gathering food from convenience stores than they would simply buying food themselves meaning that your program would most likely cause LESS needy people to be fed, not more.
I have no idea about the figures and the costs, so that's for the experts to decide.
I guess we are considering two factors like Ice Cream said: The value of the wasted food compared to the costs of redistributing that food to those who need it (like hiring someone with a van or even a truck to collect the wasted food from the local supermarkets and deliver it to the local charity). Like I said I don't know the figures, but are there any reasons why the costs of one factor is greater than the other?
If it's in the metro area where there are a decent amount of supermarkets in a specific vicinity, just hire a guy with a truck to drive to as many supermarkets as possible in the specific area, collect the wasted stock, and at the end of the day, deliver all of it to the charity. Let's say the supermarket has a policy of collecting and holding 5 day's or 1 week's worth of stock. That stock needs to be collected. Let's say one guy with one truck is like $10-$20 an hour? Let's say he works 10 hours a day and stops at 1 supermarket per hour, once a week. That's a lot of food.
In any case, even if the cost of distributing wasted food is more than the cost of the food, I would say so what? The Government wastes enough money on killing people and wars, might as spend some of that money to take care of the poor (which would indirectly lower crime rates).
Anyway, interesting topic. How would you do it (giving wasted food to poor)?
Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2012 October 04, 10:15 am)
nadiatims wrote:
the thing is, the konbinis are open 24 hours. when would that period be that they start giving away the food? 1 hour before expiry? 2 hours? There is a chance right up until expiry that the product sells. I know because sometimes when the clerk scans the item at the register they find out it has passed the expiry date. What is the konbini meant to do? Can you imagine the outcry if konbinis started giving away expired food to the homeless?
Nobody wants to buy expired food (and companies don't want to risk lawsuits from people who eat expired food) so I think what should happen is that supermarkets decrease their price close to the expiry date (which they do). If it still doesn't sell, then supermarkets should recall the product from the shelves for the reasons above, and the hypothetical truck/van driver can pick it up later.
I don't want the Supermarket to give it away directly because it's bad for business (people will just wait) and because of the lawsuit reasons. As per my hypothetical scenario, they should give it to an authorized charity. And the charity will of course give it to those who they deem suitable. People who are cheap but not poor can't take advantage of it.
nadiatims wrote:
So what do you do? force konbinis to give away their product for free? They already do reduce the price on certain items as it approaches expiry, and there is nothing stopping charities from buying these cut price foods.
Yeah, the Government should force them. We're talking about wasted food though (past the expiry date), not before. Supermarkets are free to do what they want with close to expiry food (like discounts).
nadiatims wrote:
The figure of 10,000-15,000yen in waste quoted by Surreal isn't really that big considering the amount of business done each day by a konbini. But for a business there is incentive to find ways of reducing it, though it not necessarily a priority.
Let's use Surreal's figures. If it's an average of 10,000 yen a day then that's 70,000 a week per store. How much does it cost to hire one person with a van to go to say, 10 stores a day, once a week?
70,000 yen x 10 stores = 700,000 (about $9000 USD) a week.
Since Japan has many people per square kilometer (more supermarkets in an area), it seems to make sense. But it should work in USA too (use a truck instead of van for efficiency).
Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2012 October 04, 10:27 am)
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Yeah, the Government should force them. We're talking about wasted food though (past the expiry date), not before. Supermarkets are free to do what they want with close to expiry food (like discounts).
There are potential consequences to giving away expired food though. Are you suggesting there be two standards for food freshness, one for selling to the general public and one for the poor? Who pays out in the case of a lawsuit?
So coming back to one of your other points, you would also need to pay for your authorizing committee that decides on the eligible charities and some group that decides on safety standards for expired foods. All of this costs money.
nadiatims wrote:
There are potential consequences to giving away expired food though. Are you suggesting there be two standards for food freshness, one for selling to the general public and one for the poor? Who pays out in the case of a lawsuit?
Interesting point, I haven't thought about that, and it wouldn't do well for the class war. I'll have to think more about that.
nadiatims wrote:
So coming back to one of your other points, you would also need to pay for your authorizing committee that decides on the eligible charities and some group that decides on safety standards for expired foods. All of this costs money.
That's fine, pay them. The finance experts can calculate the costs of everything. If my taxes will go up 1% because of it, that's fine too.
But even if the costs are greater than the value of the wasted food, the role of the Government is to advance the interests of society. Profitability and the interests of the shareholders is for private corporations to worry about.
Just because there is no profit in distributing wasted food to the poor does not mean it shouldn't be done. There's plenty of things in society that is very helpful for society, but has low profits margins or no profit margins, and society would be worse off without it, like lighthouses and street lighting, which is why the Government (us) pays for it for our benefit.
That I think is what the Government specializes in or should specialize in: "investing" in fields/areas which are deemed unprofitable by private companies for the purpose of the interests of society, not profit.
Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2012 October 04, 11:09 am)
nadiatims wrote:
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Yeah, the Government should force them. We're talking about wasted food though (past the expiry date), not before. Supermarkets are free to do what they want with close to expiry food (like discounts).
There are potential consequences to giving away expired food though. Are you suggesting there be two standards for food freshness, one for selling to the general public and one for the poor? Who pays out in the case of a lawsuit?
So coming back to one of your other points, you would also need to pay for your authorizing committee that decides on the eligible charities and some group that decides on safety standards for expired foods. All of this costs money.
It's interesting that you would use this kind of argument, because the libertarian line is usually that as long as someone has all the information, it's up to the individual to decide if they want the food or not.
i generally disagree with that kind of argument, because if you are hungry and have no food, the choice doesn't turn out to be so much of a free one after all. But as long as people aren't giving out stuff that's actually gone off, i don't think it matters too much here.
However, realistically, supermarkets generally do leave a big window where they are throwing away fresh food that is safe to eat. And eating non fresh food just beyond it's best before date really isn't going to hurt anyone. That's not even what the label means... but supermarkets chuck it all the same. Also, i don't think you can sue anyone if you haven't paid for something... that doesn't really make sense.
The best way to reduce waste isn't by giving it away to start with though. It's by making slightly less profit, and people having to deal with slightly less choice at the end of the day.
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Let's use Surreal's figures. If it's an average of 10,000 yen a day then that's 70,000 a week per store. How much does it cost to hire one person with a van to go to say, 10 stores a day, once a week?
70,000 yen x 10 stores = 700,000 (about $9000 USD) a week.
Since Japan has many people per square kilometer (more supermarkets in an area), it seems to make sense. But it should work in USA too (use a truck instead of van for efficiency).
This is assuming that the food would stay edible for a week after passing its expiry date, unless I'm missing something. I think this is the main problem - the food waste is forming constantly, not in "chunks" at certain intervals.
@Icecream: Yes! Increasing the economical incentive to keep food waste to a minimum to make surplus stocking less attractive is the main goal I was aiming for. Of course, I don't really know the best way to do that. I just think it should be possible to handle/regulate it better than our societies generally are right now.
Last edited by Surreal (2012 October 04, 1:51 pm)
qwertyytrewq wrote:
In any case, even if the cost of distributing wasted food is more than the cost of the food, I would say so what? The Government wastes enough money on killing people and wars, might as spend some of that money to take care of the poor (which would indirectly lower crime rates).
"So what?" You do understand in that situation you would be hurting society, not helping it correct? It seems you don't understand that costs = resources that have to be taken from somewhere. If you have to use more resources to implement your plan than your plan actually produces you are taking away from society, not adding to it.
Your last sentence is a horribly flawed argument. Not only does the government doing something wrong in one area not make it ok to take part in a completely different policy but why in the world would you think that pointing out government's horrible spending flaws would be a good thing to do when promoting the idea of the government spending more money? That's like me recommending an accountant by telling you how bad he is at math.
But even if the costs are greater than the value of the wasted food, the role of the Government is to advance the interests of society. Profitability and the interests of the shareholders is for private corporations to worry about.
Again you don't seem to value the property of others very much, only the recipients of whatever plan you assume is "good".
Shareholders are members of society who have invested into a company. These are people with jobs, families, etc and a large number of them are average people just like you and me. And that is just the shareholders, let alone the people who work at these companies who's jobs are affected by any cuts companies are forced to make. You state it is the government's role to advance the interests of society yet blindly ignore who society is, acting as if private industry and stock holders aren't made up of members of society.
Or in other words you have no problem using the government to impose threats of violence on some members of society in order to force them to lose money so that you can transfer this money, inefficiently I might add, to another group of society. If the costs were greater than the value of the wasted food, which you have just admitted as being ok, then you would be reducing productivity and increasing waste and thus would actually be contributing to creating more of the problem you would be pretending to help.
Surreal wrote:
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Let's use Surreal's figures. If it's an average of 10,000 yen a day then that's 70,000 a week per store. How much does it cost to hire one person with a van to go to say, 10 stores a day, once a week?
70,000 yen x 10 stores = 700,000 (about $9000 USD) a week.
Since Japan has many people per square kilometer (more supermarkets in an area), it seems to make sense. But it should work in USA too (use a truck instead of van for efficiency).This is assuming that the food would stay edible for a week after passing its expiry date, unless I'm missing something. I think this is the main problem - the food waste is forming constantly, not in "chunks" at certain intervals.
@Icecream: Yes! Increasing the economical incentive to keep food waste to a minimum to make surplus stocking less attractive is the main goal I was aiming for. Of course, I don't really know the best way to do that. I just think it should be possible to handle/regulate it better than our societies generally are right now.
Qwerty's cost projections are just amazingly simplistic. For starters everyone needs to remember we are talking about the fast spoiling bento type lunches. Bags of chips and the like don't go bad and all of them are sold before the due date.
We are talking about food that is only good for a few days from when it is first made and now storing it for a week at a time until some truck comes and picks it up? Where exactly is this going to be stored again in the already super efficient and space maximized konbini's?
How much does it cost to hire a van? Um a lot. Van's aren't cheap you know, plus gas, insurance, maintenance, and paying the driver. It seems as if you are looking at this as just some sort of one time cost as if you were doing it as a weekend project. If this was a permanent policy it would require a fleet of vans and drivers, maintenance personnel for the fleet, liability policies to be paid, etc.
But then you have storage once it gets to the distribution facility....with food that is already up to a week past the expiration date and that will be handed out over the following week? Does this mean quickly perishable food that could be potentially served 2 weeks after the expiration date? But let's ignore that. Who is going to be managing the supply of this food and distributing it? Who is going to be doing back ground checks on the homeless to make sure only the "worthy" ones are getting it?
But a better question to ask is this: Do you store every bit of your leftover food and the take it to a homeless shelter EVERY week? If not please explain why it is perfectly ok for you to waste all the food you want while you want to use the government impose a morality that you don't even follow yourself onto other people. Same goes with stating that you would be fine with paying an extra 1% in taxes. So start paying it. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from paying extra money right now.
Last edited by activeaero (2012 October 04, 2:14 pm)
btw, i'm not sure what the problem is with just giving food waste away to whoever wants it in the first place...?
Suppose all supermarkets were made to just give away whatever waste they had at the end of the day. What would be the result?
People would take the waste instead of buying a newer version of that product, but that should effectively be the supermarket's punishment for buying in too much stock.
i don't think it would lead to everyone just waiting until the end of the day to get free food though, for a number of reasons:
1stly, because most people have other priorities unless they really are very poor, and like the choice of going to the supermarket when it suits them, and having food that expires when it suits them.
2ndly, because given a choice, most people would probably prefer to eat fresher food than food that is right on it's expiration.
and 3rdly and most importantly, it simply would not work that way. If people were to try waiting, less stock would be sold, so the supermarket would simply reduce the amount of stock they ordered, which would result in less waste at the end of the day. Since there now wouldn't be enough waste for everyone who had waited to get it, those people would have to buy their food again instead. It would likely end up in a balance where the gamble of waiting for free food just wouldn't pay off very highly.
p.s. activeaero is absolutely right about food wastage by consumers though. If you're regularly throwing away food you've bought, you need to look at your buying habits. Not wasting food is also very much an individual responsibility.
It's also important to note that a lot of the wastage happens way before the end of the day, with the refusal of supermarkets to buy produce that does not fit exact appearance standards. In some cases, government regulations may also cause food wastage (e.g. by-catch of fish being thrown back dead rather than counted towards quotas.) Anyway, there's plenty of other places in the food supply chain where wastage occurs and can be tackled.
According to a UN study though, something like 1/3rd of all food that is produced is lost or wasted, which is utterly ridiculous, and obviously needs to stop. It's not like using all those resources to grow it is free, so someone somewhere is bearing some very heavy costs just so us consumers can go into supermarkets and have a large choice of foods that meet certain aesthetic standards.
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/
Last edited by IceCream (2012 October 04, 5:54 pm)
I don't think the cost of giving away food waste at small local stores like convenience stores would be prohibitively high if the government handles the situation reasonably well. The most costly part seems to me to be ensuring that those foods are still perfectly edible and cause no measurable adverse effect to health. And probably this can be done by limiting free redistribution to safer foods and/or a combination of other reasonable ways.
But who are you going to give those foods in Japan anyway? The governmental support program is very good in Japan, so you can receive in cash more than you would earn working at the legal minimum wage. I just checked Wikipedia, and it says a 31 year old single male in Tokyo can receive 137,400 yen per month (approximately $1750 or £1081 per month). As a Japanese citizen, he is qualified for free medical treatment if he can not afford it as long as the treatment is covered by the governmental health insurance. Childbirth, physical/mental handicaps, etc. are also covered or at least partially supported by some governmental suport programs for those in financially challenged situations. I understand that there are many people in need of further help, and some of them may be in a situation where they do need or want food waste for free. But I can't convince myself that the number is high enough to reduce food waste to a meaningful degree. Asking small shops to help those in need in a foreign country is probably not very realistic.
Food waste redistribution may be a godsend to college students and unfairly treated people social welfare failed to cover. And I guess it's a plus to the society if you take everything into account. But it must be subsidized by the government because there is a cost and likely drop in sale. And the government doesn't want such a drastic change for a marginal benefit when their citizens aren't asking for it...
Last edited by magamo (2012 October 04, 6:01 pm)
But a better question to ask is this: Do you store every bit of your leftover food and the take it to a homeless shelter EVERY week? If not please explain why it is perfectly ok for you to waste all the food you want while you want to use the government impose a morality that you don't even follow yourself onto other people.
I wouldn't mind if the Government made this a policy with fines for non-compliance as long as they provide some convenient way of collecting the leftover food without minimal effort from me. Then again, I'm also a fan of forced organ donation upon natural death but people who value "freedom" like Libertarians would probably disagree with both policies.
Actually this is a pretty good policy and if people don't want to give leftover food, then the solution is simple: buy what you need, rather than overbuy. Basically in this situation, it is in the interests of both individuals and corporations to minimize waste. One rule for both parties. I like that.
I can't reply to the rest of your post because I was just having fun making a hypothetical (forcing companies to give wasted food to the poor), and I'm not being paid to push this hypothetical, so it's not in my interests to research and justify why my Government policy should be implemented.
Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2012 October 08, 10:45 am)
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Then again, I'm also a fan of forced organ donation upon natural death but people who value "freedom" like Libertarians would probably disagree with both policies.
Lol, you want to talk about inciting the masses. **** with people's corpses. People and their dead are serious stuff.
Food harvesting? It's being done. Look at Ozharvest in Australia.
http://www.ozharvest.org
Just think of all the red tape in the Japanese bureaucracy that would be involved in this idea of salvaging expired food. Have any of you ever visited a government office to get some sort of documentation? Even private businesses in Japan, i.e. local banks, create a mountain of paperwork to process the simpliest of tasks. Go to the bank and try to exchange yen for some other currency. The wait will rival some the slowest small town dental clinics.
Solutions? I'm unsure, but maybe some communities could allocate a small section of public land for the poor. They could essentially grow their own crops.
vix86 wrote:
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Then again, I'm also a fan of forced organ donation upon natural death but people who value "freedom" like Libertarians would probably disagree with both policies.
Lol, you want to talk about inciting the masses. **** with people's corpses. People and their dead are serious stuff.
People and their dead are serious, but people and their soon-to-be-dead-unless-they-get-an-organ-transplant are more serious.
Sure, people have the freedom not to give away organs when they die but that's a wrong approach knowing those organs could've helped someone else. It's all going to be cremated and burnt into ashes anyway. Shouldn't it be about efficiency? Burning into ashes perfectly working organs instead of donating them is incredibly inefficient.
Organ giving upon death should be opt-out not opt-in.
Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2012 October 09, 5:58 am)
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Sure, people have the freedom not to give away organs when they die but that's a wrong approach knowing those organs could've helped someone else. It's all going to be cremated and burnt into ashes anyway. Shouldn't it be about efficiency? Burning into ashes perfectly working organs instead of donating them is incredibly inefficient.
Carving up a person's body is tantamount to damning that person's soul to hell, or even no afterlife, in many religions. Religion and Faith are rarely rational. "Efficiency" doesn't factor into the equation. You can start talking about efficiency once you can start convincing people that god or an afterlife doesn't exist.
vix86 wrote:
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Sure, people have the freedom not to give away organs when they die but that's a wrong approach knowing those organs could've helped someone else. It's all going to be cremated and burnt into ashes anyway. Shouldn't it be about efficiency? Burning into ashes perfectly working organs instead of donating them is incredibly inefficient.
Carving up a person's body is tantamount to damning that person's soul to hell, or even no afterlife, in many religions. Religion and Faith are rarely rational. "Efficiency" doesn't factor into the equation. You can start talking about efficiency once you can start convincing people that god or an afterlife doesn't exist.
So religion is again preventing social progress?
Tell me something I don't know!
Anyway, I was mainly referring to how Libertarians (who consider themselves rational) would oppose compulsory organ donation so I was attempting to speak their language (efficiency) to get them to join the cause, even though it may sound anti-freedom (Libertarians love freedom, or at least giving lip-service to freedom).
I didn't consider the religious objections but yes, religion (and those who partake in religion) are not rational* so obviously in that sense, the compulsory organ donation policy would be difficult to implement. By the way, aren't Christians pro-Life? How can you be pro-Life if you don't give away your organ knowing it could have saved another life? You're going to die anyway.
*Religious people may rationalize or partake in rationalizing behavior (like how a person buys a $800 iPhone then 1 week later, the iPhone drops to $700 and he rationalizes his original action by saying "yeah well, at least I got to use it for an extra week" even though he would have been perfectly to wait a week for the price drop), but I don't believe most of them are actually truly rational in the true sense of the word.
Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2012 October 09, 6:40 am)
qwertyytrewq wrote:
vix86 wrote:
qwertyytrewq wrote:
Sure, people have the freedom not to give away organs when they die but that's a wrong approach knowing those organs could've helped someone else. It's all going to be cremated and burnt into ashes anyway. Shouldn't it be about efficiency? Burning into ashes perfectly working organs instead of donating them is incredibly inefficient.
Carving up a person's body is tantamount to damning that person's soul to hell, or even no afterlife, in many religions. Religion and Faith are rarely rational. "Efficiency" doesn't factor into the equation. You can start talking about efficiency once you can start convincing people that god or an afterlife doesn't exist.
So religion is again preventing social progress?
Tell me something I don't know!
Anyway, I was mainly referring to how Libertarians (who consider themselves rational) would oppose compulsory organ donation so I was attempting to speak their language (efficiency) to get them to join the cause, even though it may sound anti-freedom (Libertarians love freedom, or at least giving lip-service to freedom).
I didn't consider the religious objections but yes, religion (and those who partake in religion) are not rational* so obviously in that sense, the compulsory organ donation policy would be difficult to implement. By the way, aren't Christians pro-Life? How can you be pro-Life if you don't give away your organ knowing it could have saved another life? You're going to die anyway.
*Religious people may rationalize or partake in rationalizing behavior (like how a person buys a $800 iPhone then 1 week later, the iPhone drops to $700 and he rationalizes his original action by saying "yeah well, at least I got to use it for an extra week" even though he would have been perfectly to wait a week for the price drop), but I don't believe most of them are actually truly rational in the true sense of the word.
Can we agree on a less extreme policy? I suggest that it should be standard to send out letters asking about whether you want to give up your body for organ donation on death as soon as you are of legal age. I don't think that arguments about it being "rude", "creepy" or "taboo" are strong enough to make that a bad idea.
qwertyytrewq wrote:
I didn't consider the religious objections but yes, religion (and those who partake in religion) are not rational* so obviously in that sense, the compulsory organ donation policy would be difficult to implement. By the way, aren't Christians pro-Life? How can you be pro-Life if you don't give away your organ knowing it could have saved another life? You're going to die anyway.
Christians are great hypocrites. The term "pro-Life" is only applicable in the instance of things not born yet (fetuses). Once you are born and out in the world, you are basically on your own and lose the ability of "choice or life" until you get so old you need diapers again or are close to death. In which case it becomes "life vs choice" again (assisted suicide).
So again, most Christians are hypocrites that are either woefully ignorant of their own religion, or knowledgable of what there is, but make excuses for why they can't follow their own religion's tenants. Yet in their heart of hearts, know that Jesus still loves them and they are not bad people, so he won't send them to hell...."Right Jesus?"
Surreal wrote:
Can we agree on a less extreme policy? I suggest that it should be standard to send out letters asking about whether you want to give up your body for organ donation on death as soon as you are of legal age. I don't think that arguments about it being "rude", "creepy" or "taboo" are strong enough to make that a bad idea.
That won't affect the kind of change that qwerty wants. Its already that simple in the US in most places. All you have to do is stick a sticker on your driver license and generally your body will be treated as an organ donor should paramedics find you dead at an accident or something. (I'm sure there's more paperwork involved but its not hard to become an organ donor). Generally you also have to die in ideal conditions. If you aren't near or in a hospital on death, many of your organs are considered not healthy for transplant. Organs/The body needs to be iced quickly after death or cell death starts throughout the body due to no more fresh oxygen.